Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for black abolitionist Sojourner Truth.
Markin comment:
The following is an article from the Spring 1989 issue of "Women and Revolution" that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
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Black Freedom, Women's Rights
and the Civil War
This article is based on a talk given by W&R associate editor Amy Rath at a public forum held 5 April 1988 at Howard University. For additional historical material on women in the anti-slavery struggle, see "The Grimke Sisters: Pioneers for Abolition and Women's Rights" (W&R No. 29, Spring 1985) and "Harriet Tubman: Fighter for Black Freedom" (W&R No. 32, Winter 1986).
The talk discusses the movement for women's rights in the U.S. prior to the Civil War, its link through the radical abolition movement with the fight against black slavery, and the destruction of that link to produce the antecedents of the present "feminists." It centers on the ideology of the antebellum abolitionists, the most far-sighted of whom saw that all democratic struggles were vitally linked and that deeply revolutionary changes would be required to establish equality. These men and women were not Marxists but bourgeois radicals of their time; for many, the primary political motivation was religion.
Northern anti-slavery activists espoused "free labor" and accepted the idea that if legal barriers to equality were removed, the American dream would be possible for anyone, given talent and hard work. In antebellum America, in the context of steady immigration and an expanding frontier, a propertyless farmhand could perhaps acquire land of his own, while a (white) laborer might look to becoming a small-scale employer of labor in a generation. But if the "free labor" ideology imagined a democratic political system of economic equals based on a society of skilled artisans and yeoman farmers, this model rapidly became a fiction. A capitalist class of Northern industrial, finance and railroad capitalists had the ascendancy. Though still a predominantly agricultural country, America was the fastest-growing industrial power (with the second-highest industrial output, after Britain). America was already the world's technological leader, very much feared as a competitor by Britain, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
The slave society of the South existed in the framework of a powerful Northern industrial sector which purchased staple crops from the South, first of all cotton. The rich plantations which possessed the South's best land and dominated the region politically were built on a pre-capitalist class relationship of black chattel slavery; at the same time they were part of a money economy in the world's most dynamic capitalist country. The conflict of social systems between the ever more powerful North and the backward South was a profound contradiction heading for collision, exacerbated by America's undemocratic "states' rights" political system which had given the South disproportionate control of the national government (especially the presidency and Supreme Court) since Independence.
The Progressive Bourgeoisie and the Limits of Reconstruction
The "irrepressible conflict" exploded in the Civil War, in the course of which Lincoln, the Northern bourgeoisie's ablest political leader, found himself obliged to go much further than he had intended in the direction of adopting the emancipation program of the abolitionists. Fifteen years before, abolitionists had been viewed as an isolated, if noisy, crew of radical fanatics.
The Civil War smashed slavery and left behind in the South a chaotic situation and four million ex-slaves who had been promised "freedom." But the war and its aftermath underlined that a truly egalitarian radical vision of social reconstruction already could not be promoted by a capitalist ruling class.
In her talk, comrade Rath emphasized the birth of a "feminist" women's movement as a rightward split at a crucial moment in American history: the era of "Reconstruction." Reconstruction posed a possibility of socially revolutionary transformations in the South: the regional ruling class, based on the ownership of land and slaves, had been militarily defeated; under the occupying Northern power, political rights were exercised by the former slaves and those willing to be allied with them.
Reconstruction brought not only black enfranchisement but significant democratic reforms: the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention drafted the state's first divorce law, while Reconstruction legislatures established the South's first public schools and went to work on liberalizing the South's draconian penal codes and reforming the planters' property tax system (which had taxed the farmer's mule and the workman's tools while all but exempting the real wealth—land). But the Northern capitalists betrayed the promise of Reconstruction, allowing it to be physically smashed by forces such as the Ku Klux Klan, even though that meant the destruction of the Republican Party in the South.
Replacing slavery, a new system of racial subordination took shape: a refurbished system of labor discipline through such measures as one-year labor contracts and "vagrancy" laws to bind ex-slaves to the plantations, and a rigid system of Jim Crow segregation. The defeat of Reconstruction shaped the postwar South into modern times: the sharecropping, the poll taxes, convict labor (the chain gang), the "separate but equal" unequal facilities.
While the woman suffrage leaders described in comrade Rath's talk took a stand against the great democratic gains that hung in the balance, many women mobilized by the anti-slavery movement served honorably in Reconstruction, for example as freedmen's schoolteachers who risked their lives to participate in freeing black people from the chains of bondage.
During Reconstruction, debate raged over the agrarian question: the radical demand raised by the freed-men and destitute white Unionist Southerners that the secessionists' estates be confiscated and distributed to them. Some abolitionists saw that racial democracy could not be achieved if a class of whites continued to own the land where a class of blacks were laborers. They argued for justice to those who had been slaves (who created the wealth of the plantations, beginning by clearing the wilderness).
But the tide had turned: the triumphant Northern rulers would not permit such an attack on "property rights" (especially as Northerners directly and Northern banks were coming to own a good deal of Southern property). Fundamentally, the federal power reinvested political power in the hands of the former "best people" of the old Confederacy. In the sequel, intensive exploitation of black agricultural labor, rather than industrial development or capital investment in the modernization of agriculture, remained the basis of the Southern economy.
What was the alternative? Working-class power was shown by the 1848 and 1871 upheavals in Europe to be the alternative to bourgeois rule, as Marx and Engels explained from the Communist Manifesto onward, but conditions were not mature even in Europe for the small proletariat to seize and wield state power. In mid-19th century America, the Northern bourgeoisie under the pressure of a revolutionary Civil War possessed a genuinely progressive side, the basis for the abolitionists' support for the Republican Party. The abolitionists' great debates revolved around how far out in front of the progressive bourgeoisie they should be. There were "radicals" and those with a more "realistic" appraisal of what the Republican Party would support. Today, more than a century after Reconstruction, that debate is transcended. The ruling class long since passed firmly over to the side of reaction; the federal government is no defender of the oppressed. Those who look to find support for an egalitarian program in any wing of the ruling class are doomed to disappointment. To complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution is a responsibility of the modern working class.
When the post-Civil War suffragettes chose to focus on the narrowest political rights for middle-class women and turn their backs on the rights and survival of the most desperately oppressed, they prefigured all of today's "constituency" and "reform" politics which refuse to attack the profound class inequalities ingrained in capitalist society. Sojourner Truth's classic "Ain't I a Woman" speech (see below) today stands as a powerful indictment of these ladies as much as of the outright sexists she was debating. Those who renounce the revolutionary content of the demand for women's liberation so as to advance their schemes for election of female politicians or advancement of women in academia are direct descendants of those first "feminists" who refused to challenge the power structure of their time on behalf of justice for two million of their sisters who were freed slaves.
But there is another women's movement: the women who have joined in the front ranks of every revolutionary struggle on this planet, from the 19th-century radical abolitionists to the women workers who sparked the Russian Revolution to the communist women of today. When the October Revolution of 1917 smashed the old tsarist society in Russia, militant women were among the first recruits to communism in dozens of countries where women were oppressed by semi-feudal conditions and "customs." Young women radicalized around questions like women's education, the veil, wife-beating, religious obscurantism, arranged marriages, etc., recognized a road forward to uprooting social reaction and building a society freed from sexual, racial and class inequality. Our heroes are the revolutionary women who have shared in making all of revolutionary history, from the first moment that slaves rose up against the Roman Empire to the great struggles of today.
It was 1863, and the bloodiest war ever fought by the U.S. was raging. Abraham Lincoln had finally realized he must pronounce the destruction of slavery as the North's goal in this civil war. On 22 September 1862, his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation declared that on the first of January, 1863, all slaves in the Confederacy "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the border states loyal to the Union, it turned the tide of battle. The war was now indisputably a war to end slavery, not simply to repair the Union. Soon thereafter, the government began to enlist blacks into the army; these ex-slaves and sons of ex-slaves tipped the military balance in favor of the Union. It was a matter of time until black soldiers singing "John Brown's Body" marched into Charleston, South Carolina—the "soul of secession," as Karl Marx called it-after Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea.
In May of the revolutionary year 1863, the first convention of the Women's Loyal National League met in New York City. Its most eminent speaker was a woman whose name is little known today: Angelina Grimke" Weld. As part of her address she gave a keen analysis of the war:
"This war is not, as the South falsely pretends, a war of races, nor of sections, nor of political parties, but a war of Principles; a war upon the working classes, whether
white or black; a war against Man, the world over. In this war, the black man was the first victim, the workingman of whatever color the next; and now all who contend for the rights of labor, for free speech, free schools, free suffrage, and a free government...are
driven to do battle in defense of these or to fall with them, victims of the same violence that for two centuries has held the black man a prisoner of war "The nation is in a death-struggle. It must either become one vast slaveocracy of petty tyrants, or wholly the land of the free."
—Gerda Lerner, The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina
A resolution was presented: "There can never be a true peace in this Republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are practically established." Angelina Grimke' defended it against those who thought it too radical:
"I rejoice exceedingly that that resolution would combine us with the negro. I feel that we have been with him— True, we have not felt the slaveholder's lash; true, we have not had our hands manacled, but our hearts have been crushed I want to be identified with the negro; until he gets his rights, we shall never have ours."
It was only after the Civil War that an ideology arose which was later named "feminism": the idea that the main division in society is sex. In response to the debate over the role of the newly freed slaves in U.S. society, the leaders of the woman suffrage movement—Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony—sided with the counterrevolutionary assault on Reconstruction. The birth of bourgeois feminism was part of a right-wing process which shattered the vision of the left wing of the revolutionary democracy into separate, feeble bourgeois reform movements.
The Second American Revolution
The Civil War was one of the great social revolutions in the history of the world, destroying the slaveholding class in the South and freeing the black slaves. Not only Marxists saw that. The best fighters of the day—the Grimke sisters, the great black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens—knew that the war would have to become a revolution against slavery before the North could win. They hated the feudalistic society of the South, with its degraded slaves, its cruelty, its arrogant, leisurely gentlemen planters, its impoverished rural whites, its lack of education, industry and general culture. The radical abolitionists wanted to wipe away that society, and also saw much wrong in the North, such as the subservience of women, and legal and social discrimination against blacks. Their ideology was to create a new order based on free labor and "equality before the law," a concept brought to the U.S. by the Radical Republican Charles Sumner out of his study of the 1789 French Revolution.
In Europe after the French Revolution the status of women was the most visible expression of the contradiction between capitalist society and its own ideals. But in the U.S. that was not so true, because of chattel slavery. The United States—the first country to proclaim itself a democratic republic—was the largest slaveholding country in the world, a huge historical contradiction which had to be resolved.
The Industrial Revolution
It was the Industrial Revolution, fundamentally, that generated what William Seward called the "Irrepressible Conflict." In broad historical terms the Industrial Revolution had created the material conditions for the elimination of slavery in society. Technological and social advances made possible a much more productive capitalist agriculture and industry. In 1854 the abolitionist clergyman Theodore Parker described slavery as "the foe to Northern Industry—to our mines, our manufactures, and our commerce...to our democratic politics in the State, our democratic culture in the school, our democratic work in the community" (quoted in James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom).
The Industrial Revolution had a contradictory effect on the condition of women. Production of goods had been primarily through cottage industry, but with the invention of the spinning jenny, the power loom and the steam engine, cottage industry was ended. The men left home to go to the factory, while women stayed home to do the housework, raise the children and to buy at the local store what once they had made at home.
Women's labor ceased to be productive labor in the strict Marxist sense. This is the material basis for the 19th-century ideology of the "women's sphere." While the material advances of the Industrial Revolution made life easier for women, it also locked them into the stifling confines of domesticity in the isolated nuclear family. Women also worked in factories, but even in the industries in which they were concentrated (in textile production they made up two-thirds of the labor force) generally they worked only for a few years before getting married.
The Fight for Women's Legal Rights
Slaves were a class, but women are a specially oppressed group dispersed through all social classes. Although all women were oppressed to some extent because of their position in the family, the class differences were fundamental between the black slave woman and the slave plantation mistress, or the Northern German-speaking laundress and the wife of the owner of the Pennsylvania iron mill. "Sisterhood" was as much a myth then as it is now. Women identified first with the class to which they belonged, determined by who their husbands or fathers were.
Before the Civil War, women were basically without any civil rights. They couldn't sue or be sued, they couldn't be on juries, all their property and earnings went to their husband or father. Although women did have the vote for a few years in New Jersey and Virginia after the American Revolution, this advance was quickly eliminated. (This was part of a general right-wing turn after the Revolution, when suffrage was restricted gradually through property qualifications. In New York State, for example, with some restrictions blacks could vote up to about 1821.) For the wealthy upper-class woman, this lack of legal rights loomed as a terrible injustice because it prevented her from functioning as a full member of the ruling class (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the mother of American feminism and the daughter of a judge, felt this keenly). For the working-class or slave woman, if her property legally belonged to her husband it didn't seem a problem— she didn't have any property.
Though the legal question was a small matter for poor and slave women, nevertheless legal injustice is not insignificant for Marxists, and it is bound up with multi-layered social oppression. This was true for the position of women in pre-Civil War society. Until the 1850s wife-beating was legal in most states. Divorce was almost impossible, and when it was obtained children went with the husband. The accepted attitude toward women was assumption of their "inferiority," and the Bible was considered an authority. When anesthesia was discovered in the 1840s, doctors opposed its use for childbirth, because that suffering was women's punishment for Eve's sin.
The Anti-Slavery Struggle and Democratic Rights
But how were women to fight for equal rights in this society divided between slave and free? Angelina Grimke' was precisely correct when she said, "until the negro gets his rights, we will never have ours." It was necessary to destroy chattel slavery, which was retarding the development of the whole society. The movement for women's rights developed in the North out of the struggle to abolish slavery. It could hardly have developed in the South. In the decades before the war, in response to the growing Northern anti-slavery agitation, the South was becoming more reactionary than ever: more fanatical in defense of the ideology of slavery and more openly repressive. There were wholesale assaults on basic democratic rights, from attacks on the rights of the small layer of free blacks, who were seen as a source of agitation and insurrection, to a ban on the distribution of abolitionist literature.
In the South, there were no public schools. It was illegal to teach slaves to read, and almost half of the entire Southern population was illiterate. But in the North over 90 percent of the residents could read and write. Girls and boys went to school in about the same proportions, the only country in the world where this was true. So while in the North women teachers were paid less than men, and women factory hands received one-quarter the wage of men, in the South there were few teachers at all, and few industrial workers.
As a young slave in Maryland, and later while he was trying to earn a living as a refugee in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Frederick Douglass came to understand the common interests of all working people in the South, slaves and free blacks and whites. He learned a trade on the docks, where he experienced racist treatment from white workmen, who saw black labor as a threat to their jobs. But Douglass realized that the position of the workmen, too, against their boss was eroded and weakened by slavery and racism. As Marx said, "Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded." And indeed, the working-class movement met with little success in the antebellum U.S., whereas after the war there was an upsurge in unionism and labor struggle.
The vanguard of the abolitionist movement—the radical insurrectionist wing—believed in the identity of the interests of all the oppressed. John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, the great activist of the Underground Railroad, and the Grimke sisters were all inspired by a vision of human equality based in revolutionary democracy. Although their egalitarian principle was based on a religious view and ours is based on a Marxist understanding of society, we honor their essential work in leading the anti-slavery struggle. The abolition of slavery did profoundly alter the United States, it did open the road to liberation by making possible the development of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard, which will establish justice by abolishing the exploitation of man by man.
The Grimke Sisters of South Carolina
Penetrating insights into the situation of women in pre-Civil War America came from women who were committed abolitionists. Sarah and Angelina Grimke are examples, as is Sojourner Truth who is better known today. The Grimke sisters were unusual members of the ruling class who defected to the other side. As daughters of one of South Carolina's most powerful slave-holding families, they had grown up in luxury, but left the South because of their revulsion for slavery. The Grimke sisters became famous in 1837-1838 as agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The power of their personal witness of the atrocities of the slave system drew huge audiences. The sisters were quick to point out that as upper-class white women, they had seen only the "better" treatment of the house and city slaves, and not the more brutal treatment of plantation hands in the fields. But one of the things they did know about was the sexual exploitation of women slaves and the brutal breakup of black families through the slave trade.
Because the sisters addressed the issues of sexual exploitation frankly and often, it was one of the issues the opposition used to try to shut them up. The clergy complained that the Grimke's brought up a subject "which ought not to be named"—how dare these delicate .blossoms of Southern womanhood talk about sex! The very idea of women speaking publicly represented an attack on the proper relationship between the sexes and would upset "women's place" in the home. Contemporary observers were shocked by the sight of women participating actively in the debates of the anti-slavery movement, as they did especially in New England, the birthplace of radical abolitionism. The Grimkes replied by pointing out that the same argument was used against abolition itself: it would upset the established order of social relations. They effectively linked up women's rights and emancipation of the slaves.
Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?"
Black women got it from both sides, as the life of Sojourner Truth shows. She was born a slave around 1797 in New York State and was not freed until 1827, under the "gradual emancipation" provisions of the state law. As a slave she was prevented from marrying the man she loved, who was brutally beaten for daring to visit her (they were owned by different masters). They were both forcibly married to other slaves. Her son was sold South as a small child, away from her. After she was freed, she lived a backbreaking existence in New York City, one of the more racist cities in the North and a center for the slave trade.
Sojourner Truth went to all the women's rights conventions. The famous story about her dates from 1853. The usual crowd of male hecklers had almost shut down the proceedings. The women were unable to answer their sneers of how delicate and weak women were. Sojourner Truth asked for the floor and got it, despite the opposition of a lot of the delegates to the presence of a black abolitionist. You have to keep in mind what this woman looked like in this gathering of ladies: she was six feet tall, nearly 60 years old, very tough and work-worn. She said:
"The man over there says women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over puddles, or gives me the best place—and ain't I a woman?
"Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me—and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have born...children, and seen most of 'em sold into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me—and ain't I a woman?"
—Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle
Sojourner Truth put her finger on the heart of the contradiction between the stifling idealization of women and their oppression as housewives and mothers and exploitation as slaves and workers.
Women's Rights and the Abolitionist Movement
Support for women's rights was tenuous within the politically diverse anti-slavery movement. Many free-soilers were not anti-racist; some opposed slavery because they didn't want blacks around. Even some of the most dedicated abolitionists argued that "women's rights" could harm the anti-slavery cause, and in 1840 a split in the American Anti-Slavery Society was precipitated by the election of a woman to the leading body.
That same year at an international anti-slavery meeting in London, women members of the American delegation were denied their seats. In the audience was the young Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Out of this experience she decided to begin organizing for women's rights. Eight years later, in 1848, at Seneca Falls, New York the first women's rights convention in the world was held. At first Stanton wasn't going to put forward the vote as a demand—she was afraid it was too extreme. She had to be argued into it by Frederick Douglass. It was the only demand that didn't get unanimous support at the meeting; it was considered too radical.
The role of Douglass was not an accident. The best fighters for women's rights were not the Elizabeth Cady Stantons and the Susan B. Anthonys—the ones who "put women first"—but the left-wing abolitionists. The most militant advocates of black equality, the insurrectionist wing, the prophets of the Civil War, were also the most consistent fighters for women's rights, because they saw no division of interest between blacks and women. Frederick Douglass not only attended all the women's meetings, arguing effectively for full equality for women, but he brought the message elsewhere. He put forward resolutions for women's rights at black conventions, and they were passed. He used to advertise the meetings in his paper and print reports on the proceedings. His paper's motto was, "Right is of no Sex—Truth is of no Color—God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren."
The Fight Over the 14th Amendment
Stanton and Anthony had suspended their woman suffrage campaign for the duration of the war. They circulated petitions for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, which became the 13th Amendment. After the war Stanton and Anthony set up an Equal Rights Association to agitate for the vote for both blacks and women. They thought because of the broad social upheaval the time was ripe for woman suffrage. But this proved not to be the case.
The question here was citizenship rights under capitalist law, specifically voting. Compare it with how voting rights and citizenship were looked at in another revolution at the same time: the 1871 Paris Commune, the first proletarian revolution (whose example dramatically reinforced ideological conservatism among the American bourgeoisie). The Commune subsumed nationality and citizenship to class considerations. Anybody who got elected from the working class, whatever country they were born in, sat on the legislative body of the Commune, while the industrialists and the bourgeois parliamentarians fled the city and were "disenfranchised" as their property was expropriated.
This was not on the agenda in the United States in the 1860s. The historical tasks of the Civil War and Reconstruction were to complete the unfinished bourgeois revolution, to resolve questions like slave versus free, national sovereignty and democratic rights. In his novel Gore Vidal calls Lincoln the Bismarck of his country, and this is justified. For example, before the Civil War, each state printed its own money. Greenbacks were first made by the Union to finance the war. The Supreme Court regularly said, "the United States are." Only after the war did this country's name become a singular noun—one national government.
But the big question was what to do with the newly emancipated slaves, and this question focused on two things: land and the vote. The debate over the vote represented, in legal terms, a struggle to determine what "citizenship" meant in relation to the state. Many Northern states did not allow blacks to vote, either. The 14th Amendment, which was passed to answer this question, says that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the nation and of the state in which they live, and that states can't abridge their "privileges and immunities" or deprive them of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law" or deny them "equal protection of the laws."
The Republican Party, which was founded as an anti-slavery party, contained within it many shades of political opinion. It has been argued that the only reason the Republicans gave the vote to blacks was to maintain political control over the states in the conquered Confederacy. This was true of some Republicans, but the men who politically dominated Congress during the period of Radical Reconstruction were committed revolutionary democrats, as observers of the time said of Thaddeus Stevens, who was called the "Robespierre, Danton, and Marat of America." There were good reasons for Douglass' loyalty to the Republicans, given after much early hesitation and sometimes combined with scathing criticism.
But there were a lot of contradictions. The party that was trying to implement black rights was also the party that was massacring the Indians in the West, breaking workers' strikes in the North, presiding over a new scale of graft and corruption, and trying to annex Santo Domingo. In the fight to replace slavery with something other than a peonage system which mimicked bondage, the land question was key. And the robber barons—the moneylords, the triumphant ruling class-rapidly got pretty nervous about the campaign to confiscate the plantations and give them to the blacks. It was an assault on property rights, in line with what those uppity workers in the North were demanding: the eight-hour day, unions, higher wages. The ruling class was quite conscious about this; an 1867 New York Times editorial stated:
"If Congress is to take cognizance of the claims of labor against capital...there can be no decent pretense for confining the task to the slave-holder of the South. It is a question, not of humanity, not of loyalty, but of the fundamental relation of industry to capital; and sooner or later, if begun at the South, it will find its way into the cities of the North.... An attempt to justify the confiscation of Southern land under the pretense of doing justice to the freedmen, strikes at the root of all property rights in both sections. It concerns Massachusetts quite as much as Mississippi."
—Eric Foner, Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War
This question was not resolved quickly, but over a couple of decades. But to collapse a lot of complex history, the revolutionary tide receded under the weight of triumphant capitalism. In 1877 Union troops were withdrawn from Southern occupation as part of the compromise making Rutherford B. Hayes president. The Civil War did not establish black equality, and the 14th and 15th Amendments which codified in law the war's revolutionary gains were turned into virtual dead letters. Nor did the Civil War liberate women, not even in a limited, legalistic sense. They continued to be denied even the simple right to vote (although in some districts in South Carolina in 1870, under the encouragement of black election officials, black women exercised the franchise for a brief time).
From the defeat of Reconstruction was spawned the kind of society we have now. On top of the fundamental class divisions in the U.S. is pervasive and institutionalized racial oppression. The black slaves were liberated from bondage only to become an oppressed race/color caste, segregated at the bottom of society— although today, unlike the immediate aftermath of Reconstruction, blacks also constitute a key component of the American proletariat.
The Birth of American Feminism
Many Radical Republicans were critical of the 14th Amendment, which was a true child of compromise. Sumner called it "uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety." Opposition centered on a loophole that allowed a state to opt for losing some representation in Congress if it chose to restrict black suffrage—and Southern states exploited this concession. But what Elizabeth Cady Stanton didn't like about it was that for the first time, the word "male" appeared in the Constitution. And this fight was the birth of American feminism.
Of course the 14th Amendment should have given women the vote, and the importance of suffrage for black women was not inconsiderable. But a Civil War had just been fought on the question of black freedom, and it was indeed the "Negro's Hour," as many abolitionists argued. The biggest benefit for women's rights would have been to struggle for the biggest expansion possible in black freedom—to campaign for the land, for black participation in government on the state and federal level, to crush racism in the North, to integrate blacks in housing, education, jobs—to push to the limit the revolutionary possibilities of the period. But Stanton and Anthony sided with the right-wing
assault on the revolutionary opening that existed. They wrote:
"Think of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Ung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence or Webster's spelling book, making laws for [white abolitionists] Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, or Fanny Kemble."
Stanton and Anthony embraced race-hatred and anti-immigrant bigotry against the Irish, blacks, Germans and Asians, grounded in class hostility.
They took this position at a time when blacks in the South faced escalating race-terror. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 to terrorize Southern blacks; hundreds were murdered. Republicans of both colors were targeted, and a special object of Klan hatred was the schoolhouse and the schoolteacher (many of them Northern women). In the North as well there was a struggle over the vote, over integrated schools. There was a fight to end Jim Crow in the Washington, D.C. trolley system (after the law desegregating streetcars was passed there in 1865, Sojourner Truth herself went around the capital boarding the cars of companies that were refusing to seat blacks). The freedmen's struggles for a fundamental transformation of race relations triggered in the North what some historians have called the first racist backlash. Frederick Douglass' home in Rochester, New York was burned to the ground; Republican and abolitionist leaders routinely received death threats.
So in this period of violent struggle over the race question, the feminists joined forces with the Democrats, the political party of the Klan and the Confederacy, who hoped to exploit the women's issue against blacks. Henry Blackwell (Lucy Stone's husband) argued that white women voting in the South would cancel out the black vote. Stanton and Anthony teamed up with George Train, a notorious racist, who financed their newspaper, Revolution. They adopted the slogan "educated suffrage"—that is, a literacy test for voters—which was deliberately formulated against non-English-speaking immigrants and ex-slaves.
Frederick Douglass made a valiant attempt to win the feminists over to support for the amendments at a meeting of the Equal Rights Association in 1869, where he argued for the urgency of the vote for blacks:
"When women, because they are women, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lamp-posts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed to the pavement; when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot."
—Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle
At this convention Douglass proposed a resolution which called the 15th Amendment the "culmination of one-half of our demands" while imploring a redoubling of "our energy to secure the further amendment guaranteeing the same sacred rights without limitation to sex." But by this point, a split was inevitable. The feminists blamed the Republican Party and the abolitionists for the defeat in Kansas of an 1867 referendum on woman suffrage. They decided that "men" could not be trusted, and for the first time argued that women must organize separately for their own rights. They even flirted with male exclusionism. The movement split in two, one maintaining a formally decent posture on the race question as a cover for doing nothing. The main wing led by Stanton and Anthony wanted to address broad issues, but their capitulation to racist reaction defined them.
They claimed the ballot would solve everything. Their paper was printed in a "rat" office (below union scale). Anthony urged women to be scabs to "better" their condition, then whined when the National Labor Congress refused to admit her as a delegate! Stanton said it proved the worst enemy of women's rights was the working man.
After Reconstruction went down to defeat, the first "feminists" dedicated themselves to the reactionary attempt to prove woman suffrage wouldn't rock the Jim Crow boat. But in the South, the restabilization of a system of overt racist injustice set the context for all social questions. In the South, any extension of the franchise was feared as a threat to "white supremacy" stability. By 1920, when woman suffrage was passed nationally— largely because of World War I which brought women into industry and social life—not a single Southern state had passed the vote for women, although almost every other state had some form of it.
Today, the bourgeois feminists like to hark back to the struggle over the 14th Amendment as proof there must be a separatist women's movement. They claim Stanton and Anthony as their political mothers. Let them have them! We stand in a different tradition: the heritage of Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, the Grimke sisters, of revolutionary insurrectionism against the class enemy. Today, to complete the unfinished tasks of the Civil War and emancipate women and blacks from social slavery requires a communist women's movement, part of a multiracial vanguard party fighting for workers power in the interests of all the oppressed.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"On Military vs. Political Support"-An Exchange
Click on the title to link to an on line copy of the "Workers Vanguard" article on the subject mentioned in the headline.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
HONOR COLONEL SHAW AND THE MASSACHUSETTS 54TH
HONOR THE MEMORY OF COLONEL ROBERT GOULD SHAW AND THE FIGHTING MASSACHUSETTS 54TH BLACK REGIMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR
COMMENTARY
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Those familiar with the critical role that the recruitment of black troops into the Union Armies in the American Civil War usually know about the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment under Colonel Robert Gould Shaw which has received wide attention in book, film and sculpture. Those heroic black fighters and their fallen leader deserve those honors. Glory, indeed.
Although Shaw was hesitant to take command of those troops after suffering wounds at Antietam, when he accepted, he took full charge of the training and discipline of the regiment. Moreover, as the regiment marched into Boston to cheering crowds before embarking on ships to take them South each trooper knew the score. Any blacks captured (or their white officers, for that matter) were subject to Southern ‘justice’, summary execution. Not one trooper flinched. Arms in hands, they fought bravely at the defeat of Fort Wagner and other Deep South battles, taking many causalities.
I have remarked elsewhere (in a review of William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner)that while the slaves in the South, for a host of reasons, did not insurrect with the intensity or frequency of say Haiti, the other West Indian islands or Brazil that when the time came to show discipline, courage and honor under arms that blacks would prove not inferior to whites. And the history of the Massachusetts 54th is prima facie evidence for that position.
I should also note that the Massachusetts 54th was made up primarily of better educated and skilled freedman and escaped slaves unlike the black troops recruited from the plantations in the Deep South in the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Volunteer black regiments. Thus, one might have suspected that they would not be up to the rigors of Southern duty. Not so. After reading a number of books on the trials and tribulations of various Union regiments, including the famous Irish Brigade, the story of the 54th compares very favorably with those units.
However, so as not to get carried away with the ‘liberalism’ of the Union political and military commands in granting permission for black recruitment it is necessary to point out some of the retrograde racial attitudes of the time. It took a major propaganda thrust by Frederick Douglass and other revolutionary abolitionists to get Lincoln to even consider arming blacks for their own emancipation. Only after several severe military reversals was permission granted to recruit black troops, although some maverick generals were already using them, particularly General Hunter. As mentioned above there were qualms about the ability of blacks to fight in disciplined units. Moreover, until 1864 black troops were paid less than their white counterparts. The Massachusetts 54th is also rightly famous for refusing pay until that disparity was corrected.
One should not forget that the North in its own way was as deeply racist as the South (think of the treacherous role of the Southern-sympathying Northern Copperheads and the Irish-led anti-black Draft Riots in New York City, for examples). This reflected itself in the racial attitudes of some commanding officers and enlisted men as well as the general paternalism of even the best white commanding officers, including Colonel Higginson of the 2nd South Carolina. It was further reflected in the disproportionately few blacks that became officers in the Civil War, despite the crying need for officers in those black regiments and elsewhere. Yet, all of these negatives notwithstanding, every modern black liberation fighter takes his or her hat off to the gallant 54th, arms in hand, and its important role in the struggle for black liberation
COMMENTARY
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Those familiar with the critical role that the recruitment of black troops into the Union Armies in the American Civil War usually know about the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment under Colonel Robert Gould Shaw which has received wide attention in book, film and sculpture. Those heroic black fighters and their fallen leader deserve those honors. Glory, indeed.
Although Shaw was hesitant to take command of those troops after suffering wounds at Antietam, when he accepted, he took full charge of the training and discipline of the regiment. Moreover, as the regiment marched into Boston to cheering crowds before embarking on ships to take them South each trooper knew the score. Any blacks captured (or their white officers, for that matter) were subject to Southern ‘justice’, summary execution. Not one trooper flinched. Arms in hands, they fought bravely at the defeat of Fort Wagner and other Deep South battles, taking many causalities.
I have remarked elsewhere (in a review of William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner)that while the slaves in the South, for a host of reasons, did not insurrect with the intensity or frequency of say Haiti, the other West Indian islands or Brazil that when the time came to show discipline, courage and honor under arms that blacks would prove not inferior to whites. And the history of the Massachusetts 54th is prima facie evidence for that position.
I should also note that the Massachusetts 54th was made up primarily of better educated and skilled freedman and escaped slaves unlike the black troops recruited from the plantations in the Deep South in the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Volunteer black regiments. Thus, one might have suspected that they would not be up to the rigors of Southern duty. Not so. After reading a number of books on the trials and tribulations of various Union regiments, including the famous Irish Brigade, the story of the 54th compares very favorably with those units.
However, so as not to get carried away with the ‘liberalism’ of the Union political and military commands in granting permission for black recruitment it is necessary to point out some of the retrograde racial attitudes of the time. It took a major propaganda thrust by Frederick Douglass and other revolutionary abolitionists to get Lincoln to even consider arming blacks for their own emancipation. Only after several severe military reversals was permission granted to recruit black troops, although some maverick generals were already using them, particularly General Hunter. As mentioned above there were qualms about the ability of blacks to fight in disciplined units. Moreover, until 1864 black troops were paid less than their white counterparts. The Massachusetts 54th is also rightly famous for refusing pay until that disparity was corrected.
One should not forget that the North in its own way was as deeply racist as the South (think of the treacherous role of the Southern-sympathying Northern Copperheads and the Irish-led anti-black Draft Riots in New York City, for examples). This reflected itself in the racial attitudes of some commanding officers and enlisted men as well as the general paternalism of even the best white commanding officers, including Colonel Higginson of the 2nd South Carolina. It was further reflected in the disproportionately few blacks that became officers in the Civil War, despite the crying need for officers in those black regiments and elsewhere. Yet, all of these negatives notwithstanding, every modern black liberation fighter takes his or her hat off to the gallant 54th, arms in hand, and its important role in the struggle for black liberation
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
AN ENGLISH RADICAL WOMAN-SYLVIA PANKHURST
AN ENGLISH RADICAL WOMAN-SYLVIA PANKHURST
BOOK REVIEW
SYLVIA PANKHURST; POTRAIT OF A RADICAL, PATRICA W. ROMERO, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN, 1990
MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
More than one commentator has noted that one of the reasons for the failure of the Communist Party of Great Britain to take root in the early part of the 20th century was the sterile political life of the pre-World War I British left. Between doctrinaire hairsplitting on one side and the cretin-like reformist strategy of the likes of the Fabian Society on the other there was little room to encourage serious revolutionary struggle, although the British working class was one of the most class-conscious in Europe. There is merit to that argument and the politics of Sylvia Pankhurst, a vocal woman’s suffragette, pacifist, ersatz communist and advocate for other causes add ammunition to that thesis.
The biography under review chronicles Ms. Pankhurst’s life adequately, if not particularly sympathically. The sections of the book that deal with her work in obtaining the vote for women and particularly working class women, her opposition to World War I and her chaotic association with the early Communist International highlight the positive aspects of her fight for social justice, as she understood it. Her later career as publicist for the feudal monarchy in Ethiopia stands as just another of a seemingly endless string of examples on the demise of radicals who are not firmly rooted theoretically as an anchor to their work.
It is hard to understand what all the hoopla was about now but at the turn of the 20th century the fight to gain votes for women in England (and the United States, as well) required a titanic struggle involving mass demonstrations, petitions, parliamentary action and civil disobedience. And at the center of the British fight were Sylvia’s upper middle class mother, older sister and herself. However, as has been noted in other fights for other democratic rights the question of enfranchisement of working class women drew a class line in the family, as in politics. Sylvia branched off to form her own working class organization in London’s East End. This break is the decisive point where her pro-working class politics kept getting pushed to the left both on the issue of the vote for women and in 1914 in opposition to Britain’s participation in World War I.
By most accounts Ms. Pankhurst was otherworldly, arrogant, persevering, personally disinterested and when necessary, obnoxious. Just the qualities that are necessary if one wants to change the world-as long as one has a philosophical anchor in order to fight effectively over the long haul. Ms. Pankhurst’s trials and tribulations, however, were guided by no such philosophy-she seems to have been the consummate pragmatist that British progressives (as well as American) have attempted to make into a world historic politcal virtue. This biography, as well as others on the period concerning the Bloomsbury literary scene and still others on the middle class fight for “English” socialism, demonstrates all the weak points of that British radicalism. This whole world is peopled with do-gooders and others who want social change but only if it does not interfere with high tea. And everyone, friend or foe, is ‘clubby’. It appears they all knew, or knew of, each other from high governmental officers to the literary set. This is the kind of society that can flourish at a time when you are the number one imperialist power, even if in decline. American radical readers take note.
The 1917 October Revolution in Russia was a decisive event in 20th century world history. In its wake it gain supporters from all over the world who were looking for the working class to rule. Ms. Pankhurst and her East End group got caught up in this wake and tried to win the Communist International franchise for England. Her efforts failed but not before becoming a footnote in Communist history as one of Lenin’s foils in his fight against those who did not want to fight reformist organizations, like the British Labor Party, for the loyalty of the working class and who were afraid to lost their ‘principles’ in parliamentary struggle, when necessary.
That Ms. Pankhurst could wield such influence and realistically hope to gain the franchise tells a lot about the British milieu of the time. Ms. Pankhurst could not or would not go all the way to communist commitment but her stops along the way give her as least an honorable mention for her early work. Read this book and see if you agree.
BOOK REVIEW
SYLVIA PANKHURST; POTRAIT OF A RADICAL, PATRICA W. ROMERO, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN, 1990
MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
More than one commentator has noted that one of the reasons for the failure of the Communist Party of Great Britain to take root in the early part of the 20th century was the sterile political life of the pre-World War I British left. Between doctrinaire hairsplitting on one side and the cretin-like reformist strategy of the likes of the Fabian Society on the other there was little room to encourage serious revolutionary struggle, although the British working class was one of the most class-conscious in Europe. There is merit to that argument and the politics of Sylvia Pankhurst, a vocal woman’s suffragette, pacifist, ersatz communist and advocate for other causes add ammunition to that thesis.
The biography under review chronicles Ms. Pankhurst’s life adequately, if not particularly sympathically. The sections of the book that deal with her work in obtaining the vote for women and particularly working class women, her opposition to World War I and her chaotic association with the early Communist International highlight the positive aspects of her fight for social justice, as she understood it. Her later career as publicist for the feudal monarchy in Ethiopia stands as just another of a seemingly endless string of examples on the demise of radicals who are not firmly rooted theoretically as an anchor to their work.
It is hard to understand what all the hoopla was about now but at the turn of the 20th century the fight to gain votes for women in England (and the United States, as well) required a titanic struggle involving mass demonstrations, petitions, parliamentary action and civil disobedience. And at the center of the British fight were Sylvia’s upper middle class mother, older sister and herself. However, as has been noted in other fights for other democratic rights the question of enfranchisement of working class women drew a class line in the family, as in politics. Sylvia branched off to form her own working class organization in London’s East End. This break is the decisive point where her pro-working class politics kept getting pushed to the left both on the issue of the vote for women and in 1914 in opposition to Britain’s participation in World War I.
By most accounts Ms. Pankhurst was otherworldly, arrogant, persevering, personally disinterested and when necessary, obnoxious. Just the qualities that are necessary if one wants to change the world-as long as one has a philosophical anchor in order to fight effectively over the long haul. Ms. Pankhurst’s trials and tribulations, however, were guided by no such philosophy-she seems to have been the consummate pragmatist that British progressives (as well as American) have attempted to make into a world historic politcal virtue. This biography, as well as others on the period concerning the Bloomsbury literary scene and still others on the middle class fight for “English” socialism, demonstrates all the weak points of that British radicalism. This whole world is peopled with do-gooders and others who want social change but only if it does not interfere with high tea. And everyone, friend or foe, is ‘clubby’. It appears they all knew, or knew of, each other from high governmental officers to the literary set. This is the kind of society that can flourish at a time when you are the number one imperialist power, even if in decline. American radical readers take note.
The 1917 October Revolution in Russia was a decisive event in 20th century world history. In its wake it gain supporters from all over the world who were looking for the working class to rule. Ms. Pankhurst and her East End group got caught up in this wake and tried to win the Communist International franchise for England. Her efforts failed but not before becoming a footnote in Communist history as one of Lenin’s foils in his fight against those who did not want to fight reformist organizations, like the British Labor Party, for the loyalty of the working class and who were afraid to lost their ‘principles’ in parliamentary struggle, when necessary.
That Ms. Pankhurst could wield such influence and realistically hope to gain the franchise tells a lot about the British milieu of the time. Ms. Pankhurst could not or would not go all the way to communist commitment but her stops along the way give her as least an honorable mention for her early work. Read this book and see if you agree.
SINN FEIN AND THE POLICE QUESTION IN THE NORTH
ENGLAND AND THEIR TROOPS OUT OF THE NORTH-NO CONFIDENCE IN THE NORTHERN IRISH POLICE FORCE!
The recent decision by Sinn Fein to give political support to the current police forces in Northern Ireland should cause every militant some anger. One does not have to a partisan of Republican Sinn Fein to realize that Sinn Fein (and its adjunct, the Irish Republican Army) has moved a long way away from the dreams that reinvigorated the organization in the 'time of troubles' starting in 1969. Of course for non-nationalist militants that anger should be tempered by the realization that nationalists forces in the age of imperialism cannot resolve the the national question in an equtible way. Damn, it is always at someone’s expense, and in this case it is at the expense of the historic interests of the long suffering Catholic minority in the North.
Of course, any serious commentator on the struggle in the North could have seen this capitulation coming a mile away. That slippery slope started with the 1998 Peace Accords and Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness have been backsliding ever since. Yes, we are in a post-9/11 world where political struggle against oppression by national minorities in Europe have real problems attached to it. But that does not mean that an organization had to give up its political program for the sake of-what is it, exactly? More on this later. By the way- whatever happen to the historic demand- British Troops Out of the North? Last I looked they were still there, as well as the British-imposed bureaucracy.
The recent decision by Sinn Fein to give political support to the current police forces in Northern Ireland should cause every militant some anger. One does not have to a partisan of Republican Sinn Fein to realize that Sinn Fein (and its adjunct, the Irish Republican Army) has moved a long way away from the dreams that reinvigorated the organization in the 'time of troubles' starting in 1969. Of course for non-nationalist militants that anger should be tempered by the realization that nationalists forces in the age of imperialism cannot resolve the the national question in an equtible way. Damn, it is always at someone’s expense, and in this case it is at the expense of the historic interests of the long suffering Catholic minority in the North.
Of course, any serious commentator on the struggle in the North could have seen this capitulation coming a mile away. That slippery slope started with the 1998 Peace Accords and Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness have been backsliding ever since. Yes, we are in a post-9/11 world where political struggle against oppression by national minorities in Europe have real problems attached to it. But that does not mean that an organization had to give up its political program for the sake of-what is it, exactly? More on this later. By the way- whatever happen to the historic demand- British Troops Out of the North? Last I looked they were still there, as well as the British-imposed bureaucracy.
ONCE AGAIN-HANDS OFF IRAN!
COMMENTARY
U.S. IMPERIALISM-HANDS OFF THE WORLD!
As a complement to his failed Iraq policy apparently President Bush has started to again seriously consider military action against Iran. Despite his disclaimers in a National Public Radio interview, ordering an additional aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean and permitting military carte blanche handling of any Iranian found in Iraq has all the earmarks of a policy of laying the groundwork for a ‘surge’ into Iran.
Funny, I do not believe that this is what the Iraq Study Group (you remember them, don’t you? Those out-of-power Grandees with the ‘graceful’ exit strategy out of the problems in the Middle East) had in mind when they encouraged a dialogue with Iran as one of their recommendation. I suggest to all those who have a copy of the Report that they keep it in a safe place-it will be a collector’s item and worth money, some day.
In the spring of 2006, after a now seemingly prophetic Seymour Hersh article on the Bush Administrations's intentions toward Iran appeared in the New Yorker, I posted a commentary about the coming American showdown with Iran. I repost that commentary here. Needless to say I continue to stand by the political arguments presented there. Stay tuned, unfortunately there is going to be much more on Iran over the coming period
APRIL 2006
THE WILD BOYS ARE ON THE LOOSE AGAIN- U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!!
YOU DON’T NEED SEYMOUR HERSH TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS.
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
In the wake of Seymour Hersh’s revelations in the New Yorker concerning the Bush administration’s potential military plans, including a possible nuclear option, toward Iran there has been a hue and cry in political circles against some of the rasher aspects of such action. From the traditional opponents of such an action plan -the Left? No! From liberal politicians? No! If anything those types have been more belligerent and to the right on the issue of Iran than the Bush administration. The cry has come from conservative think tank magazines and hawkish political commentators like New York Times writer Thomas Friedman. After the disastrous consequences of their support for the adventure in Iraq as least a few of the more rational conservatives have learned something. Whether they continue to hold out once the onslaught of patriotism and so-called national interest comes into play remains to be seen. However, their self-made dilemma is not what interests me.
As I write these lines the paint has not even dried on my poster in opposition to the continuing Iraq occupation for an anti-war rally. Now that the newest plans of the 'Wild Boys' in the basements of the White House, Pentagon and State Department have been “leaked” I have to add another slogan to that banner- Hands Off Iran! Overreacting one might say. No!! If we have learned anything in the last few years from the Bush Administration it is that the distance from “war games” and “zero sum game theory” to front page newspaper and television screen casualty counts is a very, very short elevator ride away.
That, however, begs the question of whether the current Islamic leadership in Iran is a threat. Damn right it is a threat. This writer opposed the Shah of Iran when he was an agent of American imperialist interests in the Persian Gulf. This writer also opposed the rise and takeover by the Islamic fundamentalists in 1979 when many Western leftists were, overtly or covertly, supporting these elements as ‘anti-imperialist’ agents of change. Unfortunately, many Iranian militants also supported these same fundamentalists. That did not stop the mullahs from rounding up and executing or imprisoning every leftist or militant worker they could get their hands on. The fate of the Western leftist supporters of the ‘anti-imperialist’ mullahs was almost as tragic. They, at great personal sacrifice, mainly went on to careers in the academy, media or parliament.
So let us have no illusions about the women- hating, anti-Enlightenment, anti- post 8th century hating regime in Teheran (Except apparently, nuclear technology. Did anyone else find it surreal when a recent photograph showed several thousand heavily-veiled Iranian women demonstrating in defense of a nuclear facility?). However, do we really want to outsource “regime change” there to the Bush Administration (or any administration in Washington)? No!!! Just as working people cannot outsource “regime change” in Washington to the liberals here this job of ousting the mullahs belongs to the Iranian workers, students, poor slum dwellers and peasants.
Let’s be clear here though. If the United States, or an agent of the United States, moves militarily against Iran all militants, here and worldwide, are duty bound to defend Iran against such imperialist aggression. Even with the current mullah leadership? Yes. We will hold our noses and do our duty. Their ouster is a separate political battle. We will settle accounts with them in due course.
The anarchists and others have it all wrong when they confine their slogan to Class Against Class in a conflict between capitalist states. Yes, in the final analysis it will come down to that. The problem is today we are dealing with the most powerful military power, relatively and absolutely, the world has ever known against a smaller, almost militarily defenseless country. A victory for American imperialism is not in the interest of the international working class and its allies. Thus, we have a side under those circumstances. And we certainly do not take some ‘third camp’ pacifist position of a plague on both your houses. IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ! U.S.HANDS OFF IRAN!! BETTER YET- HANDS OFF THE WORLD!!!
U.S. IMPERIALISM-HANDS OFF THE WORLD!
As a complement to his failed Iraq policy apparently President Bush has started to again seriously consider military action against Iran. Despite his disclaimers in a National Public Radio interview, ordering an additional aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean and permitting military carte blanche handling of any Iranian found in Iraq has all the earmarks of a policy of laying the groundwork for a ‘surge’ into Iran.
Funny, I do not believe that this is what the Iraq Study Group (you remember them, don’t you? Those out-of-power Grandees with the ‘graceful’ exit strategy out of the problems in the Middle East) had in mind when they encouraged a dialogue with Iran as one of their recommendation. I suggest to all those who have a copy of the Report that they keep it in a safe place-it will be a collector’s item and worth money, some day.
In the spring of 2006, after a now seemingly prophetic Seymour Hersh article on the Bush Administrations's intentions toward Iran appeared in the New Yorker, I posted a commentary about the coming American showdown with Iran. I repost that commentary here. Needless to say I continue to stand by the political arguments presented there. Stay tuned, unfortunately there is going to be much more on Iran over the coming period
APRIL 2006
THE WILD BOYS ARE ON THE LOOSE AGAIN- U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!!
YOU DON’T NEED SEYMOUR HERSH TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS.
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
In the wake of Seymour Hersh’s revelations in the New Yorker concerning the Bush administration’s potential military plans, including a possible nuclear option, toward Iran there has been a hue and cry in political circles against some of the rasher aspects of such action. From the traditional opponents of such an action plan -the Left? No! From liberal politicians? No! If anything those types have been more belligerent and to the right on the issue of Iran than the Bush administration. The cry has come from conservative think tank magazines and hawkish political commentators like New York Times writer Thomas Friedman. After the disastrous consequences of their support for the adventure in Iraq as least a few of the more rational conservatives have learned something. Whether they continue to hold out once the onslaught of patriotism and so-called national interest comes into play remains to be seen. However, their self-made dilemma is not what interests me.
As I write these lines the paint has not even dried on my poster in opposition to the continuing Iraq occupation for an anti-war rally. Now that the newest plans of the 'Wild Boys' in the basements of the White House, Pentagon and State Department have been “leaked” I have to add another slogan to that banner- Hands Off Iran! Overreacting one might say. No!! If we have learned anything in the last few years from the Bush Administration it is that the distance from “war games” and “zero sum game theory” to front page newspaper and television screen casualty counts is a very, very short elevator ride away.
That, however, begs the question of whether the current Islamic leadership in Iran is a threat. Damn right it is a threat. This writer opposed the Shah of Iran when he was an agent of American imperialist interests in the Persian Gulf. This writer also opposed the rise and takeover by the Islamic fundamentalists in 1979 when many Western leftists were, overtly or covertly, supporting these elements as ‘anti-imperialist’ agents of change. Unfortunately, many Iranian militants also supported these same fundamentalists. That did not stop the mullahs from rounding up and executing or imprisoning every leftist or militant worker they could get their hands on. The fate of the Western leftist supporters of the ‘anti-imperialist’ mullahs was almost as tragic. They, at great personal sacrifice, mainly went on to careers in the academy, media or parliament.
So let us have no illusions about the women- hating, anti-Enlightenment, anti- post 8th century hating regime in Teheran (Except apparently, nuclear technology. Did anyone else find it surreal when a recent photograph showed several thousand heavily-veiled Iranian women demonstrating in defense of a nuclear facility?). However, do we really want to outsource “regime change” there to the Bush Administration (or any administration in Washington)? No!!! Just as working people cannot outsource “regime change” in Washington to the liberals here this job of ousting the mullahs belongs to the Iranian workers, students, poor slum dwellers and peasants.
Let’s be clear here though. If the United States, or an agent of the United States, moves militarily against Iran all militants, here and worldwide, are duty bound to defend Iran against such imperialist aggression. Even with the current mullah leadership? Yes. We will hold our noses and do our duty. Their ouster is a separate political battle. We will settle accounts with them in due course.
The anarchists and others have it all wrong when they confine their slogan to Class Against Class in a conflict between capitalist states. Yes, in the final analysis it will come down to that. The problem is today we are dealing with the most powerful military power, relatively and absolutely, the world has ever known against a smaller, almost militarily defenseless country. A victory for American imperialism is not in the interest of the international working class and its allies. Thus, we have a side under those circumstances. And we certainly do not take some ‘third camp’ pacifist position of a plague on both your houses. IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ! U.S.HANDS OFF IRAN!! BETTER YET- HANDS OFF THE WORLD!!!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
*A SOLDIER'S STORY- The Anti-War G.I. Struggle Against The War
Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.
“THE WAR IN IRAQ IS WRONG, WAY WRONG, BUT I HAVE TO PROTECT MY BUDDIES.”
COMMENTARY
THE HELL WITH MEANINGLESS NON-BINDING CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTIONS –BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
Sometimes just a little incident or an impromptu remark brings home a point much better than paragraph after paragraph of journalistic commentary. To cut to the chase the subject is, as almost always these days, Iraq. Recently a non-commissioned soldier, a squad leader, I have known for a long time came back home from Iraq. As it turns out his unit is heading back for a second tour in the near future. That, however, is neither here nor there. What is important is that he knows, and knows very well, that I have been a long time opponent of the war in Iraq in particular and American imperialism in general. When we met after a quick greeting of hello he, before I could get a word out, emotionally made the above quoted statement- "The war in Iraq is wrong, way wrong but I have to protect my buddies."
So this is what Iraq has come to. Forget the weapons of mass destruction. Forget getting rid of Saddam. Forget liberating Iraq. Forget bringing democracy to the Middle East. Forget the thousand and one geo-political reasons handed out by governmental policy makers and think tank wizards. What Iraq comes down to in the year 2007 is the need to take care of and protect the rank and file soldiers who are the cannon fodder for this bloody war, your 'buddies'. Every thoughtful person, revolutionary opponents of the war and imperialism included, can relate to the concept of honor, quiet courage and sense of duty to one’s fellows implicit in that short statement. Damn, we of the anti-war movement better change our focus quickly.
We are looking in the wrong places to end this war.
In light of the above remarks it is almost embarrassing to have to report on the question of what is being done about this situation in Congress. Today, the Senate has begun taking up discussion on a meaningless non-binding resolution to express displeasure that the Bush Administration has implemented its 'surge' policy despite the Congressional chatter against it. The cat was let out of the bag weeks ago on this, however, when Vice President Cheney dismissed the buildup to the resolution fight as so much hot air when he remarked "we will do what we want, despite the resolution". Of course I never tire of questioning the political courage of those who support these empty resolutions. Every bourgeois politician lives to vote for these things in order to refurbish their tarnished images, especially on Iraq. Forget Washington-look to the troops.
As readers of this space may perhaps be aware I have been harping on the idea of building anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees for about a year now. According to the polls that echo that young soldier's statement above the discontent against the war in the military is there. We have to tap into it. But as the activities surrounding the January 27th weekend of anti-war demonstrations graphically illustrate the bulk of anti-war activists are looking in the wrong place. I have said before, and will continue to say, in the final analysis the short way to end the war is through the troops. Then that soldier will not have to worry over the fate of his buddies. IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL U.S./ALLIED WITHDRAWAL U.S. /ALLIED FROM IRAQ!-'BUDDIES' OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
“THE WAR IN IRAQ IS WRONG, WAY WRONG, BUT I HAVE TO PROTECT MY BUDDIES.”
COMMENTARY
THE HELL WITH MEANINGLESS NON-BINDING CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTIONS –BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
Sometimes just a little incident or an impromptu remark brings home a point much better than paragraph after paragraph of journalistic commentary. To cut to the chase the subject is, as almost always these days, Iraq. Recently a non-commissioned soldier, a squad leader, I have known for a long time came back home from Iraq. As it turns out his unit is heading back for a second tour in the near future. That, however, is neither here nor there. What is important is that he knows, and knows very well, that I have been a long time opponent of the war in Iraq in particular and American imperialism in general. When we met after a quick greeting of hello he, before I could get a word out, emotionally made the above quoted statement- "The war in Iraq is wrong, way wrong but I have to protect my buddies."
So this is what Iraq has come to. Forget the weapons of mass destruction. Forget getting rid of Saddam. Forget liberating Iraq. Forget bringing democracy to the Middle East. Forget the thousand and one geo-political reasons handed out by governmental policy makers and think tank wizards. What Iraq comes down to in the year 2007 is the need to take care of and protect the rank and file soldiers who are the cannon fodder for this bloody war, your 'buddies'. Every thoughtful person, revolutionary opponents of the war and imperialism included, can relate to the concept of honor, quiet courage and sense of duty to one’s fellows implicit in that short statement. Damn, we of the anti-war movement better change our focus quickly.
We are looking in the wrong places to end this war.
In light of the above remarks it is almost embarrassing to have to report on the question of what is being done about this situation in Congress. Today, the Senate has begun taking up discussion on a meaningless non-binding resolution to express displeasure that the Bush Administration has implemented its 'surge' policy despite the Congressional chatter against it. The cat was let out of the bag weeks ago on this, however, when Vice President Cheney dismissed the buildup to the resolution fight as so much hot air when he remarked "we will do what we want, despite the resolution". Of course I never tire of questioning the political courage of those who support these empty resolutions. Every bourgeois politician lives to vote for these things in order to refurbish their tarnished images, especially on Iraq. Forget Washington-look to the troops.
As readers of this space may perhaps be aware I have been harping on the idea of building anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees for about a year now. According to the polls that echo that young soldier's statement above the discontent against the war in the military is there. We have to tap into it. But as the activities surrounding the January 27th weekend of anti-war demonstrations graphically illustrate the bulk of anti-war activists are looking in the wrong place. I have said before, and will continue to say, in the final analysis the short way to end the war is through the troops. Then that soldier will not have to worry over the fate of his buddies. IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL U.S./ALLIED WITHDRAWAL U.S. /ALLIED FROM IRAQ!-'BUDDIES' OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
Monday, January 29, 2007
*FREE THE LAST OF THE OHIO SEVEN-SUPPORT THE CLASS-WAR PRISONERS-SUPPORT THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE!
Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.
COMMENTARY
JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING-THE LAST OF THE OHIO SEVEN MUST NOT DIE IN PRISON!
The posting below is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I need only add that the sentiments expressed in the letters by two member of the Ohio Seven should be taken to heart by all militants. Furthermore, we should redouble the efforts to get the last the Ohio Seven militants who are still in prison-Jaan Laaman and Tom Manning-out. They must not be allowed to die in prison. Enough said.
Support the Class-War Prisoners!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The Partisan Defense Committee received the following letters from class-war prisoner Jaan Laaman and Ray Luc Levasseur, who was released from prison in 2004. Laaman and Levasseur were imprisoned in the mid 1980s after they and five others—the Ohio 7—were convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank "expropriations" and bombings against such symbols of U.S. imperialism as military and corporate offices. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. These courageous fighters should not have served a day in prison.
The PDC is grateful for these letters, which were sent in support of its December 2006 Holiday Appeal. The annual Holiday Appeal, which raises money for the PDC's Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund, was focused this time on the urgent fight to free death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The PDC's program of regular stipends is a concrete expression of solidarity with those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression. To support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, send contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, NY, NY 10013; call (212) 406-4252.
Nov. 28, 2006
Let me wish everyone Happy Holidays and warm RED Season's Greetings!
The Partisan Defense Committee needs, wants and deserves your support. 2006 marks the PDC's 21st straight year of concretely supporting some of America's long held political prisoners. I myself have been a PDC class war prisoner receiving a regular bi-monthly stipend of support, year after year for I think, 20 years now. Additionally in moments of specific need (in my case for legal expenses this past year and for educational expenses some years ago), the PDC stepped forward also.
Material support is important in a real day to day, do I have enough stamps or toothpaste, sense. Political support and informing the public about political prisoner events and issues, is also very important. The PDC under its own banner and through the Workers Vanguard, is an important source of support for us. As political prisoners we need and want this support, so your support of the Partisan Defense Committee is an important and meaningful political statement.
To learn more about and interact with political prisoners in the U.S., and to hear our thoughts on ongoing world events, you can check out 4strugglemag, which I edit, at: http://www.4strugglemag.org. Issue 8 is just out.
FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE! RED SEASON'S GREETINGS
Jaan Laaman,
Ohio 7 anti-imperialist
political prisoner
10 December 2006
My grandmother began working in textile mills when she was 13 years old. My grandfather went into those mills when he was 14 years of age. My parents left school at 16 to work in the mills. My turn came when I was 17. I didn't know about class war back then, I only knew about survival and that my people—the French Canadian workers—were being shortchanged. We had no political nor economic power and we paid for it by operating the machines that enriched others.
Two years ago I was released after 20 years in prison. For 20 years the government kept me in their worst cages for political offenses—actions taken against imperialism's obscene manifestations of violence and exploitation.
While in prison it was always a challenge to marshal support among the left, the Partisan Defense Committee stepped up when others faltered. The PDC, for many long years, provided needed funds to me and my family, for which I will always be grateful.
I encourage you to donate what you can, large or small, to enable the PDC to continue its solidarity work. Any donation translates to direct support for our political prisoners.
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal & all political prisoners. Ray Luc Levasseur
COMMENTARY
JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING-THE LAST OF THE OHIO SEVEN MUST NOT DIE IN PRISON!
The posting below is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I need only add that the sentiments expressed in the letters by two member of the Ohio Seven should be taken to heart by all militants. Furthermore, we should redouble the efforts to get the last the Ohio Seven militants who are still in prison-Jaan Laaman and Tom Manning-out. They must not be allowed to die in prison. Enough said.
Support the Class-War Prisoners!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The Partisan Defense Committee received the following letters from class-war prisoner Jaan Laaman and Ray Luc Levasseur, who was released from prison in 2004. Laaman and Levasseur were imprisoned in the mid 1980s after they and five others—the Ohio 7—were convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank "expropriations" and bombings against such symbols of U.S. imperialism as military and corporate offices. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. These courageous fighters should not have served a day in prison.
The PDC is grateful for these letters, which were sent in support of its December 2006 Holiday Appeal. The annual Holiday Appeal, which raises money for the PDC's Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund, was focused this time on the urgent fight to free death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The PDC's program of regular stipends is a concrete expression of solidarity with those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression. To support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, send contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, NY, NY 10013; call (212) 406-4252.
Nov. 28, 2006
Let me wish everyone Happy Holidays and warm RED Season's Greetings!
The Partisan Defense Committee needs, wants and deserves your support. 2006 marks the PDC's 21st straight year of concretely supporting some of America's long held political prisoners. I myself have been a PDC class war prisoner receiving a regular bi-monthly stipend of support, year after year for I think, 20 years now. Additionally in moments of specific need (in my case for legal expenses this past year and for educational expenses some years ago), the PDC stepped forward also.
Material support is important in a real day to day, do I have enough stamps or toothpaste, sense. Political support and informing the public about political prisoner events and issues, is also very important. The PDC under its own banner and through the Workers Vanguard, is an important source of support for us. As political prisoners we need and want this support, so your support of the Partisan Defense Committee is an important and meaningful political statement.
To learn more about and interact with political prisoners in the U.S., and to hear our thoughts on ongoing world events, you can check out 4strugglemag, which I edit, at: http://www.4strugglemag.org. Issue 8 is just out.
FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE! RED SEASON'S GREETINGS
Jaan Laaman,
Ohio 7 anti-imperialist
political prisoner
10 December 2006
My grandmother began working in textile mills when she was 13 years old. My grandfather went into those mills when he was 14 years of age. My parents left school at 16 to work in the mills. My turn came when I was 17. I didn't know about class war back then, I only knew about survival and that my people—the French Canadian workers—were being shortchanged. We had no political nor economic power and we paid for it by operating the machines that enriched others.
Two years ago I was released after 20 years in prison. For 20 years the government kept me in their worst cages for political offenses—actions taken against imperialism's obscene manifestations of violence and exploitation.
While in prison it was always a challenge to marshal support among the left, the Partisan Defense Committee stepped up when others faltered. The PDC, for many long years, provided needed funds to me and my family, for which I will always be grateful.
I encourage you to donate what you can, large or small, to enable the PDC to continue its solidarity work. Any donation translates to direct support for our political prisoners.
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal & all political prisoners. Ray Luc Levasseur
AN EARLY FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY IN AMERICA
COMMENTARY
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
HONOR WILLIAM PARKER AND THE ANTI-SLAVERY FIGHTERS AT THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’, 1851
One of the most heinous acts passed by Congress before the American Civil War was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Its provisions allowed slaveholders to repossess their ‘property’ anywhere in the United States of the times. More importantly, the authority of the American government could be called upon by individual slaveholders to insure that any found slaves were repatriated through the use of federal marshals to capture them and federal commissioners to determine their status, slave or free. Every black liberation fighter and supporter of black liberation struggles should cringe every time they look at the United States Constitution, its original infamous 3/5 clause and its benign attitude toward chattel slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act merely rubbed everyone’s face constantly and publicly in those dirty little facts until the Civil War.
The Fugitive Slave Act did not, however, go unopposed. Abolitionists in the North rallied against it and in many ‘high’ abolitionist areas like Boston, Massachusetts and Rochester, New York the act became unenforceable. The role of William Parker, farmer, itinerant preacher, fugitive slave, and leader of the ‘Battle of Christiana’ in southern Pennsylvania in 1851 is probably the most dramatic act of resistance to that law. When the slaveholders came north of the Mason-Dixon line to try to reclaim their slave ‘property’ abetted by local hooligans and the federal government they got far more than they had bargained for. What they got was a Parker-organized, mainly black, self-defense organization to protect themselves and any fugitive slaves that came their way. Such self-defense tactics would do black liberation fighters proud today.
As every black liberation fighter and every other kind of liberation fighter since that time knows even small victories will produce ‘blowback’ by the government and its hangers-on. Parker and his cohorts faced just such a situation. As a result of their resistance Parker had to flee to Canada. Moreover, Millard Fillmore, another one of those forgotten accidental presidents, called out troops to stop these anti-slavery actions and place those arrested on trial. Needless to say these were in the nature of show trials in an attempt to ‘chill’ free speech and actions. However, enflamed Northern anti-slavery sentiment insured that there were no convictions. The moral of the story is this- federal Fugitive Slave Act or not the slaveholders stopped pursuing their fugitive slaves when self-defense organizations and others made it too ‘hot’ for them to pursue such actions. We can use some of that same thinking today as we face the outrageous legislation of our own times. HONOR WILLIAM PARKER! REMEMBER THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’.
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
HONOR WILLIAM PARKER AND THE ANTI-SLAVERY FIGHTERS AT THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’, 1851
One of the most heinous acts passed by Congress before the American Civil War was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Its provisions allowed slaveholders to repossess their ‘property’ anywhere in the United States of the times. More importantly, the authority of the American government could be called upon by individual slaveholders to insure that any found slaves were repatriated through the use of federal marshals to capture them and federal commissioners to determine their status, slave or free. Every black liberation fighter and supporter of black liberation struggles should cringe every time they look at the United States Constitution, its original infamous 3/5 clause and its benign attitude toward chattel slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act merely rubbed everyone’s face constantly and publicly in those dirty little facts until the Civil War.
The Fugitive Slave Act did not, however, go unopposed. Abolitionists in the North rallied against it and in many ‘high’ abolitionist areas like Boston, Massachusetts and Rochester, New York the act became unenforceable. The role of William Parker, farmer, itinerant preacher, fugitive slave, and leader of the ‘Battle of Christiana’ in southern Pennsylvania in 1851 is probably the most dramatic act of resistance to that law. When the slaveholders came north of the Mason-Dixon line to try to reclaim their slave ‘property’ abetted by local hooligans and the federal government they got far more than they had bargained for. What they got was a Parker-organized, mainly black, self-defense organization to protect themselves and any fugitive slaves that came their way. Such self-defense tactics would do black liberation fighters proud today.
As every black liberation fighter and every other kind of liberation fighter since that time knows even small victories will produce ‘blowback’ by the government and its hangers-on. Parker and his cohorts faced just such a situation. As a result of their resistance Parker had to flee to Canada. Moreover, Millard Fillmore, another one of those forgotten accidental presidents, called out troops to stop these anti-slavery actions and place those arrested on trial. Needless to say these were in the nature of show trials in an attempt to ‘chill’ free speech and actions. However, enflamed Northern anti-slavery sentiment insured that there were no convictions. The moral of the story is this- federal Fugitive Slave Act or not the slaveholders stopped pursuing their fugitive slaves when self-defense organizations and others made it too ‘hot’ for them to pursue such actions. We can use some of that same thinking today as we face the outrageous legislation of our own times. HONOR WILLIAM PARKER! REMEMBER THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’.
*GLORY II- THE 1ST SOUTH CAROLINA VOLUNTEERS IN THE CIVIL WAR
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for stiff-necked abolitionist, Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
BOOK REVIEW
ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, 1970
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Those familiar with the critical role that the recruitment of black troops into the Union Armies in the American Civil War usually think about the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment under Robert Gould Shaw which has received wide attention in book, film and sculpture. And those heroic fighters deserve those honors. Glory, indeed. However, other units were formed from other regions that are also noteworthy. And none more so than the 1st South Carolina Volunteers commanded by the arch-abolitionist Theodore Higginson one of John Brown’s fervent supporters and an early advocate of arming the slaves during the Civil War. He desperately wanted to lead armed blacks in the battle against slavery and got his wish.
I have remarked elsewhere (in a review of William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner)
that while the slaves in the South, for a host of reasons, did not insurrect with the intensity or frequency of say Haiti, the other West Indian islands or Brazil that when the time came to show discipline, courage and honor under arms that blacks would prove not inferior to whites. And Higginson's book is prima facie evidence for that position.
One should note that, unlike the Massachusetts 54th which was made up primarily of freedman the 1st South Carolina was made up of units of fugitive and abandoned slaves. Thus, one should have assumed that it would have been harder to train and discipline uneducated and much-abused slaves. Not so. After reading a number of books on the trials and tribulations of various Union regiments, including the famous Irish Brigade, the story Higginson tells compares very favorably with those units. While Higginson's use of ‘negro’ dialect in the telling of his story may not be to the liking of some of today’s ‘politically correct’ readers of this book it is nevertheless a story worth reading told by a ‘high’ abolitionist and Civil War hero.
BOOK REVIEW
ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, 1970
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Those familiar with the critical role that the recruitment of black troops into the Union Armies in the American Civil War usually think about the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment under Robert Gould Shaw which has received wide attention in book, film and sculpture. And those heroic fighters deserve those honors. Glory, indeed. However, other units were formed from other regions that are also noteworthy. And none more so than the 1st South Carolina Volunteers commanded by the arch-abolitionist Theodore Higginson one of John Brown’s fervent supporters and an early advocate of arming the slaves during the Civil War. He desperately wanted to lead armed blacks in the battle against slavery and got his wish.
I have remarked elsewhere (in a review of William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner)
that while the slaves in the South, for a host of reasons, did not insurrect with the intensity or frequency of say Haiti, the other West Indian islands or Brazil that when the time came to show discipline, courage and honor under arms that blacks would prove not inferior to whites. And Higginson's book is prima facie evidence for that position.
One should note that, unlike the Massachusetts 54th which was made up primarily of freedman the 1st South Carolina was made up of units of fugitive and abandoned slaves. Thus, one should have assumed that it would have been harder to train and discipline uneducated and much-abused slaves. Not so. After reading a number of books on the trials and tribulations of various Union regiments, including the famous Irish Brigade, the story Higginson tells compares very favorably with those units. While Higginson's use of ‘negro’ dialect in the telling of his story may not be to the liking of some of today’s ‘politically correct’ readers of this book it is nevertheless a story worth reading told by a ‘high’ abolitionist and Civil War hero.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
AN EARLY STRUGGLE AGAINST SLAVERY
COMMENTARY
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
HONOR WILLIAM PARKER AND THE ANTI-SLAVERY FIGHTERS AT THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’, 1851
One of the most heinous acts passed by Congress before the American Civil War was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Its provisions allowed slaveholders to repossess their ‘property’ anywhere in the United States of the times. More importantly, the authority of the American government could be called upon by individual slaveholders to insure that any found slaves were repatriated through the use of federal marshals to capture them and federal commissioners to determine their status, slave or free. Every black liberation fighter and supporter of black liberation struggles should cringe every time they look at the United States Constitution, its original infamous 3/5 clause and its benign attitude toward chattel slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act merely rubbed everyone’s face constantly and publicly in those dirty little facts until the Civil War.
The Fugitive Slave Act did not, however, go unopposed. Abolitionists in the North rallied against it and in many ‘high’ abolitionist areas like Boston, Massachusetts and Rochester, New York the act became unenforceable. The role of William Parker, farmer, itinerant preacher and fugitive slave, and leader of the ‘Battle of Christiana’ in southern Pennsylvania in 1851 is probably the most dramatic act of resistance to that law. When the slaveholders came north of the Mason-Dixon line to try to reclaim their slave ‘property’ abetted by local hooligans and the federal government they got far more than they had bargained for. What they got was a Parker-organized, mainly black, armed self-defense organization to protect themselves and any fugitive slaves that came their way. Such self-defense tactics would do black liberation fighters proud today.
As every black liberation fighter and every other kind of liberation fighter since that time knows even small victories will produce ‘blowback’ by the government and its hangers-on. Parker and his cohorts faced just such a situation. As a result of their resistance Parker had to flee to Canada. Moreover, Millard Fillmore, another one of those forgotten accidental presidents, called out troops to stop these anti-slavery actions and place those arrested on trial. Needless to say these were in the nature of show trials in an attempt to ‘chill’ free speech and actions. However, enflamed Northern anti-slavery sentiment insured that there were no convictions. The moral of the story is this- federal Fugitive Slave Act or not the slaveholders stopped pursuing their fugitive slaves when armed self-defense organizations and others who made it too ‘hot’ for them to pursue such actions. We can use some of that same thinking today as we face the outrageous legislation of our own times. HONOR WILLIAM PARKER! REMEMBER THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’.
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
HONOR WILLIAM PARKER AND THE ANTI-SLAVERY FIGHTERS AT THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’, 1851
One of the most heinous acts passed by Congress before the American Civil War was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Its provisions allowed slaveholders to repossess their ‘property’ anywhere in the United States of the times. More importantly, the authority of the American government could be called upon by individual slaveholders to insure that any found slaves were repatriated through the use of federal marshals to capture them and federal commissioners to determine their status, slave or free. Every black liberation fighter and supporter of black liberation struggles should cringe every time they look at the United States Constitution, its original infamous 3/5 clause and its benign attitude toward chattel slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act merely rubbed everyone’s face constantly and publicly in those dirty little facts until the Civil War.
The Fugitive Slave Act did not, however, go unopposed. Abolitionists in the North rallied against it and in many ‘high’ abolitionist areas like Boston, Massachusetts and Rochester, New York the act became unenforceable. The role of William Parker, farmer, itinerant preacher and fugitive slave, and leader of the ‘Battle of Christiana’ in southern Pennsylvania in 1851 is probably the most dramatic act of resistance to that law. When the slaveholders came north of the Mason-Dixon line to try to reclaim their slave ‘property’ abetted by local hooligans and the federal government they got far more than they had bargained for. What they got was a Parker-organized, mainly black, armed self-defense organization to protect themselves and any fugitive slaves that came their way. Such self-defense tactics would do black liberation fighters proud today.
As every black liberation fighter and every other kind of liberation fighter since that time knows even small victories will produce ‘blowback’ by the government and its hangers-on. Parker and his cohorts faced just such a situation. As a result of their resistance Parker had to flee to Canada. Moreover, Millard Fillmore, another one of those forgotten accidental presidents, called out troops to stop these anti-slavery actions and place those arrested on trial. Needless to say these were in the nature of show trials in an attempt to ‘chill’ free speech and actions. However, enflamed Northern anti-slavery sentiment insured that there were no convictions. The moral of the story is this- federal Fugitive Slave Act or not the slaveholders stopped pursuing their fugitive slaves when armed self-defense organizations and others who made it too ‘hot’ for them to pursue such actions. We can use some of that same thinking today as we face the outrageous legislation of our own times. HONOR WILLIAM PARKER! REMEMBER THE ‘BATTLE OF CHRISTIANA’.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
*ON THE QUESTION OF ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES
Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.
COMMENTARY
BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIER AND SAILOR SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES NOW!
Readers of this space perhaps already know that this writer has been harping over the last year on the need for the anti-war movement to turn its face to the rank and files troops in order to end the war in Iraq. Recently, the urgency of this need was dramatically brought home by the news that in California troops have petitioned Congress for the redress of grievance. And the subject of that grievance is not about the lousy military food, it is not about the lousy pay and it is not about the lousy equipment, although God knows those are always legitimate issues for all rank and file military personnel. The redress petition is for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Despite the small attention it has received in the bourgeois press this is a big political development and a possible harbinger of things to come in the military.
This highly conscious political, and given the circumstances under which they operate, courageous act is in dramatic contrast to the paralysis of will exhibited by a Congress that cannot even vote for a real anti-war resolution much less against the war appropriations. Sure, they can vote all day and night for these non-binding ‘sense of the Congress’ resolutions that tie them to no concrete action. Christ, they live for these kinds of votes to brighten up their rather tarnished and sorry records on Iraq. For my money, we need to address the issue of withdrawal from Iraq where it can mean something by organizing anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees in order to fraternize with the troops. As I have mentioned before, in the final analysis, this is shortest route to ending the war in Iraq.
Most of us have organized or been part of organized anti-war demonstrations over the last few years. Organizing civilian demonstrations against the war is as relatively easy as getting a permit (if necessary), making up some posters and banners, writing a leaflet announcing the event and grabbing a bullhorn. Let us be clear this military solidarity committee organizing is much more serious business. Although the military has not been as publicly Draconian toward its military dissenters as in the past, especially anti-war soldiers in the Vietnam era, dealing with the military is a whole different ball of wax, from the ‘justice’ they dispense to the ranks to their reaction to anti-war civilians in front of their bases. Make no mistake the military brass are not among nature’s noblemen.
That said, the bulk of the troops, either those who have served in Iraq or those getting ready to ship out are no mercenary professional soldiers, but rather are citizen-soldiers caught up in a terrible place. This is especially true of the increasing numbers of National Guard and Reserve units that are being deployed as the Bush Administration buries itself deeper in the quagmire of ‘Big Sandy’. Christ, yesterday those soldiers were probably sitting beside you at work. And that, my friends, gives us an opening. While these are not our troops, they most definitely are our sons, daughters and neighbors.
This is not the place to discuss the specifics of organizing anti-war troop support. That can be left to local initiative, for now. What is necessary is to get out to the military bases, naval stations and armories to make contacts, and to listen. That is the first rule of fraternization with the troops. From personal experience I have found that those troops who want to find an outlet for their anti-war sentiments or need legal help to get out of the military or want to talk about a whole range of issues including the above-mentioned lousy food, pay and equipment will find you. And those are all legitimate ways to start out. Nevertheless in the end it is the need to find direct ways to get the immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq that must drive the work. More on this question later.
COMMENTARY
BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIER AND SAILOR SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES NOW!
Readers of this space perhaps already know that this writer has been harping over the last year on the need for the anti-war movement to turn its face to the rank and files troops in order to end the war in Iraq. Recently, the urgency of this need was dramatically brought home by the news that in California troops have petitioned Congress for the redress of grievance. And the subject of that grievance is not about the lousy military food, it is not about the lousy pay and it is not about the lousy equipment, although God knows those are always legitimate issues for all rank and file military personnel. The redress petition is for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Despite the small attention it has received in the bourgeois press this is a big political development and a possible harbinger of things to come in the military.
This highly conscious political, and given the circumstances under which they operate, courageous act is in dramatic contrast to the paralysis of will exhibited by a Congress that cannot even vote for a real anti-war resolution much less against the war appropriations. Sure, they can vote all day and night for these non-binding ‘sense of the Congress’ resolutions that tie them to no concrete action. Christ, they live for these kinds of votes to brighten up their rather tarnished and sorry records on Iraq. For my money, we need to address the issue of withdrawal from Iraq where it can mean something by organizing anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees in order to fraternize with the troops. As I have mentioned before, in the final analysis, this is shortest route to ending the war in Iraq.
Most of us have organized or been part of organized anti-war demonstrations over the last few years. Organizing civilian demonstrations against the war is as relatively easy as getting a permit (if necessary), making up some posters and banners, writing a leaflet announcing the event and grabbing a bullhorn. Let us be clear this military solidarity committee organizing is much more serious business. Although the military has not been as publicly Draconian toward its military dissenters as in the past, especially anti-war soldiers in the Vietnam era, dealing with the military is a whole different ball of wax, from the ‘justice’ they dispense to the ranks to their reaction to anti-war civilians in front of their bases. Make no mistake the military brass are not among nature’s noblemen.
That said, the bulk of the troops, either those who have served in Iraq or those getting ready to ship out are no mercenary professional soldiers, but rather are citizen-soldiers caught up in a terrible place. This is especially true of the increasing numbers of National Guard and Reserve units that are being deployed as the Bush Administration buries itself deeper in the quagmire of ‘Big Sandy’. Christ, yesterday those soldiers were probably sitting beside you at work. And that, my friends, gives us an opening. While these are not our troops, they most definitely are our sons, daughters and neighbors.
This is not the place to discuss the specifics of organizing anti-war troop support. That can be left to local initiative, for now. What is necessary is to get out to the military bases, naval stations and armories to make contacts, and to listen. That is the first rule of fraternization with the troops. From personal experience I have found that those troops who want to find an outlet for their anti-war sentiments or need legal help to get out of the military or want to talk about a whole range of issues including the above-mentioned lousy food, pay and equipment will find you. And those are all legitimate ways to start out. Nevertheless in the end it is the need to find direct ways to get the immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq that must drive the work. More on this question later.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
THE CALIFORNIA ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS MUST NOT STAND ALONE
COMMENTARY
CALIFORNIA SOLDIERS PETITION CONGRESS FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCE-FOR THE IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWL FROM IRAQ
SUPPORT THE SOLDIERS’ DEMAND- IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ- BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SUPPORT COMMITTEES NOW!
For the past year this writer has been harping on the need for the anti-war movement to turn its face to win the troops over to an anti-war perspective. As put forth in a recent commentary I motivated that turn in the following way which I repost here.
… “Secondly, and more realistically today, the anti-war movement needs to build anti-war soldier and sailor committees. I have been harping on this issue for at least a year now. Let us get serious about the focus of the anti-war fight. We have been aiming in the wrong direction. The Bush Administration is inured to talk, demonstrations or anything else. The military command has led the rank and file troops down the golden path. It should be clear by now that even they do not take the noise about ‘victory’ from the Administration seriously. The loyal governmental opposition, the Democrats, have had nothing to add but confusion. We of the anti-war movement, and I will take my fair share of responsibility on this, have failed in our efforts for immediate, unconditional withdrawal up to now. That leaves the rank and file soldiers and sailors to figure a way out. More than a few are fed up with the war and their useless sacrifice. Our task is to help them out. They must not stand alone. Yes, it is important to go to Washington to protest, but, it is more important to get out to the army, marine and naval bases and talk to and listen to the troops that have fought or preparing to fight in Iraq. That, my friends, in the final analysis is the short way to end this damn war.”
Up until now the anti-war sentiment in the military has generally expressed itself by individual acts of refusal, an increase of AWOL’s, attempts to get out of the military by seeking political asylum, an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objector status and the like. Earlier this fall a petition against the war was signed by a couple of hundred soldiers actually serving in Iraq. Now, however, comes news that about one thousand California soldiers in Reserve and National Guard units has taken all this a step further. They have collectively, as citizen-soldiers, petitioned Congress for the redress of grievance calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. As a first step, well done brothers and sisters. This hellish war has finally begun to split the military, just a little for now but with the expected ‘surge’ in Iraq this could very well lead to a groundswell.
If we think about it this situation was almost inevitable. Why? This war has gone on so long and has stretched the military resources so thin that the call up of the citizen-soldier has dramatically increased. While this is not a draft army, like in Vietnam, it is not now made up totally of mercenary professional soldiers. And that is where the action of the California soldiers comes in as an extremely important political development. What do anti-war activists do? As noted in that recent article quoted above. Get out to the military bases. Fraternize with the soldiers, sailors, marines and air personnel. Build those vital soldier and sailor support committees to link up the struggle. THE ANTI-WAR TROOPS MUST NOT STAND ALONE!!!
CALIFORNIA SOLDIERS PETITION CONGRESS FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCE-FOR THE IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWL FROM IRAQ
SUPPORT THE SOLDIERS’ DEMAND- IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ- BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SUPPORT COMMITTEES NOW!
For the past year this writer has been harping on the need for the anti-war movement to turn its face to win the troops over to an anti-war perspective. As put forth in a recent commentary I motivated that turn in the following way which I repost here.
… “Secondly, and more realistically today, the anti-war movement needs to build anti-war soldier and sailor committees. I have been harping on this issue for at least a year now. Let us get serious about the focus of the anti-war fight. We have been aiming in the wrong direction. The Bush Administration is inured to talk, demonstrations or anything else. The military command has led the rank and file troops down the golden path. It should be clear by now that even they do not take the noise about ‘victory’ from the Administration seriously. The loyal governmental opposition, the Democrats, have had nothing to add but confusion. We of the anti-war movement, and I will take my fair share of responsibility on this, have failed in our efforts for immediate, unconditional withdrawal up to now. That leaves the rank and file soldiers and sailors to figure a way out. More than a few are fed up with the war and their useless sacrifice. Our task is to help them out. They must not stand alone. Yes, it is important to go to Washington to protest, but, it is more important to get out to the army, marine and naval bases and talk to and listen to the troops that have fought or preparing to fight in Iraq. That, my friends, in the final analysis is the short way to end this damn war.”
Up until now the anti-war sentiment in the military has generally expressed itself by individual acts of refusal, an increase of AWOL’s, attempts to get out of the military by seeking political asylum, an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objector status and the like. Earlier this fall a petition against the war was signed by a couple of hundred soldiers actually serving in Iraq. Now, however, comes news that about one thousand California soldiers in Reserve and National Guard units has taken all this a step further. They have collectively, as citizen-soldiers, petitioned Congress for the redress of grievance calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. As a first step, well done brothers and sisters. This hellish war has finally begun to split the military, just a little for now but with the expected ‘surge’ in Iraq this could very well lead to a groundswell.
If we think about it this situation was almost inevitable. Why? This war has gone on so long and has stretched the military resources so thin that the call up of the citizen-soldier has dramatically increased. While this is not a draft army, like in Vietnam, it is not now made up totally of mercenary professional soldiers. And that is where the action of the California soldiers comes in as an extremely important political development. What do anti-war activists do? As noted in that recent article quoted above. Get out to the military bases. Fraternize with the soldiers, sailors, marines and air personnel. Build those vital soldier and sailor support committees to link up the struggle. THE ANTI-WAR TROOPS MUST NOT STAND ALONE!!!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
*PROTEST THE CONGRESSIONAL ATTACK ON MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.
THIS INFORMATION IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE. I NEED ONLY ADD THAT TIME IS CRITICAL IN MUMIA'S CASE. IF THERE WAS ANY REAL JUSTICE IN MUMIA'S CASE THEY WOULD BE NAMING A STREET IN PHILADELPHIA FOR HIM FOR HIS WORK AS THE 'VOICE OF THE VOICELESS'.
Protest Congressional Attack on Mumia Abu-Jamal!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The following statement was issued by the Partisan Defense Committee on December 8.
The Partisan Defense Committee denounces the U.S. House of Representatives' vote on December 6 which attacked the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis for naming a street in honor of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution, which passed 368 to 31 with support from both Republicans and Democrats, repeats the prosecution's frame-up lies against Mumia. This resolution seeks to pave the way for the legal lynching of an innocent man! The resolution also "commends all police officers in the United States and throughout the world"—and this in the wake of the NYC police killing of Sean Bell in a 50-round fusillade on November 25, and the Atlanta police's gunning down of 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston in her own home.
There are mountains of evidence proving Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence and the police/prosecution frame-up: there is no ballistics evidence, so-called eyewitnesses were coerced and Mumia's confession was fabricated. In 2001 Rachel Wolkenstein (co-counsel for Mumia from 1995 to 1999) submitted an affidavit to the U.S. District Court detailing that evidence, including Arnold Beverly's confession that he, not Mumia, killed Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Yet all the courts to which it has been presented have refused to hear the Beverly evidence. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mumia could raise only three issues on his appeal: the racially biased jury selection in his 1982 trial, the D.A.'s prejudicial summary argument that Mumia would have "appeal after appeal," and the grossly biased post-conviction state hearings in the 1990s before Judge Albert Sabo (who a court reporter testified had said at the time of the original trial that he would help "fry the n—r"). These challenges should be heard in court. But the harsh reality is that the Court of Appeals—like every other court in this case—has refused to hear countless other violations of Mumia's rights. Every aspect of Mumia's case shows how much the capitalist rulers want him dead.
The House of Representatives' overwhelming vote further drives home the depth of hatred the entire bourgeois state apparatus has for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a courageous, eloquent and unbroken fighter for black freedom and against racist repression. Mumia was framed up and falsely convicted for the murder of Faulkner because he is a talented journalist known as the "voice of the voiceless," a former Black Panther, a supporter of the MOVE organization and an outspoken opponent of racism.
Partisan Defense Committee spokesman Rachel Wolkenstein was invited to and spoke as part of the delegation at the street-naming in Saint-Denis this past April. That event provoked months of a renewed campaign by police and government officials against Mumia. In a letter to the mayor of Paris dated October 30, Mumia denounced efforts by Philadelphia politicians to retaliate against Saint-Denis, writing that "the merchants of death" have a "campaign to not only kill me, but to wipe my name from the face of the earth. Why else would they care about a small street in St. Denis? Or an award of Citizen of Honor from the City of Light? The Empire thinks it is Master of the World and can tell all what to do".
In response to this vicious campaign, the Comite de Defense Sociale, the PDC's fraternal legal and social defense organization in France, issued a leaflet on November 16 denouncing efforts by Philadelphia politicians to stifle growing support for Mumia: "This attack takes place when the international defense campaign for Mumia is once again gaining steam, a campaign that Philadelphia and its police are seeking to crush in the egg."
More evidence of growing support for Mumia is the statement by the Partisan Defense Committee under the headline, "We Demand the Immediate Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an Innocent Man" signed by hundreds of labor activists and prominent individuals, including Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and Dario Fo, Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace, author Michael Eric Dyson, the poet Sonia Sanchez, New York City councilman Charles Barren and Illinois Congressman Danny K. Davis. That statement was printed as a full-page ad in New York's Amsterdam News (26 October), the Nation (20 November), and also in the Chicago Defender and the San Francisco Bay View.
The House resolution against Mumia comes at a crucial juncture in the legal proceedings. Mumia has submitted the final papers in his appeal of a federal court decision that affirmed his frame-up conviction while overturning the death sentence. After oral argument, the court could decide within months whether to reinstate the death penalty, to condemn him to the living death of life in prison or to grant a new trial. The latest offensive by Congress and the city of Philadelphia against Mumia underlines the need to mobilize now for his freedom.
On December 9 in Philadelphia, the Partisan Defense Committee will join a rally called by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal on the 25th anniversary of Mumia's arrest. The PDC understands that the capitalist state and its courts are not neutral institutions but organs of repression against the working class and the oppressed. Mumia's freedom will not be won through reliance on the rigged "justice" system or on capitalist politicians, whether Democratic, Republican or Green. Our PDC contingent will march under the slogans: "For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Mumia Now! There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!"
THIS INFORMATION IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE. I NEED ONLY ADD THAT TIME IS CRITICAL IN MUMIA'S CASE. IF THERE WAS ANY REAL JUSTICE IN MUMIA'S CASE THEY WOULD BE NAMING A STREET IN PHILADELPHIA FOR HIM FOR HIS WORK AS THE 'VOICE OF THE VOICELESS'.
Protest Congressional Attack on Mumia Abu-Jamal!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The following statement was issued by the Partisan Defense Committee on December 8.
The Partisan Defense Committee denounces the U.S. House of Representatives' vote on December 6 which attacked the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis for naming a street in honor of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution, which passed 368 to 31 with support from both Republicans and Democrats, repeats the prosecution's frame-up lies against Mumia. This resolution seeks to pave the way for the legal lynching of an innocent man! The resolution also "commends all police officers in the United States and throughout the world"—and this in the wake of the NYC police killing of Sean Bell in a 50-round fusillade on November 25, and the Atlanta police's gunning down of 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston in her own home.
There are mountains of evidence proving Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence and the police/prosecution frame-up: there is no ballistics evidence, so-called eyewitnesses were coerced and Mumia's confession was fabricated. In 2001 Rachel Wolkenstein (co-counsel for Mumia from 1995 to 1999) submitted an affidavit to the U.S. District Court detailing that evidence, including Arnold Beverly's confession that he, not Mumia, killed Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Yet all the courts to which it has been presented have refused to hear the Beverly evidence. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mumia could raise only three issues on his appeal: the racially biased jury selection in his 1982 trial, the D.A.'s prejudicial summary argument that Mumia would have "appeal after appeal," and the grossly biased post-conviction state hearings in the 1990s before Judge Albert Sabo (who a court reporter testified had said at the time of the original trial that he would help "fry the n—r"). These challenges should be heard in court. But the harsh reality is that the Court of Appeals—like every other court in this case—has refused to hear countless other violations of Mumia's rights. Every aspect of Mumia's case shows how much the capitalist rulers want him dead.
The House of Representatives' overwhelming vote further drives home the depth of hatred the entire bourgeois state apparatus has for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a courageous, eloquent and unbroken fighter for black freedom and against racist repression. Mumia was framed up and falsely convicted for the murder of Faulkner because he is a talented journalist known as the "voice of the voiceless," a former Black Panther, a supporter of the MOVE organization and an outspoken opponent of racism.
Partisan Defense Committee spokesman Rachel Wolkenstein was invited to and spoke as part of the delegation at the street-naming in Saint-Denis this past April. That event provoked months of a renewed campaign by police and government officials against Mumia. In a letter to the mayor of Paris dated October 30, Mumia denounced efforts by Philadelphia politicians to retaliate against Saint-Denis, writing that "the merchants of death" have a "campaign to not only kill me, but to wipe my name from the face of the earth. Why else would they care about a small street in St. Denis? Or an award of Citizen of Honor from the City of Light? The Empire thinks it is Master of the World and can tell all what to do".
In response to this vicious campaign, the Comite de Defense Sociale, the PDC's fraternal legal and social defense organization in France, issued a leaflet on November 16 denouncing efforts by Philadelphia politicians to stifle growing support for Mumia: "This attack takes place when the international defense campaign for Mumia is once again gaining steam, a campaign that Philadelphia and its police are seeking to crush in the egg."
More evidence of growing support for Mumia is the statement by the Partisan Defense Committee under the headline, "We Demand the Immediate Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an Innocent Man" signed by hundreds of labor activists and prominent individuals, including Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and Dario Fo, Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace, author Michael Eric Dyson, the poet Sonia Sanchez, New York City councilman Charles Barren and Illinois Congressman Danny K. Davis. That statement was printed as a full-page ad in New York's Amsterdam News (26 October), the Nation (20 November), and also in the Chicago Defender and the San Francisco Bay View.
The House resolution against Mumia comes at a crucial juncture in the legal proceedings. Mumia has submitted the final papers in his appeal of a federal court decision that affirmed his frame-up conviction while overturning the death sentence. After oral argument, the court could decide within months whether to reinstate the death penalty, to condemn him to the living death of life in prison or to grant a new trial. The latest offensive by Congress and the city of Philadelphia against Mumia underlines the need to mobilize now for his freedom.
On December 9 in Philadelphia, the Partisan Defense Committee will join a rally called by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal on the 25th anniversary of Mumia's arrest. The PDC understands that the capitalist state and its courts are not neutral institutions but organs of repression against the working class and the oppressed. Mumia's freedom will not be won through reliance on the rigged "justice" system or on capitalist politicians, whether Democratic, Republican or Green. Our PDC contingent will march under the slogans: "For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Mumia Now! There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!"
Friday, January 12, 2007
*NOW THAT WE HAVE SEEN PLAN 'A' ON IRAQ WE NEED TO MOVE ON TO PLAN 'B'
Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.
COMMENTARY
OBVIOUSLY, NO TO TROOP ESCALATION- IMMEDIATE,UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL U.S./ALLIED TROOPS FROM IRAQ!-SUPPORT AND BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIER AND SAILOR SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
This will be one of my shorter blogs. After all, what more needs to be said after President Bush unveiled his Plan "A" for 'victory' in Iraq. They must have spent all of twenty minutes on this plan. Actually, any more time would have been wasted. We have seen this kind of escalation before. They called it Vietnam. But the same mentality is at work. Enough, in fact, more than enough said.
Here is Plan "B", short and sweet. Immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied troops from Iraq, pronto. Forget the politicians, Democratic or Republican. Forget the military brass. Forget the advisers and the think tank specialists. Let us turn our direction where it counts to fighting for the soul of the troops. Form anti-war soldier and sailor committees now. If the troops in Iraq decide to leave, and in the final analysis they are the only ones who can end this war, we must not let them stand alone.
COMMENTARY
OBVIOUSLY, NO TO TROOP ESCALATION- IMMEDIATE,UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL U.S./ALLIED TROOPS FROM IRAQ!-SUPPORT AND BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIER AND SAILOR SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
This will be one of my shorter blogs. After all, what more needs to be said after President Bush unveiled his Plan "A" for 'victory' in Iraq. They must have spent all of twenty minutes on this plan. Actually, any more time would have been wasted. We have seen this kind of escalation before. They called it Vietnam. But the same mentality is at work. Enough, in fact, more than enough said.
Here is Plan "B", short and sweet. Immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied troops from Iraq, pronto. Forget the politicians, Democratic or Republican. Forget the military brass. Forget the advisers and the think tank specialists. Let us turn our direction where it counts to fighting for the soul of the troops. Form anti-war soldier and sailor committees now. If the troops in Iraq decide to leave, and in the final analysis they are the only ones who can end this war, we must not let them stand alone.
STILL HO HUM-THE HOUSE DEMOCRATS PASS A VERY MINIMUM WAGE BILL
COMMENTARY
This week, the week of January 8, 2007, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, passed a new federal minimum wage bill making the new minimum wage standard $7.25/hr.. This bill was hailed as the beginning of the golden age of working people by the organized labor tops and Democratic politicians. Be still my heart-we have reached the promise land! Of course for most Democratic politicans a $7 an hour wage is very far removed from their daily reality. No, that is not exactly true. When they are at home and notice the people, mainly immigrants, who maintain their lawns and clean and repair their houses-that is where they connect with the minimum wage. For a very different take on this question I repost a blog from the summer of 2006 when this issue first surfaced. I stand by the political points made there.
HO-HUM- THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO FIGHT FOR A $7 FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON? FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE!
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Is there no end to this madness of bourgeois parliamentary politics? This writer has just recently learned that the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, wants to reintroduce legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage standard from $5 to $7 (rounded off)/hour. This is legislation that earlier in the session the Republican-dominated Congress brushed aside without a murmur as an outrage against humankind. This project is supposedly the lynch pin of the Democratic program, and incidentally the road to heaven for working people, for the 2006 election cycle in the fall.
Let’s do the math-rounding off a little. National median household income is about $50,000/yr. $5*40hours*52 weeks= $10,000 /yr. That is very, very, very poor, indeed. Now, let us try $7*40 hours*52 weeks=$15,000/yr. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would agree that still is very, very, very poor, indeed. These numbers speak to “Third World” economic conditions. And it’s no accident that a significant proportion of people at the bottom are blacks, Hispanics and immigrants from “third world” countries. Jesus, with this program this writer has to seriously reconsider his longtime fundamental opposition to capitalist parties and to capitalism. $7/hour minimum wages means we have entered paradise. Forget socialist equality. Forget the classless society. Just vote Democratic in 2006.
Seriously though, this issue brings up what militants must do. Our program is not small, incremental increases of minimum wage levels but a living wage for all. That is the program that a workers party representative in Congress would fight for. However, that is not the end all or be all of our program. Karl Marx long ago argued against the bourgeois and socialist theorists of the Iron Law of Wages (those who thought the struggle for increased wages was Utopian or counterproductive because the capitalists’ wage bills were fixed). He also argued against the trade union reformists that the remedy was not a “fair day’s pay for a far day’s work” but the ultimate abolition of the wage system through societal redistribution of the social surplus generated by labor. That is our ultimate goal.
Nevertheless, the capitalists will argue that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs here or send jobs to other countries. No, it will reduce their profits-maybe (they always seem to be able to generate those non-existent funds when pressed to the wall by successful strikes). That is the bottom line. To be honest, it is not the concern of militants if individual capitalists go under. Our immediate fight is for jobs, and jobs with a living wage and some dignity. To stop runaway shops labor has to organize internationally. To stop the 'race to the bottom' here labor has to organize Wal-Mart and the South, of openers. That is the beginning. The end? Remember Karl Marx’s point-ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
This week, the week of January 8, 2007, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, passed a new federal minimum wage bill making the new minimum wage standard $7.25/hr.. This bill was hailed as the beginning of the golden age of working people by the organized labor tops and Democratic politicians. Be still my heart-we have reached the promise land! Of course for most Democratic politicans a $7 an hour wage is very far removed from their daily reality. No, that is not exactly true. When they are at home and notice the people, mainly immigrants, who maintain their lawns and clean and repair their houses-that is where they connect with the minimum wage. For a very different take on this question I repost a blog from the summer of 2006 when this issue first surfaced. I stand by the political points made there.
HO-HUM- THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO FIGHT FOR A $7 FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON? FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE!
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Is there no end to this madness of bourgeois parliamentary politics? This writer has just recently learned that the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, wants to reintroduce legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage standard from $5 to $7 (rounded off)/hour. This is legislation that earlier in the session the Republican-dominated Congress brushed aside without a murmur as an outrage against humankind. This project is supposedly the lynch pin of the Democratic program, and incidentally the road to heaven for working people, for the 2006 election cycle in the fall.
Let’s do the math-rounding off a little. National median household income is about $50,000/yr. $5*40hours*52 weeks= $10,000 /yr. That is very, very, very poor, indeed. Now, let us try $7*40 hours*52 weeks=$15,000/yr. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would agree that still is very, very, very poor, indeed. These numbers speak to “Third World” economic conditions. And it’s no accident that a significant proportion of people at the bottom are blacks, Hispanics and immigrants from “third world” countries. Jesus, with this program this writer has to seriously reconsider his longtime fundamental opposition to capitalist parties and to capitalism. $7/hour minimum wages means we have entered paradise. Forget socialist equality. Forget the classless society. Just vote Democratic in 2006.
Seriously though, this issue brings up what militants must do. Our program is not small, incremental increases of minimum wage levels but a living wage for all. That is the program that a workers party representative in Congress would fight for. However, that is not the end all or be all of our program. Karl Marx long ago argued against the bourgeois and socialist theorists of the Iron Law of Wages (those who thought the struggle for increased wages was Utopian or counterproductive because the capitalists’ wage bills were fixed). He also argued against the trade union reformists that the remedy was not a “fair day’s pay for a far day’s work” but the ultimate abolition of the wage system through societal redistribution of the social surplus generated by labor. That is our ultimate goal.
Nevertheless, the capitalists will argue that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs here or send jobs to other countries. No, it will reduce their profits-maybe (they always seem to be able to generate those non-existent funds when pressed to the wall by successful strikes). That is the bottom line. To be honest, it is not the concern of militants if individual capitalists go under. Our immediate fight is for jobs, and jobs with a living wage and some dignity. To stop runaway shops labor has to organize internationally. To stop the 'race to the bottom' here labor has to organize Wal-Mart and the South, of openers. That is the beginning. The end? Remember Karl Marx’s point-ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Monday, January 08, 2007
A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION, INDEED
BOOK REVIEW
A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION, 1603-1714, CHIRSTOPHER HILL, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1980
The late eminent British Marxist historian Christopher Hill is better known for his pioneer work in the micro-history of the English Revolution and the influences of left-wing political forces such as the Levellers and Diggers and religious forces such the Quakers, Shakers, Ranters and Seekers on it. Here he has written an overview of the entire 17th century as part of this series of books on the history of England to modern times. Needless to say some of his work around the English Revolution seeps into this work as well, which makes his analysis of that period the strongest section of the book.
Professor Hill traces the major social, political, economic and religious trends that culminated in the revolution back to the reign of James I (and some economic trends back to Elizabethan times). He covers such keys areas of conflict as the changes in land use and ownership, agricultural innovations including the highly controversial enclosure policy, governmental foreign policy which tended to have a distinctly Catholic, particularly pro-Spanish, orientation, the embryonic beginnings of the split between court and ‘country’ as a result of Stuart arbitrary rule, the split between landed proprietors and city merchants; the city and the country, the established church and the numerous pro-Puritan (read Calvinist) sects that started to sprout up like wildfire and the rise of a secular democratic movement based in the cities that both the Army and the Levellers would draw from in the Civil War period.
Special note should be taken of the decades between the beginning of the defensive struggle against Charles I in 1640 and 1660 with the restoration of his son Charles II to the throne. At this point the tensions that were merely outlined by the prior policies of the Stuart governments came to the breaking point. Hill does more than merely narrate that story. He shows, based on his well-stocked body of knowledge about the period, the various stages of the revolution from the first defensive struggles of the Parliamentarians to the definitive break with Charles and the establishment of the New Model Army which would usher in a period of military dominance of government and society and with it the rise and fall of the various secular and religious democratic movements. Hill also does a masterful job of showing how the various plebian democratic forces led by the Levellers, and to a much lesser extent the Diggers,in society reacted to governmental policy (and how the government dealt with those forces) and how these various fights sapped the revolutionary energy of the masses.
As more than one historian and sociologist has noted, as a general proposition the study of post-revolutionary periods tends to be rather anti-climatic. That is also the case here with the restoration of Charles II. England, however, exhibited that trend in revolutionary history that notes that even when the revolution runs out of steam there is generally no regression back to the old ways of ruling. Despite the regression in governmental form, Parliament supremacy was essentially assured although not without various intrigues against it and against England. As importantly, the capitalist industrial developmental trends that had been gathering force throughout the century kept expanding after the revolution. That trend would make England the number one power in the world in the next century. For an excellent overview of an important period in English history, which moreover is filled with helpful footnotes on sources for further research, this is your stop.
A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION, 1603-1714, CHIRSTOPHER HILL, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1980
The late eminent British Marxist historian Christopher Hill is better known for his pioneer work in the micro-history of the English Revolution and the influences of left-wing political forces such as the Levellers and Diggers and religious forces such the Quakers, Shakers, Ranters and Seekers on it. Here he has written an overview of the entire 17th century as part of this series of books on the history of England to modern times. Needless to say some of his work around the English Revolution seeps into this work as well, which makes his analysis of that period the strongest section of the book.
Professor Hill traces the major social, political, economic and religious trends that culminated in the revolution back to the reign of James I (and some economic trends back to Elizabethan times). He covers such keys areas of conflict as the changes in land use and ownership, agricultural innovations including the highly controversial enclosure policy, governmental foreign policy which tended to have a distinctly Catholic, particularly pro-Spanish, orientation, the embryonic beginnings of the split between court and ‘country’ as a result of Stuart arbitrary rule, the split between landed proprietors and city merchants; the city and the country, the established church and the numerous pro-Puritan (read Calvinist) sects that started to sprout up like wildfire and the rise of a secular democratic movement based in the cities that both the Army and the Levellers would draw from in the Civil War period.
Special note should be taken of the decades between the beginning of the defensive struggle against Charles I in 1640 and 1660 with the restoration of his son Charles II to the throne. At this point the tensions that were merely outlined by the prior policies of the Stuart governments came to the breaking point. Hill does more than merely narrate that story. He shows, based on his well-stocked body of knowledge about the period, the various stages of the revolution from the first defensive struggles of the Parliamentarians to the definitive break with Charles and the establishment of the New Model Army which would usher in a period of military dominance of government and society and with it the rise and fall of the various secular and religious democratic movements. Hill also does a masterful job of showing how the various plebian democratic forces led by the Levellers, and to a much lesser extent the Diggers,in society reacted to governmental policy (and how the government dealt with those forces) and how these various fights sapped the revolutionary energy of the masses.
As more than one historian and sociologist has noted, as a general proposition the study of post-revolutionary periods tends to be rather anti-climatic. That is also the case here with the restoration of Charles II. England, however, exhibited that trend in revolutionary history that notes that even when the revolution runs out of steam there is generally no regression back to the old ways of ruling. Despite the regression in governmental form, Parliament supremacy was essentially assured although not without various intrigues against it and against England. As importantly, the capitalist industrial developmental trends that had been gathering force throughout the century kept expanding after the revolution. That trend would make England the number one power in the world in the next century. For an excellent overview of an important period in English history, which moreover is filled with helpful footnotes on sources for further research, this is your stop.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
*A TALE OF TWO ANTI-WAR MARCHES
Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.
A TALE OF TWO MARCHES
COMMENTARY
A NOTE ON THE WINTER/SPRING 2007 ANTI-WAR ‘OFFENSIVE’
IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S./ALLIED TROOPS FROM IRAQ!-NO TROOP ESCALATION!-BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
As we enter the first week of the New Year 2007 the front pages continue to be full of articles about the quagmire in Iraq. The death toll for American troops reached the 3000 mark. More importantly, the wounded numbers are even grimmer, over 20,000, 10,000 grievously. The number of Iraqis killed and wounded is in dispute but those numbers are vastly greater than the American causalities. The controversy over the hanging of the main villain of the piece, Saddam, if anything seems to have heightened the already inflamed tensions there among Sunnis and Shiites. The civil war rages unabated with the monotonous daily reports of X number of victims found bound, shot in the head and dumped somewhere.
Furthermore, President Bush has apparently decided to ‘purge’ the current American Iraq military command, interestingly enough, a purge of commanders on the ground who did not support an increase in American troops. Why? The news in the coming weeks will not be pretty. This administration has decided that the way to end the Iraq problem is to send in more troops in order to achieve ‘victory’. The highly-touted Iraq Study Group Report (you remember that document, don’t you?) that was supposed to insure a ‘graceful exit’ is in the bottom of some White House wastepaper basket by now. Oh yes, I almost forgot, the Democrats have taken over both Houses in the 110th Congress. It only seems like yesterday that my liberal friends held that this event in itself was enough to end the war. Believe that idea at your peril.
All of the above-mentioned events would seem to point to a ready-made basis for a ‘surge’ of anti-war protest this season based on more political clarity than the movement has exhibited in the past. Not so, unfortunately. Those who are unaware of the organizational fracture that occurred a couple of years ago should be informed here that the two mass umbrella organizations, United for Peace and Justice (UJP, for short) and the Answer Coalition, which have led the anti-war movement thus far have two separate marches scheduled. On the weekend of January 27th the UJP plans to bring its contingents to Washington to rally and then lobby Congress on bended knees to end the war. The Answer Coalition intends to bring its contingents to Washington to rally at the Pentagon on March 17th (the 4th anniversary of the war) and commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the March on the Pentagon in 1967 which signaled an escalation of anti-war tactics at that time. Perhaps the strategy this time, like then, is to ‘levitate’ that building. I wish that political solutions in the fight against imperialist war were so easy.
Please do not get me wrong. I have spent almost my whole political life on the streets at some demonstration for some worthy cause or against some egregious policy. Damn, it is always better to protest some injustice in the streets than remain passive in the face of imperialist governmental policy. That is not the question. The point is that you cannot keep spinning your wheels with the same namby-pamby strategy of assuming that you are dealing with a government made up of rational people. Nor, for that matter, can mere symbolic acts get you very far. Believe me, I have participated in more than my share of symbolic protests. Yes it does make one feel good, for a moment. That, however, is not enough.
What is enough? Readers of this space know my answer- a workers party that fights for a workers government. But today that is merely the music of the future. I make two proposals for immediate action here. The first, which I have been harping on for years, is to fight against the war budget. You know, the money that funds the war. Historically, socialists and their allies have fought for that position. The honored name of German Left Social Democratic leader Karl Liebknecht and his fight against the war budget during World War I comes easily to mind.
By this fight I do not mean some ‘sense of the Congress’ non-binding resolution that liberal Democratic politicians love to vote for, as long as it does not tie them to anything. Nor do I mean a Congressman Kucinch-type proposal withholding funds for future deployments, leaving the current 100 billion war appropriations alone. I mean a straight up YES or NO vote on the appropriations themselves. From the news out of Washington it does not look like that is even on the agenda. Yes, all manner of Democrat are bewailing the President about the correctness of troop escalation but in the end they will vote to fund that increase, probably even ‘socialist’ Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. That, dear reader, will not be a sight for the faint-hearted as the leading presidential candidates and others fall all over themselves to vote yes.
Secondly, and more realistically today, the anti-war movement needs to build anti-war soldier and sailor committees. I have been harping on this issue for at least a year now. Let us get serious about the focus of the anti-war fight. We have been aiming in the wrong direction. The Bush Administration is inured to talk, demonstrations or anything else. The military command has led the rank and file troops down the golden path. It should be clear by now that even they do not take the noise about ‘victory’ from the Administration seriously. The loyal governmental opposition, the Democrats, have had nothing to add but confusion. We of the anti-war movement, and I will take my fair share of responsibility on this, have failed in our efforts for immediate, unconditional withdrawal up to now. That leaves the rank and file soldiers and sailors to figure a way out. More than a few are fed up with the war and their useless sacrifice. Our task is to help them out. They must not face the military brass alone. Yes, it is important to go to Washington to protest, but, it is more important to get out to the army, marine and naval bases and talk to and listen to the troops that have fought or preparing to fight in Iraq. That, my friends, in the final analysis is the short way to end this damn war.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
A TALE OF TWO MARCHES
COMMENTARY
A NOTE ON THE WINTER/SPRING 2007 ANTI-WAR ‘OFFENSIVE’
IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S./ALLIED TROOPS FROM IRAQ!-NO TROOP ESCALATION!-BUILD ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEES!
As we enter the first week of the New Year 2007 the front pages continue to be full of articles about the quagmire in Iraq. The death toll for American troops reached the 3000 mark. More importantly, the wounded numbers are even grimmer, over 20,000, 10,000 grievously. The number of Iraqis killed and wounded is in dispute but those numbers are vastly greater than the American causalities. The controversy over the hanging of the main villain of the piece, Saddam, if anything seems to have heightened the already inflamed tensions there among Sunnis and Shiites. The civil war rages unabated with the monotonous daily reports of X number of victims found bound, shot in the head and dumped somewhere.
Furthermore, President Bush has apparently decided to ‘purge’ the current American Iraq military command, interestingly enough, a purge of commanders on the ground who did not support an increase in American troops. Why? The news in the coming weeks will not be pretty. This administration has decided that the way to end the Iraq problem is to send in more troops in order to achieve ‘victory’. The highly-touted Iraq Study Group Report (you remember that document, don’t you?) that was supposed to insure a ‘graceful exit’ is in the bottom of some White House wastepaper basket by now. Oh yes, I almost forgot, the Democrats have taken over both Houses in the 110th Congress. It only seems like yesterday that my liberal friends held that this event in itself was enough to end the war. Believe that idea at your peril.
All of the above-mentioned events would seem to point to a ready-made basis for a ‘surge’ of anti-war protest this season based on more political clarity than the movement has exhibited in the past. Not so, unfortunately. Those who are unaware of the organizational fracture that occurred a couple of years ago should be informed here that the two mass umbrella organizations, United for Peace and Justice (UJP, for short) and the Answer Coalition, which have led the anti-war movement thus far have two separate marches scheduled. On the weekend of January 27th the UJP plans to bring its contingents to Washington to rally and then lobby Congress on bended knees to end the war. The Answer Coalition intends to bring its contingents to Washington to rally at the Pentagon on March 17th (the 4th anniversary of the war) and commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the March on the Pentagon in 1967 which signaled an escalation of anti-war tactics at that time. Perhaps the strategy this time, like then, is to ‘levitate’ that building. I wish that political solutions in the fight against imperialist war were so easy.
Please do not get me wrong. I have spent almost my whole political life on the streets at some demonstration for some worthy cause or against some egregious policy. Damn, it is always better to protest some injustice in the streets than remain passive in the face of imperialist governmental policy. That is not the question. The point is that you cannot keep spinning your wheels with the same namby-pamby strategy of assuming that you are dealing with a government made up of rational people. Nor, for that matter, can mere symbolic acts get you very far. Believe me, I have participated in more than my share of symbolic protests. Yes it does make one feel good, for a moment. That, however, is not enough.
What is enough? Readers of this space know my answer- a workers party that fights for a workers government. But today that is merely the music of the future. I make two proposals for immediate action here. The first, which I have been harping on for years, is to fight against the war budget. You know, the money that funds the war. Historically, socialists and their allies have fought for that position. The honored name of German Left Social Democratic leader Karl Liebknecht and his fight against the war budget during World War I comes easily to mind.
By this fight I do not mean some ‘sense of the Congress’ non-binding resolution that liberal Democratic politicians love to vote for, as long as it does not tie them to anything. Nor do I mean a Congressman Kucinch-type proposal withholding funds for future deployments, leaving the current 100 billion war appropriations alone. I mean a straight up YES or NO vote on the appropriations themselves. From the news out of Washington it does not look like that is even on the agenda. Yes, all manner of Democrat are bewailing the President about the correctness of troop escalation but in the end they will vote to fund that increase, probably even ‘socialist’ Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. That, dear reader, will not be a sight for the faint-hearted as the leading presidential candidates and others fall all over themselves to vote yes.
Secondly, and more realistically today, the anti-war movement needs to build anti-war soldier and sailor committees. I have been harping on this issue for at least a year now. Let us get serious about the focus of the anti-war fight. We have been aiming in the wrong direction. The Bush Administration is inured to talk, demonstrations or anything else. The military command has led the rank and file troops down the golden path. It should be clear by now that even they do not take the noise about ‘victory’ from the Administration seriously. The loyal governmental opposition, the Democrats, have had nothing to add but confusion. We of the anti-war movement, and I will take my fair share of responsibility on this, have failed in our efforts for immediate, unconditional withdrawal up to now. That leaves the rank and file soldiers and sailors to figure a way out. More than a few are fed up with the war and their useless sacrifice. Our task is to help them out. They must not face the military brass alone. Yes, it is important to go to Washington to protest, but, it is more important to get out to the army, marine and naval bases and talk to and listen to the troops that have fought or preparing to fight in Iraq. That, my friends, in the final analysis is the short way to end this damn war.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Friday, January 05, 2007
*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"Abolish The Racist Death Penalty"
Click on the title to link to an on line copy of the "Workers Vanguard" article on the subject mentioned in the headline.
*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-The 1956 Hungarian Revolution- A Workers Revolution- A Two Part Article
Click on the title to link to an online copy of Part Two of the "Workers Vanguard" article on the subject mentioned in the headline.
Workers Vanguard No. 883
5 January 2007
Workers Political Revolution Against Stalinist Rule
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Part One
This past October 23 marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The anniversary was celebrated internationally by bourgeois politicians and ideologues, who cynically portrayed the uprising as a precursor to the counterrevolutions that restored capitalist rule in East Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-1992. Four months earlier, George W. Bush visited Budapest and laid flowers in honor of “the Hungarian patriots who tore down the statue of Josef Stalin and defied an empire.” Commemorations of the uprising were held in Budapest by the government of former-Communist, now-millionaire Ferenc Gyurcsany as well as by anti-government protesters, including a hefty contingent of fascist skinheads.
The depiction of the 1956 events as an anti-Communist, pro-capitalist rebellion, which has been propagated by reactionary forces for the past half-century, is an outright lie. The Hungarian uprising was an attempt by the working class, in a country where capitalism had been overthrown but political power was in the hands of a Stalinist bureaucracy, to throw off bureaucratic rule and open the road to socialism. Workers seized the factories and mines and set up elected workers councils (soviets), embryonic organs of proletarian political power. For weeks the workers fought courageously—by means of strikes, demonstrations and armed struggle—before this political revolution was suppressed.
The cynical misappropriation by capitalist spokesmen of the uprising was skewered in a 1957 document by Shane Mage, a founder of our political tendency:
“What a cruel, cynical joke of history this seems to be! The Hungarian revolution is hailed lyrically by the rulers of the ‘West,’ the worst enemies of socialism and of the Russian revolution. The men who surrounded the infant Soviet Republic with a ‘cordon sanitaire’ of steel and fire, who hailed Hitler and Mussolini as bulwarks against Bolshevism, who stood by with smiling ‘neutrality’ while Franco murdered freedom in Spain, whose hands are still stained by the crimes of Algeria, Suez, Guatemala—the ‘Free’ world gleefully hands its poisoned bouquets to the freedom fighters of Hungary.”
—“The Meaning of Two Revolutions” (reprinted in the 1959 Young Socialist Forum pamphlet, The Hungarian Revolution)
Bourgeois ideologues focus on isolated expressions of anti-Communism, such as some lumpen gangs calling themselves “freedom fighters” or arch-reactionary Cardinal József Mindszenty addressing the insurgents by radio. (Following the suppression of the revolt, Mindszenty spent the next 15 years holed up in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.) This is a fundamental distortion, one that was also disseminated by Stalinist spokesmen to justify the brutal repression of the workers. As we stated in “Political Revolution in Hungary—Ten Years After” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 8, November-December 1966), the slander that the Hungarian masses embraced fascists and monarchist reactionaries “was demolished not only by the actions of the revolutionaries—including the violent suppression of what anti-Semitic and White Guard threats actually existed—but by the workers’ militantly communist aspirations and their unambiguous hatred for capitalism.”
The Hungarian working class was overwhelmingly committed to socialism and opposed to a return to capitalism. In all of the workers councils and other proletarian bodies that arose in 1956, Communist Party members were elected to positions of leadership. Ferenc Töke, a vice-president of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest, later recalled: “No reactionary tendency manifested itself throughout the entire strike. There was never, at any moment, a question of the former owners eventually returning” (Jean-Jacques Marie and Balazs Nagy [eds.], Pologne-Hongrie 1956 [1966]). The Central Workers Council of Budapest declared in a 27 November 1956 appeal to workers councils throughout the country: “Faithful to this mission, we defend, even at the cost of our lives, our factories and our fatherland against any attempt to restore capitalism.”
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was in fact a powerful confirmation of the Trotskyist understanding of the nature of the deformed and degenerated workers states. In the Soviet Union and East Europe before the restoration of capitalism—as in China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam today—capitalist rule was overthrown as a result of social revolutions but political power was/is monopolized by a conservative, anti-working-class bureaucracy. The Hungarian Revolution decisively demonstrated that the Stalinist regime represents a caste parasitically resting upon the collectivized economy, not a new type of social class. Unlike the capitalist ruling class, which in the face of revolution inevitably unites around a program of counterrevolution, the Stalinist bureaucracy in Hungary shattered, with large sections going over to the side of the workers.
These events caused a profound crisis in the Communist parties internationally. In Italy, the Communist Party lost some 200,000 of its members. The French Communist Party, already facing discontent over its support to the Socialist-led government as it pursued the Algerian War, saw its share of the electorate plunge. In Britain, the Communist Party lost a third of its membership. More than 200 CP members and ex-members, including a number of talented intellectuals, were won over by the British Trotskyist group led by Gerry Healy. These former CPers included Brian Pearce, Cliff Slaughter, Tom Kemp and Peter Fryer, the correspondent in Hungary for the Communist Party’s Daily Worker whose first-hand observations of the events were recounted in his 1956 book, Hungarian Tragedy (see article, page 9).
With the formation of workers soviets, Hungary entered into a period of incipient dual power in which local workers councils, defended by the armed masses, confronted what remained of the Stalinist repressive apparatus, which was backed by Soviet troops. Mage noted:
“The first and decisive thing about the Hungarian revolution is that it was a workers revolution, and the leading role of the workers was institutionally formulated by the establishment of workers councils. Except for the Russian army, there was in Hungary not the shadow of a social force capable of preventing the assumption of state power by the workers councils. Thus the objective conditions for the formation of a soviet republic, in the event of revolutionary victory of course, were entirely favorable.
“The actual level of consciousness of the Hungarian workers, however, was not at the level indicated by the objective possibilities of the revolution. In this the Hungarian workers were like the Russian proletariat after the February revolution. The general demand was not for all power to the workers councils, but for ‘free elections’ to a sovereign parliament.
“It would, however, be a disastrous mistake to take the level of consciousness corresponding to the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy as the permanent and ultimate political program of the Hungarian proletariat. The Hungarian workers wanted ‘free elections,’ but they also wanted to preserve their own councils and extend their powers. They wanted to move forward to socialism, not backward to capitalism.”
—“The YSL Right Wing and the ‘Crisis of World Stalinism’,”
The Hungarian Revolution; excerpted as “‘Pure Democracy’ or Political Revolution in East Europe” in the Spartacist pamphlet, Solidarność: Polish Company Union for CIA and Bankers (1981)
The Birth of the Hungarian Deformed Workers State
To understand the 1956 Hungarian Revolution requires examining the Russian Revolution of 1917—the only successful revolution as yet carried out by the working class—as well as its later degeneration under the Stalinist bureaucracy. In the October Revolution of 1917, the proletariat, led by Lenin’s Bolshevik Party, took state power, basing its rule on the soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants deputies. The young workers state nationalized the land and went on to expropriate capitalist property. The Bolsheviks understood their revolution as the first step of the world socialist revolution and founded the Third (Communist) International in 1919.
However, the immaturity and indecisiveness of revolutionary leadership outside Russia led to the failure to realize opportunities for proletarian revolution. For example, a proletarian revolution was defeated in Germany in 1918-19, and short-lived soviet republics were crushed in Bavaria and Hungary in 1919. The decisive defeat was the failure of the German Communist Party to consummate a socialist revolution in 1923. The economically backward Soviet workers state—suffering under the devastation wrought by World War I and compounded by the bloody 1918-20 Civil War against imperialist-backed counterrevolution—was left isolated in the face of imperialist encirclement and a general stabilization of the world capitalist order. Together with the decimation of the most conscious layer of the proletariat during the Civil War, these factors set the stage for a political counterrevolution.
While the social foundations of the workers state—above all, the expropriation of the capitalist class and the establishment of a collectivized economy—remained intact, by 1924 political power was transferred from the hands of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard into the hands of a conservative bureaucratic caste headed by Stalin. From that point on, the people who ruled the USSR, the way the USSR was ruled, and the purposes for which the USSR was ruled all changed. Under the false dogma of “socialism in one country,” proclaimed by Stalin in December 1924, the bureaucracy accommodated the imperialist order. Correspondingly, the Comintern became transformed over time into an instrument of the bureaucracy’s search for “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. With the elaboration of the “Popular Front” line at the Comintern’s Seventh (and last) Congress in 1935, the Stalinists explicitly and officially embraced the program of class collaboration with the “democratic” imperialist bourgeoisies.
Leading the fight against the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party, Leon Trotsky’s Left Opposition upheld the revolutionary-internationalist program of the October Revolution. In 1938, Trotsky and his co-thinkers founded the Fourth International. Central to its program was the unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state against imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution and the call for proletarian political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and restore working-class political power. Such a political revolution would be premised on defense of the socialized property forms. This is in contrast to social revolutions or counterrevolutions, which overturn existing property relations and place a different class in power. The Trotskyist analysis of Stalinism is key to understanding the creation and subsequent development of the bureaucratically deformed workers states of East Europe.
In the closing months of World War II, in Hungary as throughout much of East Europe, large sections of society welcomed the Soviet Red Army as liberators from the nightmare of Nazi occupation and supported the ensuing destruction of the old bourgeois order. Class-conscious workers hated the right-wing dictatorship of Admiral Miklós Horthy, who ruled Hungary during the interwar period and much of World War II. Impoverished agrarian laborers settled huge scores with the landlords in this land of feudal-derived estates.
Initially, the remnants of the bourgeoisies of Soviet-occupied East Europe, which had been discredited and shattered by the war, were not expropriated, either politically or economically. In Hungary, elections in 1945 gave a majority, in what was then a largely peasant country, to the bourgeois-clericalist Smallholders Party, which was allowed to form a coalition government with the social democrats and Stalinists. But, as elsewhere in East Europe, it was the Red Army that held the real power. Under the growing pressure of the anti-Soviet Cold War, the Stalinists in 1947-48 proceeded to expropriate the bourgeoisie in Hungary and elsewhere in East Europe, jettisoning their bourgeois coalition partners, nationalizing industry and establishing deformed workers states, that is, societies qualitatively similar to the Soviet Union under the Stalinist bureaucracy.
Prelude to Political Revolution
The 1945-48 period of the so-called “People’s Independence Front” government had a significant effect on the attitudes of the Hungarian working masses. Many would later view that period favorably in comparison to the harsh Stalinist police state that came afterward, although virtually no one wanted a return of the capitalists and large landowners. The 1945-48 interregnum also created certain left-right tensions among the Stalinists themselves. An incipient left opposition, impatient with the slow pace of social transformation, crystallized around Minister of the Interior Laszlo Rajk, a hero in the eyes of many for having fought in the Spanish Civil War and for having been a leader of the Communist underground under the Horthy dictatorship. At Moscow’s behest, the Hungarian regime adopted a one-sided economic policy concentrated on heavy industry. This served to drive down living standards, further fueling proletarian discontent.
The fact that, with the exception of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the East European Stalinist regimes were imposed from without meant that they had shallower roots than in the Soviet Union. This rendered the social order in the East European deformed workers states relatively volatile and unstable.
Facing social discontent, the East European bureaucracies began to split into Moscow loyalists and national-liberal Stalinists more attuned to popular moods. In 1949 Tito’s Yugoslavia broke from the Kremlin. With its “workers self-management,” Titoism presented itself as a more democratic and authentic form of socialism than Stalin’s Russia. Among East European Communist oppositionists there was a tendency to idealize the Yugoslav “road to socialism,” on the one hand, and Western bourgeois democracy on the other. Fearing further splits, Stalin went into a murderous frenzy, seeking to eliminate any potential Titos elsewhere. The Polish party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka was imprisoned and placed under house arrest. Rajk in Hungary and Rudolf Slánský in Czechoslovakia were subjected to show trials and then executed.
Following Stalin’s death in March 1953, the Kremlin bureaucracy and its counterparts in East Europe embarked on a policy that has been referred to as “de-Stalinization.” Moves in the direction of liberalization throughout East Europe had the effect of simultaneously opening up possibilities for mass struggle while reinforcing illusions that, under the pressure of the masses, the Stalinist bureaucracy could carry out self-reform and become an instrument for building socialism.
On 17 June 1953, the first incipient proletarian political revolution in the deformed workers states broke out in East Germany. Both the Stalinist regimes and West Germany’s capitalist rulers portrayed the uprising as pro-Western. But this was a lie. Workers from the East German Hennigsdorf steel works marched through West Berlin and back to the East demanding a metal workers government. June 17 powerfully demonstrated the potential for the slogan later adopted by the international Spartacist tendency (now the International Communist League) for the revolutionary reunification of Germany through political revolution in the East and socialist revolution in the West. (For more on the 1953 events, see “The East German Workers Uprising of 17 June 1953,” WV No. 332, 17 June 1983.)
The post-1953 crisis of “de-Stalinization” had a particular impact on Hungary. Of all the Stalinist regimes in East Europe, that of Matyas Rakosi was unquestionably the bloodiest: more Communists were killed under Rakosi than under Horthy. Rakosi’s widely despised political police, the AVH, a multitude of highly paid thugs, constituted fully 1 percent of the entire population of Budapest.
In 1953, to head off the pressures building up in Hungary, the Soviet leadership forced Rakosi to step down as prime minister. He was replaced by Imre Nagy, who had a reputation as a liberal Communist. Nagy proclaimed a “New Course” that included easing the pace of industrialization, lessening pressures on the peasantry and relaxing police terror. However, Rakosi, fearing the vengeance of his political opponents, hung onto power and by 1955 managed to oust Nagy. Thus, between 1953 and 1956 the Hungarian Stalinist regime was torn by a severe polarization between the Rakosi clique and the mass of Communist Party members who supported Nagy. One sign of the ferment in the Communist Party was the emergence of the Petofi Circle, a grouping of dissident intellectuals and others that provided a forum for public debate and became a hub of opposition to the Rakosi hardliners.
In February 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a “secret” speech to the Soviet Communist Party’s 20th Congress in which he acknowledged a number of Stalin’s crimes. Four months later, locomotive workers in Poland demonstrating for higher wages and lower prices attacked the city hall, radio station and prison in Poznan. Security forces fired on them, killing over 50 workers. Poland entered into an incipient proletarian political revolution, which was headed off at the last minute by Gomulka’s restoration to power. Subsequently, Khrushchev and his Kremlin colleagues did not move against Gomulka, in large part because in factories throughout the country workers councils organized resistance to any attempt to overturn the “Polish October.” Gomulka granted sweeping concessions, such as wage increases. But once the crisis was defused, he disbanded the workers councils that had helped bring him to power.
Meanwhile in Hungary, 200,000 people turned out in early October for a ceremony marking the regime’s “rehabilitation” of Laszlo Rajk. The mass turnout foreshadowed the revolutionary explosion later that month.
The Hungarian October
The Hungarian Revolution, whose events were broadcast on radio and television internationally, was one of the best-documented revolutions ever. It began on October 23 with a largely student demonstration solidarizing with the victory of Gomulka in Poland and calling for the reinstatement of Nagy as head of the Hungarian government. The Rakosi regime denounced the protest as a counterrevolutionary mobilization, and when the unarmed demonstrators marched to the radio station to protest, the AVH goons fired on them.
Hungary then exploded in a near-universal general strike combined with military resistance to the regime. While the initial agitation was student-based, once the fighting started the core of the insurgency in Budapest and the other main centers was the workers councils and workers militias. Writing about the emergence of the workers soviets, Peter Fryer observed in Hungarian Tragedy:
“In their spontaneous origin, in their composition, in their sense of responsibility, in their efficient organisation of food supplies and of civil order, in the restraint they exercised over the wilder elements among the youth, in the wisdom with which so many of them handled the problem of Soviet troops, and, not least, in their striking resemblance at so many points to the soviets or councils of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies which sprang up in Russia in the 1905 revolution and again in February 1917, these committees, a network of which now extended over the whole of Hungary, were remarkably uniform. They were at once organs of insurrection—the coming together of delegates elected by factories and universities, mines and Army units—and organs of popular self-government, which the armed people trusted. As such they enjoyed tremendous authority, and it is no exaggeration to say that until the Soviet attack of November 4 the real power in the country lay in their hands.”
Even a 1957 “Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary” by the United Nations, whose role is to provide a fig leaf for imperialist depredation, noted that the emergence of workers councils “represented the first practical step to restore order and to reorganize the Hungarian economy on a socialist basis, but without rigid Party control or the apparatus of terror.”
The Hungarian army immediately ceased to be an effective force. Some sections went over to the insurgents; many soldiers turned their weapons over to the workers militias. Militarily, the turning point of the revolution was the attempt by the Soviet Army to capture the Kilian barracks, the main stronghold of the Hungarian army within Budapest. The commander of the barracks, Colonel Pal Maleter, a veteran Communist, went over to the revolution and led the forces that repulsed the Soviet attack. Following the subsequent Soviet withdrawal from Budapest, the embryo of an effective revolutionary authority was seen in the newly established National Guard under Maleter’s command, although its authority remained largely limited to the capital. In many press interviews, Maleter insisted that he was a good Communist and would remain so. Maleter’s comments in one such interview are recounted in Hungary 1956 (1976) by Bill Lomax:
“‘If we get rid of the Russians don’t think we’re going back to the old days. And if there’s people who do want to go back, we’ll see!’ To emphasize the last remark, he reached for his revolver holster and repeated, ‘We don’t mean to go back to capitalism. We want socialism in Hungary’.”
Despite attempts to portray the uprising as dominated by anti-Russian nationalism, what stands out is the degree to which the insurgents attempted to fraternize with the Soviet soldiers—and the degree to which they were successful. The workers’ and students’ Council of Miskolc published leaflets in Russian for the Red Army soldiers declaring: “Our interests are identical. We and you are all fighting together for a better socialist life.” On October 28, the Hungarian trade-union newspaper Népszava called for the right of asylum for Soviet soldiers who sided with the workers (François Manuel, La Revolution Hongroise des Conseils Ouvriers [1976]).
There were innumerable cases in which Soviet soldiers refused to fight or sided with the insurgents. In his autobiographical In the Name of the Working Class (1986), Sandor Kopacsi, the Budapest police chief who went over to the insurgents, described a scene that occurred on October 25 when Soviet tanks encountered a crowd of demonstrators:
“A boy, undoubtedly a student—the scene took place just below us—pushed his way through the crowd to the first tank and passed something through the loophole.
“It wasn’t a grenade but a sheet of paper. It was followed by others.
“These sheets, many of which my men would later collect, were tracts in Russian composed by students in the faculty of oriental languages. They reminded the Soviet soldiers of the wishes of the Hungarian nation and of the unfortunate role of policemen in which they had been cast. The tracts started with a citation from Marx: ‘A people that oppresses another cannot itself be free.’
“We counted the minutes. Nothing happened.
“Then the top of the turret of the lead tank opened a little, and the commander, with his leather cap and the gold epaulettes, emerged slowly into the view of the apparently unarmed crowd. Then he flung the turret open and perched himself upon the top of his tank….
“The crowd erupted in a frantic ovation. In this jubilant atmosphere, the commander’s cap was thrown into the middle of the crowd. In exchange, someone plunked a Hungarian Army kepi on his head. The crowd sang ‘Kossuth’s Song’ and then the Hungarian national anthem. And, at the top of their voices, they cried: ‘Long live the Soviet Army!’”
Moments later, Kopacsi received a report from one of his police officers: “The AVO [AVH] is firing from every roof. Now the Soviet tanks are firing on the AVO! They’re defending the crowd.”
Though the Stalinist apparatus had disintegrated, a short-lived government was cobbled together under Nagy. On October 28, the Nagy government announced an agreement that Soviet troops would immediately leave Budapest. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Kremlin pulled troops out of Budapest was fear of the effect of fraternization with the insurgent Hungarian masses. But the Kremlin quickly reneged on the agreement. And on November 1, Nagy protested to Soviet Ambassador Yuri Andropov (who would become head of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s) against the entry of new Soviet troops into Hungary without his government’s assent.
The new troops were not only lied to about what was happening; they were lied to about where they were being sent. A leader of the insurgents in a village in eastern Hungary recalled his encounter with the troops (Melvin J. Lasky, ed., The Hungarian Revolution [1957]): “Some of the Russians thought they were in East Germany and that they would soon meet American ‘fascists’ who had invaded the country. Other troops thought they were in the Suez Canal zone.” (The Suez Canal had just been nationalized by Nasser’s Egypt, which was then attacked by British, French and Israeli forces.)
At dawn on November 4, Soviet troops attacked Budapest. Despite stiff resistance, the insurrection was soon crushed. Nevertheless, the general strike continued well into December—the longest nationwide general strike in history. In this way, the proletarian centrality of the uprising was even more evident in its aftermath than during the anarchic period of the revolution itself.
The Significance of Hungary 1956
During his brief tenure, Nagy moved steadily to the right. He brought into his government bourgeois politicians from the “People’s Independence Front” period. Nagy also declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and appealed to the United Nations to defend Hungarian neutrality. The logic of Nagy’s policies, had they succeeded in running their course, was to strangle the revolution and enormously strengthen the forces of capitalist counterrevolution. However, Nagy, who spent his greatest efforts trying to get the workers to lay down their arms, utterly lacked control over events. While the revolutionary workers had their fair share of political confusion, their representative organs were in practice counterposed not only to the old hardline Stalinist butchers like Rakosi but to the Nagy regime as well.
In the industrial city of Miskolc, one of the main centers of the revolution, the workers council sent a delegation to Nagy demanding that a new government be formed based on the existing workers councils, not through elections to a new parliament. The Budapest Parliament of Workers Councils adopted as its first programmatic principles that “the factory belongs to the workers” and that “the supreme controlling body of the factory is the Workers’ Council” (see Lomax, Hungary 1956). While that statement did not express the Marxist program for central economic planning combined with genuine soviet democracy, it was nevertheless incompatible with a capitalist order and bourgeois parliamentarism.
On the available evidence, the Hungarian workers looked toward an idealized version of Titoist Yugoslavia. Tito, however, along with Mao Zedong, supported the crushing of the 1956 Revolution. Tito and Mao were quite aware of the ramifications for their own bureaucratic regimes if the Hungarian workers succeeded in taking and securing political power. Nagy had taken refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest on November 4. But despite an agreement for safe passage out, Nagy was arrested by Soviet forces later that month. He was eventually handed over to the Hungarian Stalinist regime under János Kádár, which executed Nagy as well as Maleter and other leaders of the revolution in 1958.
The repression directed at the workers, however, was relatively mild. The Kádár government announced in early November that it “will not tolerate the persecution of workers on any pretext, for having taken part in recent events.” But Kádár was not in control of events, and Soviet troops conducted searches for those suspected of having participated in the uprising. For the most part, the Kádár regime attempted to piece off the population by raising consumption levels under a policy that came to be known as “goulash communism.”
What was lacking above all in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard party rooted in the working class. Such a party would have had the task of winning the workers to a program of transforming the soviets from being organs of insurrection to becoming the sole basis for political power in the workers state. It would have fought to extend the struggle for political revolution to neighboring East European countries and crucially to the Soviet Union, linking these efforts with the fight for socialist revolution in the capitalist countries. This would have required politically combatting the views of Maleter, Kopacsi and others whose outlook at the time remained within the framework of Stalinist nationalism and “peaceful coexistence” with the imperialist world order.
Had even a small Trotskyist propaganda group been able to intervene in this situation, it could have rapidly won an initial base among the tens of thousands of workers and radical intellectuals who saw themselves as authentic communists. These lessons have profound significance for the remaining deformed workers states, in particular China, which experienced an incipient political revolution in May-June 1989 and, more recently, a massive growth in defensive struggles by both workers and peasants.
What Leon Trotsky foresaw in outlining the course that a political revolution would take in the Soviet degenerated workers state was amply confirmed by the 1956 events in Hungary:
“When the proletariat springs into action, the Stalinist apparatus will remain suspended in midair. Should it still attempt to resist, it will then be necessary to apply against it not the measures of civil war but rather the measures of a police character….
“A real civil war could develop not between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the resurgent proletariat but between the proletariat and the active forces of the counterrevolution…. The victory of the revolutionary camp, in any case, is conceivable only under the leadership of a proletarian party, which would naturally be raised to power by victory over the counterrevolution.”
—“The Class Nature of the Soviet State” (October 1933)
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Click on headline to link to Part Two
Workers Vanguard No. 883
5 January 2007
Workers Political Revolution Against Stalinist Rule
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Part One
This past October 23 marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The anniversary was celebrated internationally by bourgeois politicians and ideologues, who cynically portrayed the uprising as a precursor to the counterrevolutions that restored capitalist rule in East Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-1992. Four months earlier, George W. Bush visited Budapest and laid flowers in honor of “the Hungarian patriots who tore down the statue of Josef Stalin and defied an empire.” Commemorations of the uprising were held in Budapest by the government of former-Communist, now-millionaire Ferenc Gyurcsany as well as by anti-government protesters, including a hefty contingent of fascist skinheads.
The depiction of the 1956 events as an anti-Communist, pro-capitalist rebellion, which has been propagated by reactionary forces for the past half-century, is an outright lie. The Hungarian uprising was an attempt by the working class, in a country where capitalism had been overthrown but political power was in the hands of a Stalinist bureaucracy, to throw off bureaucratic rule and open the road to socialism. Workers seized the factories and mines and set up elected workers councils (soviets), embryonic organs of proletarian political power. For weeks the workers fought courageously—by means of strikes, demonstrations and armed struggle—before this political revolution was suppressed.
The cynical misappropriation by capitalist spokesmen of the uprising was skewered in a 1957 document by Shane Mage, a founder of our political tendency:
“What a cruel, cynical joke of history this seems to be! The Hungarian revolution is hailed lyrically by the rulers of the ‘West,’ the worst enemies of socialism and of the Russian revolution. The men who surrounded the infant Soviet Republic with a ‘cordon sanitaire’ of steel and fire, who hailed Hitler and Mussolini as bulwarks against Bolshevism, who stood by with smiling ‘neutrality’ while Franco murdered freedom in Spain, whose hands are still stained by the crimes of Algeria, Suez, Guatemala—the ‘Free’ world gleefully hands its poisoned bouquets to the freedom fighters of Hungary.”
—“The Meaning of Two Revolutions” (reprinted in the 1959 Young Socialist Forum pamphlet, The Hungarian Revolution)
Bourgeois ideologues focus on isolated expressions of anti-Communism, such as some lumpen gangs calling themselves “freedom fighters” or arch-reactionary Cardinal József Mindszenty addressing the insurgents by radio. (Following the suppression of the revolt, Mindszenty spent the next 15 years holed up in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.) This is a fundamental distortion, one that was also disseminated by Stalinist spokesmen to justify the brutal repression of the workers. As we stated in “Political Revolution in Hungary—Ten Years After” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 8, November-December 1966), the slander that the Hungarian masses embraced fascists and monarchist reactionaries “was demolished not only by the actions of the revolutionaries—including the violent suppression of what anti-Semitic and White Guard threats actually existed—but by the workers’ militantly communist aspirations and their unambiguous hatred for capitalism.”
The Hungarian working class was overwhelmingly committed to socialism and opposed to a return to capitalism. In all of the workers councils and other proletarian bodies that arose in 1956, Communist Party members were elected to positions of leadership. Ferenc Töke, a vice-president of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest, later recalled: “No reactionary tendency manifested itself throughout the entire strike. There was never, at any moment, a question of the former owners eventually returning” (Jean-Jacques Marie and Balazs Nagy [eds.], Pologne-Hongrie 1956 [1966]). The Central Workers Council of Budapest declared in a 27 November 1956 appeal to workers councils throughout the country: “Faithful to this mission, we defend, even at the cost of our lives, our factories and our fatherland against any attempt to restore capitalism.”
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was in fact a powerful confirmation of the Trotskyist understanding of the nature of the deformed and degenerated workers states. In the Soviet Union and East Europe before the restoration of capitalism—as in China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam today—capitalist rule was overthrown as a result of social revolutions but political power was/is monopolized by a conservative, anti-working-class bureaucracy. The Hungarian Revolution decisively demonstrated that the Stalinist regime represents a caste parasitically resting upon the collectivized economy, not a new type of social class. Unlike the capitalist ruling class, which in the face of revolution inevitably unites around a program of counterrevolution, the Stalinist bureaucracy in Hungary shattered, with large sections going over to the side of the workers.
These events caused a profound crisis in the Communist parties internationally. In Italy, the Communist Party lost some 200,000 of its members. The French Communist Party, already facing discontent over its support to the Socialist-led government as it pursued the Algerian War, saw its share of the electorate plunge. In Britain, the Communist Party lost a third of its membership. More than 200 CP members and ex-members, including a number of talented intellectuals, were won over by the British Trotskyist group led by Gerry Healy. These former CPers included Brian Pearce, Cliff Slaughter, Tom Kemp and Peter Fryer, the correspondent in Hungary for the Communist Party’s Daily Worker whose first-hand observations of the events were recounted in his 1956 book, Hungarian Tragedy (see article, page 9).
With the formation of workers soviets, Hungary entered into a period of incipient dual power in which local workers councils, defended by the armed masses, confronted what remained of the Stalinist repressive apparatus, which was backed by Soviet troops. Mage noted:
“The first and decisive thing about the Hungarian revolution is that it was a workers revolution, and the leading role of the workers was institutionally formulated by the establishment of workers councils. Except for the Russian army, there was in Hungary not the shadow of a social force capable of preventing the assumption of state power by the workers councils. Thus the objective conditions for the formation of a soviet republic, in the event of revolutionary victory of course, were entirely favorable.
“The actual level of consciousness of the Hungarian workers, however, was not at the level indicated by the objective possibilities of the revolution. In this the Hungarian workers were like the Russian proletariat after the February revolution. The general demand was not for all power to the workers councils, but for ‘free elections’ to a sovereign parliament.
“It would, however, be a disastrous mistake to take the level of consciousness corresponding to the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy as the permanent and ultimate political program of the Hungarian proletariat. The Hungarian workers wanted ‘free elections,’ but they also wanted to preserve their own councils and extend their powers. They wanted to move forward to socialism, not backward to capitalism.”
—“The YSL Right Wing and the ‘Crisis of World Stalinism’,”
The Hungarian Revolution; excerpted as “‘Pure Democracy’ or Political Revolution in East Europe” in the Spartacist pamphlet, Solidarność: Polish Company Union for CIA and Bankers (1981)
The Birth of the Hungarian Deformed Workers State
To understand the 1956 Hungarian Revolution requires examining the Russian Revolution of 1917—the only successful revolution as yet carried out by the working class—as well as its later degeneration under the Stalinist bureaucracy. In the October Revolution of 1917, the proletariat, led by Lenin’s Bolshevik Party, took state power, basing its rule on the soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants deputies. The young workers state nationalized the land and went on to expropriate capitalist property. The Bolsheviks understood their revolution as the first step of the world socialist revolution and founded the Third (Communist) International in 1919.
However, the immaturity and indecisiveness of revolutionary leadership outside Russia led to the failure to realize opportunities for proletarian revolution. For example, a proletarian revolution was defeated in Germany in 1918-19, and short-lived soviet republics were crushed in Bavaria and Hungary in 1919. The decisive defeat was the failure of the German Communist Party to consummate a socialist revolution in 1923. The economically backward Soviet workers state—suffering under the devastation wrought by World War I and compounded by the bloody 1918-20 Civil War against imperialist-backed counterrevolution—was left isolated in the face of imperialist encirclement and a general stabilization of the world capitalist order. Together with the decimation of the most conscious layer of the proletariat during the Civil War, these factors set the stage for a political counterrevolution.
While the social foundations of the workers state—above all, the expropriation of the capitalist class and the establishment of a collectivized economy—remained intact, by 1924 political power was transferred from the hands of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard into the hands of a conservative bureaucratic caste headed by Stalin. From that point on, the people who ruled the USSR, the way the USSR was ruled, and the purposes for which the USSR was ruled all changed. Under the false dogma of “socialism in one country,” proclaimed by Stalin in December 1924, the bureaucracy accommodated the imperialist order. Correspondingly, the Comintern became transformed over time into an instrument of the bureaucracy’s search for “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. With the elaboration of the “Popular Front” line at the Comintern’s Seventh (and last) Congress in 1935, the Stalinists explicitly and officially embraced the program of class collaboration with the “democratic” imperialist bourgeoisies.
Leading the fight against the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party, Leon Trotsky’s Left Opposition upheld the revolutionary-internationalist program of the October Revolution. In 1938, Trotsky and his co-thinkers founded the Fourth International. Central to its program was the unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state against imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution and the call for proletarian political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and restore working-class political power. Such a political revolution would be premised on defense of the socialized property forms. This is in contrast to social revolutions or counterrevolutions, which overturn existing property relations and place a different class in power. The Trotskyist analysis of Stalinism is key to understanding the creation and subsequent development of the bureaucratically deformed workers states of East Europe.
In the closing months of World War II, in Hungary as throughout much of East Europe, large sections of society welcomed the Soviet Red Army as liberators from the nightmare of Nazi occupation and supported the ensuing destruction of the old bourgeois order. Class-conscious workers hated the right-wing dictatorship of Admiral Miklós Horthy, who ruled Hungary during the interwar period and much of World War II. Impoverished agrarian laborers settled huge scores with the landlords in this land of feudal-derived estates.
Initially, the remnants of the bourgeoisies of Soviet-occupied East Europe, which had been discredited and shattered by the war, were not expropriated, either politically or economically. In Hungary, elections in 1945 gave a majority, in what was then a largely peasant country, to the bourgeois-clericalist Smallholders Party, which was allowed to form a coalition government with the social democrats and Stalinists. But, as elsewhere in East Europe, it was the Red Army that held the real power. Under the growing pressure of the anti-Soviet Cold War, the Stalinists in 1947-48 proceeded to expropriate the bourgeoisie in Hungary and elsewhere in East Europe, jettisoning their bourgeois coalition partners, nationalizing industry and establishing deformed workers states, that is, societies qualitatively similar to the Soviet Union under the Stalinist bureaucracy.
Prelude to Political Revolution
The 1945-48 period of the so-called “People’s Independence Front” government had a significant effect on the attitudes of the Hungarian working masses. Many would later view that period favorably in comparison to the harsh Stalinist police state that came afterward, although virtually no one wanted a return of the capitalists and large landowners. The 1945-48 interregnum also created certain left-right tensions among the Stalinists themselves. An incipient left opposition, impatient with the slow pace of social transformation, crystallized around Minister of the Interior Laszlo Rajk, a hero in the eyes of many for having fought in the Spanish Civil War and for having been a leader of the Communist underground under the Horthy dictatorship. At Moscow’s behest, the Hungarian regime adopted a one-sided economic policy concentrated on heavy industry. This served to drive down living standards, further fueling proletarian discontent.
The fact that, with the exception of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the East European Stalinist regimes were imposed from without meant that they had shallower roots than in the Soviet Union. This rendered the social order in the East European deformed workers states relatively volatile and unstable.
Facing social discontent, the East European bureaucracies began to split into Moscow loyalists and national-liberal Stalinists more attuned to popular moods. In 1949 Tito’s Yugoslavia broke from the Kremlin. With its “workers self-management,” Titoism presented itself as a more democratic and authentic form of socialism than Stalin’s Russia. Among East European Communist oppositionists there was a tendency to idealize the Yugoslav “road to socialism,” on the one hand, and Western bourgeois democracy on the other. Fearing further splits, Stalin went into a murderous frenzy, seeking to eliminate any potential Titos elsewhere. The Polish party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka was imprisoned and placed under house arrest. Rajk in Hungary and Rudolf Slánský in Czechoslovakia were subjected to show trials and then executed.
Following Stalin’s death in March 1953, the Kremlin bureaucracy and its counterparts in East Europe embarked on a policy that has been referred to as “de-Stalinization.” Moves in the direction of liberalization throughout East Europe had the effect of simultaneously opening up possibilities for mass struggle while reinforcing illusions that, under the pressure of the masses, the Stalinist bureaucracy could carry out self-reform and become an instrument for building socialism.
On 17 June 1953, the first incipient proletarian political revolution in the deformed workers states broke out in East Germany. Both the Stalinist regimes and West Germany’s capitalist rulers portrayed the uprising as pro-Western. But this was a lie. Workers from the East German Hennigsdorf steel works marched through West Berlin and back to the East demanding a metal workers government. June 17 powerfully demonstrated the potential for the slogan later adopted by the international Spartacist tendency (now the International Communist League) for the revolutionary reunification of Germany through political revolution in the East and socialist revolution in the West. (For more on the 1953 events, see “The East German Workers Uprising of 17 June 1953,” WV No. 332, 17 June 1983.)
The post-1953 crisis of “de-Stalinization” had a particular impact on Hungary. Of all the Stalinist regimes in East Europe, that of Matyas Rakosi was unquestionably the bloodiest: more Communists were killed under Rakosi than under Horthy. Rakosi’s widely despised political police, the AVH, a multitude of highly paid thugs, constituted fully 1 percent of the entire population of Budapest.
In 1953, to head off the pressures building up in Hungary, the Soviet leadership forced Rakosi to step down as prime minister. He was replaced by Imre Nagy, who had a reputation as a liberal Communist. Nagy proclaimed a “New Course” that included easing the pace of industrialization, lessening pressures on the peasantry and relaxing police terror. However, Rakosi, fearing the vengeance of his political opponents, hung onto power and by 1955 managed to oust Nagy. Thus, between 1953 and 1956 the Hungarian Stalinist regime was torn by a severe polarization between the Rakosi clique and the mass of Communist Party members who supported Nagy. One sign of the ferment in the Communist Party was the emergence of the Petofi Circle, a grouping of dissident intellectuals and others that provided a forum for public debate and became a hub of opposition to the Rakosi hardliners.
In February 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a “secret” speech to the Soviet Communist Party’s 20th Congress in which he acknowledged a number of Stalin’s crimes. Four months later, locomotive workers in Poland demonstrating for higher wages and lower prices attacked the city hall, radio station and prison in Poznan. Security forces fired on them, killing over 50 workers. Poland entered into an incipient proletarian political revolution, which was headed off at the last minute by Gomulka’s restoration to power. Subsequently, Khrushchev and his Kremlin colleagues did not move against Gomulka, in large part because in factories throughout the country workers councils organized resistance to any attempt to overturn the “Polish October.” Gomulka granted sweeping concessions, such as wage increases. But once the crisis was defused, he disbanded the workers councils that had helped bring him to power.
Meanwhile in Hungary, 200,000 people turned out in early October for a ceremony marking the regime’s “rehabilitation” of Laszlo Rajk. The mass turnout foreshadowed the revolutionary explosion later that month.
The Hungarian October
The Hungarian Revolution, whose events were broadcast on radio and television internationally, was one of the best-documented revolutions ever. It began on October 23 with a largely student demonstration solidarizing with the victory of Gomulka in Poland and calling for the reinstatement of Nagy as head of the Hungarian government. The Rakosi regime denounced the protest as a counterrevolutionary mobilization, and when the unarmed demonstrators marched to the radio station to protest, the AVH goons fired on them.
Hungary then exploded in a near-universal general strike combined with military resistance to the regime. While the initial agitation was student-based, once the fighting started the core of the insurgency in Budapest and the other main centers was the workers councils and workers militias. Writing about the emergence of the workers soviets, Peter Fryer observed in Hungarian Tragedy:
“In their spontaneous origin, in their composition, in their sense of responsibility, in their efficient organisation of food supplies and of civil order, in the restraint they exercised over the wilder elements among the youth, in the wisdom with which so many of them handled the problem of Soviet troops, and, not least, in their striking resemblance at so many points to the soviets or councils of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies which sprang up in Russia in the 1905 revolution and again in February 1917, these committees, a network of which now extended over the whole of Hungary, were remarkably uniform. They were at once organs of insurrection—the coming together of delegates elected by factories and universities, mines and Army units—and organs of popular self-government, which the armed people trusted. As such they enjoyed tremendous authority, and it is no exaggeration to say that until the Soviet attack of November 4 the real power in the country lay in their hands.”
Even a 1957 “Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary” by the United Nations, whose role is to provide a fig leaf for imperialist depredation, noted that the emergence of workers councils “represented the first practical step to restore order and to reorganize the Hungarian economy on a socialist basis, but without rigid Party control or the apparatus of terror.”
The Hungarian army immediately ceased to be an effective force. Some sections went over to the insurgents; many soldiers turned their weapons over to the workers militias. Militarily, the turning point of the revolution was the attempt by the Soviet Army to capture the Kilian barracks, the main stronghold of the Hungarian army within Budapest. The commander of the barracks, Colonel Pal Maleter, a veteran Communist, went over to the revolution and led the forces that repulsed the Soviet attack. Following the subsequent Soviet withdrawal from Budapest, the embryo of an effective revolutionary authority was seen in the newly established National Guard under Maleter’s command, although its authority remained largely limited to the capital. In many press interviews, Maleter insisted that he was a good Communist and would remain so. Maleter’s comments in one such interview are recounted in Hungary 1956 (1976) by Bill Lomax:
“‘If we get rid of the Russians don’t think we’re going back to the old days. And if there’s people who do want to go back, we’ll see!’ To emphasize the last remark, he reached for his revolver holster and repeated, ‘We don’t mean to go back to capitalism. We want socialism in Hungary’.”
Despite attempts to portray the uprising as dominated by anti-Russian nationalism, what stands out is the degree to which the insurgents attempted to fraternize with the Soviet soldiers—and the degree to which they were successful. The workers’ and students’ Council of Miskolc published leaflets in Russian for the Red Army soldiers declaring: “Our interests are identical. We and you are all fighting together for a better socialist life.” On October 28, the Hungarian trade-union newspaper Népszava called for the right of asylum for Soviet soldiers who sided with the workers (François Manuel, La Revolution Hongroise des Conseils Ouvriers [1976]).
There were innumerable cases in which Soviet soldiers refused to fight or sided with the insurgents. In his autobiographical In the Name of the Working Class (1986), Sandor Kopacsi, the Budapest police chief who went over to the insurgents, described a scene that occurred on October 25 when Soviet tanks encountered a crowd of demonstrators:
“A boy, undoubtedly a student—the scene took place just below us—pushed his way through the crowd to the first tank and passed something through the loophole.
“It wasn’t a grenade but a sheet of paper. It was followed by others.
“These sheets, many of which my men would later collect, were tracts in Russian composed by students in the faculty of oriental languages. They reminded the Soviet soldiers of the wishes of the Hungarian nation and of the unfortunate role of policemen in which they had been cast. The tracts started with a citation from Marx: ‘A people that oppresses another cannot itself be free.’
“We counted the minutes. Nothing happened.
“Then the top of the turret of the lead tank opened a little, and the commander, with his leather cap and the gold epaulettes, emerged slowly into the view of the apparently unarmed crowd. Then he flung the turret open and perched himself upon the top of his tank….
“The crowd erupted in a frantic ovation. In this jubilant atmosphere, the commander’s cap was thrown into the middle of the crowd. In exchange, someone plunked a Hungarian Army kepi on his head. The crowd sang ‘Kossuth’s Song’ and then the Hungarian national anthem. And, at the top of their voices, they cried: ‘Long live the Soviet Army!’”
Moments later, Kopacsi received a report from one of his police officers: “The AVO [AVH] is firing from every roof. Now the Soviet tanks are firing on the AVO! They’re defending the crowd.”
Though the Stalinist apparatus had disintegrated, a short-lived government was cobbled together under Nagy. On October 28, the Nagy government announced an agreement that Soviet troops would immediately leave Budapest. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Kremlin pulled troops out of Budapest was fear of the effect of fraternization with the insurgent Hungarian masses. But the Kremlin quickly reneged on the agreement. And on November 1, Nagy protested to Soviet Ambassador Yuri Andropov (who would become head of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s) against the entry of new Soviet troops into Hungary without his government’s assent.
The new troops were not only lied to about what was happening; they were lied to about where they were being sent. A leader of the insurgents in a village in eastern Hungary recalled his encounter with the troops (Melvin J. Lasky, ed., The Hungarian Revolution [1957]): “Some of the Russians thought they were in East Germany and that they would soon meet American ‘fascists’ who had invaded the country. Other troops thought they were in the Suez Canal zone.” (The Suez Canal had just been nationalized by Nasser’s Egypt, which was then attacked by British, French and Israeli forces.)
At dawn on November 4, Soviet troops attacked Budapest. Despite stiff resistance, the insurrection was soon crushed. Nevertheless, the general strike continued well into December—the longest nationwide general strike in history. In this way, the proletarian centrality of the uprising was even more evident in its aftermath than during the anarchic period of the revolution itself.
The Significance of Hungary 1956
During his brief tenure, Nagy moved steadily to the right. He brought into his government bourgeois politicians from the “People’s Independence Front” period. Nagy also declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and appealed to the United Nations to defend Hungarian neutrality. The logic of Nagy’s policies, had they succeeded in running their course, was to strangle the revolution and enormously strengthen the forces of capitalist counterrevolution. However, Nagy, who spent his greatest efforts trying to get the workers to lay down their arms, utterly lacked control over events. While the revolutionary workers had their fair share of political confusion, their representative organs were in practice counterposed not only to the old hardline Stalinist butchers like Rakosi but to the Nagy regime as well.
In the industrial city of Miskolc, one of the main centers of the revolution, the workers council sent a delegation to Nagy demanding that a new government be formed based on the existing workers councils, not through elections to a new parliament. The Budapest Parliament of Workers Councils adopted as its first programmatic principles that “the factory belongs to the workers” and that “the supreme controlling body of the factory is the Workers’ Council” (see Lomax, Hungary 1956). While that statement did not express the Marxist program for central economic planning combined with genuine soviet democracy, it was nevertheless incompatible with a capitalist order and bourgeois parliamentarism.
On the available evidence, the Hungarian workers looked toward an idealized version of Titoist Yugoslavia. Tito, however, along with Mao Zedong, supported the crushing of the 1956 Revolution. Tito and Mao were quite aware of the ramifications for their own bureaucratic regimes if the Hungarian workers succeeded in taking and securing political power. Nagy had taken refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest on November 4. But despite an agreement for safe passage out, Nagy was arrested by Soviet forces later that month. He was eventually handed over to the Hungarian Stalinist regime under János Kádár, which executed Nagy as well as Maleter and other leaders of the revolution in 1958.
The repression directed at the workers, however, was relatively mild. The Kádár government announced in early November that it “will not tolerate the persecution of workers on any pretext, for having taken part in recent events.” But Kádár was not in control of events, and Soviet troops conducted searches for those suspected of having participated in the uprising. For the most part, the Kádár regime attempted to piece off the population by raising consumption levels under a policy that came to be known as “goulash communism.”
What was lacking above all in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard party rooted in the working class. Such a party would have had the task of winning the workers to a program of transforming the soviets from being organs of insurrection to becoming the sole basis for political power in the workers state. It would have fought to extend the struggle for political revolution to neighboring East European countries and crucially to the Soviet Union, linking these efforts with the fight for socialist revolution in the capitalist countries. This would have required politically combatting the views of Maleter, Kopacsi and others whose outlook at the time remained within the framework of Stalinist nationalism and “peaceful coexistence” with the imperialist world order.
Had even a small Trotskyist propaganda group been able to intervene in this situation, it could have rapidly won an initial base among the tens of thousands of workers and radical intellectuals who saw themselves as authentic communists. These lessons have profound significance for the remaining deformed workers states, in particular China, which experienced an incipient political revolution in May-June 1989 and, more recently, a massive growth in defensive struggles by both workers and peasants.
What Leon Trotsky foresaw in outlining the course that a political revolution would take in the Soviet degenerated workers state was amply confirmed by the 1956 events in Hungary:
“When the proletariat springs into action, the Stalinist apparatus will remain suspended in midair. Should it still attempt to resist, it will then be necessary to apply against it not the measures of civil war but rather the measures of a police character….
“A real civil war could develop not between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the resurgent proletariat but between the proletariat and the active forces of the counterrevolution…. The victory of the revolutionary camp, in any case, is conceivable only under the leadership of a proletarian party, which would naturally be raised to power by victory over the counterrevolution.”
—“The Class Nature of the Soviet State” (October 1933)
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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