Markin comment:
Below this general introduction is another addition to the work of creating a new international working class organization-a revolutionary one fit of the the slogan in the headline.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Jean van Heijenoort writing as Marc Loris-Revolutionary Tasks Under the Nazi Boot-1942
“Revolutionary Tasks Under the Nazi Boot” Fourth International, November 1942, pp.333-338, under the name “Marc Loris”, (5,589 words). This is part of a debate or discussion. See the previous article by “Marc Loris”/Van Heijenoort in September 1942 and the reply by Felix Morrow in December 1942.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Fourth International has opened its pages to a discussion on the national question in Europe. The first discussion article, “The National Question in Europe,” by Marc Loris, was published in our September issue. The fact that it was a discussion article was inadvertently omitted. Marc Loris’ present article is a continuation of his first. Other discussion articles by various contributors will be published in succeeding issues.
The official position of the Socialist Workers Party on the national question in Europe, adopted unanimously at Its Tenth Convention in October, appeared in our October issue under the heading “The National Question in Europe.”
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Nazi oppression passed over Europe like a steam-roller. Throughout the continent there now remains, between the Nazi power and the population, no legal organization in which the masses can take shelter and regroup themselves. After the political parties and the trade unions, the work of destruction has been extended even to the most neutral and most insignificant organizations, for the Nazis feared—and with good reason—that even the slightest of them might become a crystallization-point of resistance. Into the tiniest groups the Nazis introduced their own men, who proposed adherence to the “New Order"; even stamp-collectors’ organizations were gleichgeschaltet.
What remains of the workers’ organizations had to pass over into illegality and to new methods. The traditional bourgeois and petty-bourgeois organizations have given way to underground groups, of a new character, not directly stemming from the old parties. Small illegal groups which often do not extend beyond the limits of a city or of a region are appearing everywhere, only a few can maintain contacts—and even those very irregularly—on a national scale. Innumerable little newspapers spring up and disappear. Liaisons are established and broken again. On the whole, there is to be observed, with the passing months, a certain progress toward centralization, but very slowly, and often interrupted as a result of the severe conditions of illegality. Even that political movement which was best adapted to underground work, Stalinism, is suffering greatly: in spite of a powerful apparatus and abundant resources, relations between the center and the regional organizations are often broken—a situation which cannot fail to create favorable occasions for discussion and united action between the Communist Party members and the Trotskyists.
Of all the working-class organizations, however, the Stalinist parties remain the most powerful and the most active—and by a large margin. The Stalinist propaganda is, of course, completely chauvinist in character, and is very careful not to speak of socialism. Apart from the Stalinists, the two most noteworthy centers of resistance of the working-class movement are formed by the Left Socialist groups in Poland (some of them close to Trotskyism and all hostile to the Government-in-Exile) and by what remains of the Norwegian trade union movement, which the Nazis have been unable to wipe out entirely. Of the Second International but little remains. Lately there could be noted a certain renewal of activity by the official Socialist groups in Belgium and in the north of France; but it retains an extremely fragmentary character.
The Petty-Bourgeois Movements Broad layers of the petty bourgeoisie have lost their economic and social balance. The German occupation has caused, on the whole, an enormous pauperization and even, to a certain degree, proletarianization, of the petty bourgeoisie. This social crisis finds its political expression in the formation of the innumerable groups and movements which reflect all the rainbow colorations of the petty bourgeoisie.
At the reactionary end of this spectrum are to be found the traditional chauvinist groups, such as the Gaullist organization in France. One must carefully distinguish between the masses’ very widespread but rather vague sympathies for the “democratic” camp, including De Gaulle, and the Gaullist organization itself. The latter is made up above all of former military men and functionaries. They have no feeling for activity by the masses to whom, for that matter, they are incapable of speaking. Most of them are nearly as terrified of a movement of the masses as of the German occupation. Their principal activity in the military field is espionage on behalf of England and, in the political field, waiting for an Anglo-American debarkment.
At the other extreme of this rainbow are to be found some organizations which are honestly looking for a way out of the intolerable situation of the lower strata of the petty bourgeoisie. The elements most suited to become the spokesmen of these lawyers are the youth and the intellectuals. Thus among their leaders are often to be found students, teachers and writers. Violently repelled by fascism, these social strata are turning toward socialism in search of a solution for their misfortunes. They willingly concede that the bourgeois system is coming to its end, and accept the program of the federation of peoples, but they have not yet overcome all their distrust of the workers. Their leaders often keep hunting for a rosier path than that of the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” and accuse Marxism of being “narrow.” Between these extreme types of groupings are to be found, of course, all intermediary forms.
In the terrible conditions of illegality, there are inevitably, among the various underground groups, frequent practical agreements: for printing newspapers, for transporting literature and people, etc.—even finding paper is a serious problem. Without such contacts, it would be simply impossible to exist; and they involve, needless to say, no compromise in program.
Even now in the occupied countries, especially in western Europe, occasions for public demonstrations are not infrequent: housewives’ demonstrations against the lack of foodstuffs, demonstrations against those restaurants which serve food to the rich without ration cards, demonstrations against the “collaborationists,” public demonstrations on various national holidays (Bastille Day, etc.). These demonstrations are organized by illegal groups of every kind, and the question of our participation arises. It is difficult to give a general answer. The important point for determining whether we participate is not so much the nature of the occasion or of the initiators of the demonstration, but the political situation and the possibilities of the given moment. If certain demonstrations are repeatedly held, mobilizing an increasing number of demonstrators, it is the duty of the revolutionary party to call on the workers to participate in them, even though organized by petty-bourgeois national groups. Of course, it is also the task of the party to appear in them with its own slogans. After the crushing of all organizations, the disappearance of all organized political life, every manifestation which restores the feeling of collective action however modest or confused its objectives may be, is extremely progressive, and the task of the revolutionary party is to aid, and if possible, to broaden it.
Obviously, while taking advantage of every possible step forward, we cannot limit our freedom to criticize reactionary and utopian programs. Now as always, the Marxists carry on their work of explaining and clarifying. They must especially denounce the falsity and the hypocrisy of all the chauvinist groups who desire nothing but revenge and who, although demanding the freedom of their own nation, do not hesitate and will not hesitate to participate in the oppression of other nations. Thus, all movements which find their inspiration in London and Washington (governments-in-exile, General De Gaulle, etc.) must be characterized not as national movements, but as imperialist movements by their aims as well as by their methods (alliance with Anglo-American imperialism, exploitation of Belgian colonies, of a part of the French, Dutch colonies, etc.). These groups attempt to chain the popular national revolt to one of the imperialist camps. In new circumstances they fill the traditional role of the bourgeois parties that have their base in the petty bourgeoisie. One such party was the defunct Radical-Socialist Party of France which rested on the democratic aspirations of the French peasant the better to chain him to big business. Now the Gaullist movement exploits for imperialist aims the aroused national sentiment. Its program and those of like groups can bring only new catastrophes to Europe.
As for the various petty-bourgeois groupings which are turning in the direction of socialism, we must have a much more patient and pedagogical attitude toward them. These groups, rebelling against the present oppression, go so far as to blame the system of imperialist trusts and monopolies, but they always retain, as we have indicated, some apprehension toward the workers’ program. Their general program, vaguely speaking, is the most consistent formal democracy. In discussions with these groups the main task is to show the reality behind the forms of pure democracy, and patiently but firmly point out to them that a choice is inevitable, for there is no “third way.”
In the present situation all democratic demands are charged with an enormous revolutionary potentiality; for in the epoch of the disintegration of the capitalist regime only the proletarian revolution can bring reality to democratic principles. Therefore the Marxist parties must be the most resolute champions of these demands, knowing well that their fulfillment leads society to the threshold of socialism. But this is also the reason that democratic demands become a lie when separated from the socialist program, for without this program they cannot materialize. Not only is bourgeois democracy merely a formal democracy covering up the real inequality between capitalist and proletarian; but in our epoch even this formal democracy can exist only at brief intervals, in anemic form and will soon give way to Bonapartist and fascist dictatorships or to socialism. To speak of freedom now, and to remain silent about the only means of attaining it, by the proletarian revolution, is to repeat an empty phrase, is to deceive the masses. Joint action with democratic petty-bourgeois groups, often unavoidable and moreover desirable, can never stop us from criticizing their programs before the masses and from trying to win the best part of their organization.
The programs of nearly all the underground groupings, Stalinists included, contain the demand for a Single National Assembly, elected by universal suffrage. For some of these groups, that is their only program for the day following the fall of the Hitlerian empire. In the French section of the Fourth International, especially in the occupied zone, a discussion has been taking place on this slogan of a National (or Constituent) Assembly.
The arguments in favor of its adoption are reduced, in general, to this: If we are ready to fight for democratic liberties how can we fail to write into our program the demand which crowns all these freedoms, the National Assembly? This reasoning is not correct. We fight with the masses for even the smallest democratic liberties precisely because this fight opens the road to the proletarian revolution; at the same time we explain that this revolution is the only assurance against the return of oppression, of dictatorship, of fascism. The National Assembly is by no means the crowning of democratic demands. The real meat of these demands can come into existence only through the development of workers’ and peasants’ committees. When separated from the question of power—bourgeois or proletarian—the slogan of a National Assembly at the present moment in Europe is nothing but an empty form, a shell without revolutionary content. Under today’s conditions of illegality, the slogan does not correspond to any real experience of the masses, while every group covers different political programs with this formula; the slogan thus takes on a ritual character and becomes a piece of democratic charlatanism.
Will we not pass through a “democratic” stage after the collapse of Nazi power? This is very likely. But it is also very likely that in this period we will already be seeing the formation of workers’ committees, embryo soviets, transforming the “democratic stage” into a more or less long dual power. It is possible that at that time the slogan of a National Assembly may become filled with a certain revolutionary content. General De Gaulle’s movement officially declared, some months ago, that at the downfall of Nazism, the power will come into the hands of a single Assembly elected by all the French in the most democratic manner; but in articles and conversations Gaullist representatives are already explaining that between the collapse of the Nazi tyranny and the convoking of the National Assembly there will elapse an interregnum necessary to save the country from chaos and to re-establish order, and that during this time democracy will be quite limited. We can easily imagine what this means. It is possible that at that time the cry for immediate convoking of the Assembly will correspond to the real experience of the masses and will have an offensive character against the provisional government. However, that is the music of tomorrow.
Terrorism and Sabotage The criticism of the petty-bourgeois and Stalinist programs should be followed, of course, by a critique of their methods. Nazi oppression has already aroused in Europe multiple forms of resistance: passive demonstrations of all kinds, attempts on the lives of German officers, wiping out “collaborationists,” explosions, train wrecks, fires, production slow-downs in the factories, damaging of machines, strikes, street demonstrations, hunger riots, guerrilla activity—the last of these becoming almost full-fledged war in the Balkans. The very variety of these activities reveals the diversity of the social strata that have been drawn into the movement. The difficulties of the present moment, the participation of petty-bourgeois layers therein, and the deliberate policy of Stalinism, have aroused a wave of adventurism.
Individual terrorism has become common throughout the entire continent. The Stalinists in particular have combined a vulgarly chauvinist opportunism in their program with a stupid and criminal adventurism in action. The revolutionary party can only repeat all the classic arguments of Marxism against individual terrorism; they still retain today all their original validity. In discussions with workers under Stalinist influence, we must in particular point out the connection between terrorism and bureaucratism. The terrorist hero and the bureaucrat both want to act for the masses, apart from them. Both terrorism and bureaucratism reflect contempt for the incompetent masses who must be pulled out of their difficulties by the individual. We repeat: Nothing can be gained by individual attempts; they merely sacrifice precious devotion uselessly and delay the action of the masses. Of course, cur criticism of terrorism does not arise from any moral indignation. We must constantly emphasize that we are on the side of the terrorists in their struggle against the oppressors, but that as against terrorism we are for more efficacious methods.
Certain forms of sabotage which are the action of individuals or of tiny isolated groups are scarcely to be distinguished from terrorism and are often nothing more than explosions of rage and despair, without any real efficacy. But, ever since the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Czech workers have undertaken to sabotage production inside the factories. Their example is now followed throughout all Europe.
Sabotage was a means of struggle of the youth of the labor movement, at a time when capitalism had to impose the discipline of the modern factory on the handicraft or peasant masses. It was then that there appeared the Scotch “ca’canny,” anarcho-syndicalism in France, the I.W.W. in America. These movements represented only a brief passing tendency of the class struggle. The workers found in the strike a weapon which was both more effective and less costly.
Nazi oppression has rendered strikes extremely difficult in the Europe of today. Hence the workers have been obliged to have recourse to sabotage, which bears the relation to the strike that guerrilla warfare does to regular warfare. There is no doubt that throughout the entire continent the workers have often undertaken to slow down production and lower its quality on their own initiative, without awaiting the summons of illegal organizations, thus demonstrating that this method has at present nothing artificial about it and that its “abnormal” character simply corresponds to “abnormal” conditions.
The revolutionary party must of course work to extend sabotage inside the factories in the occupied countries. The task is, above all, to interest in this the bulk of the workers of the plant and not to consider this work a technical job reserved to a few isolated “experts.” This is equally important from the practical as well as the political point of view. Repression is rendered infinitely more difficult, and the collective nature of the struggle helps to overcome the atomization of the working class brought about by the crushing of its organizations. The first months of the German occupation were, in general, characterized by a disappearance of collective consciousness, each thinking only of saving himself, in his own way. This state of mind has already been overcome at least partially, precisely by the movement of national resistance. The revolutionaries must always endeavor to restore to the workers the consciousness of their collective power.
The collective forms which can be taken by sabotage within the factories are: the slowing down of production, the lowering of its quality, the rapid wearing out of the machines. Everywhere that they can, revolutionaries must bring about the formation of a committee inside the factory—illegal, obviously—which organizes and supervises the work of sabotage and protection against stool-pigeons. It is this collective sabotage, which regroups the workers around a common goal and against which repression can only with difficulty operate, which represents the greatest danger for Hitler. Sabotage, when conceived of as a direct aid to the Soviet Union, does not exclude isolated acts against particularly sensitive points in the economic and military apparatus (power plants, tunnels and railroad bridges, etc.). But all that can be done in this field will always remain relatively limited. Only by taking on a mass character can sabotage really threaten the German military machine, and it can acquire this character only at the center of the collective strength of the workers, in their places of work.
“But,” a Stalinist might say, “do not the interests of the defense of the USSR not justify individual terrorism? Aren’t you yourselves for the defense of the Soviet Union? The European masses are engaged in a war against the Nazis behind the front—and in war all methods are good! Of course, Marxists are right in opposing terrorism considered as a means of ‘exciting’ the masses to struggle, but now the killing of German officers by revolvers or bombs is a simple war measure.” This reasoning, which reflects the present policy of the Stalinists in the occupied countries, betrays an ignorance of military art as well as of revolutionary policy. It is precisely in a serious struggle that all methods are not good. The task of the military chief or of the revolutionary militant consists in choosing the means which lead to the end and putting aside those which are sterile or even harmful.
Terrorism, by its very nature, always retains an individual character. “Mass terrorism” would be—the revolution. All the terrorism today is, when all is said and done, scarcely a pin-prick for Hitler. But, on the other side of the ledger, the liabilities are enormous. The best working-class blood is shed without counting. The disproportion between the sacrifices and the results obtained can engender nothing but discouragement and passivity. It is not easy to judge from afar, but it seems that the movement of resistance suffered a serious setback in Czechoslovakia after the assassination of Heydrich.
We have always maintained that the defense of the USSR is indissolubly linked with the class struggle of the international proletariat. This principle has direct consequences for the defense of the workers’ state. Stalin sacrificed the revolutionary interests of the international proletariat for alliances with the imperialist bourgeoisies. After the successive defeats of the European proletariat, engendered by Stalinism, the catastrophe was inevitable. Today, Stalin tries to jump over the consequences of his fatal policy by hurling the workers of occupied Europe into the adventure of terrorism. He thus not only blocks their revolutionary future, but also does a disservice to the military interests of the USSR.
The sabotage of production within the factories can produce infinitely greater results than can the murder of a few hundred or even a few thousand German officers or collaborationists. Awakening the collective initiative of the working class instead of paralyzing it, sabotage of production can attain a scope which no wave of terrorism can ever reach. At the same time it accelerates the regroupment of the working class, recreates its collective consciousness, and prepares it to enter its revolutionary future. The last few months have revealed that Hitler is struggling desperately to keep up his armament production. Sabotage in the factories represents for him a mortal danger. But one of the most important conditions for its spread is turning our back on individual terrorism and all forms of adventurism. Even in the Europe of today the USSR’s immediate military requirements and the interests of the European proletariat’s revolutionary future completely coincide.
We must further note that individual terrorism is an obstacle to fraternization with the German soldiers. It tightens the bonds between soldiers and officers instead of breaking them. The German military authorities take the greatest precautions to prevent contact between troops and inhabitants. Every attempt to spread propaganda among the German soldiers is punished with extreme severity, for this is a mortal danger to the Nazi generals. This is also why the task of fraternization can never be abandoned by revolutionists.
The Guerrillas In central and south-eastern Europe geographic and social conditions have permitted the appearance of guerrillas. They have sprung up especially in regions where the population is spread out, where railroads are scarce, where communication is difficult. They are principally peasant movements. But not entirely. Whenever they were able, groups of workers have joined the bands. It has even been noticed that in Czechoslovakia guerrilla bands have been formed directly by workers. It is reported that “densely wooded areas are furnishing a place of safety to the hundreds of saboteurs from the mines and the iron and steel plants of Kladno, to organizers of passive resistance, and leaders of strikers. After a recent clash which occurred between the Nazi police and Czech miners who were found to be in possession of dynamite, the Germans undertook to drive the refugees from this territory; but the fugitives, having full support of the population, successfully eluded the members of the Gestapo.” In various parts of Poland the peasants have formed guerrilla bands, which are now aided by Soviet partisans who have succeeded in filtering through the Nazi lines. Guerrilla bands are also very active in Ruthenia.
But it is in the Balkans that the movement has taken on the greatest proportions, and especially in what was yesterday Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a product of Versailles, financially supported by France as a bastion of her hegemony in Europe. The fact that the Belgrade government ruled over at least five different nationalities was one of the reasons for the quick German victory. The country was occupied by the Germans and Italians. The Yugoslav state was destroyed. Under the weight of unprecedented oppression, the peasants have started to gather together in the mountains to resist. The imperialist war was succeeded by a national struggle, half revolt, half war, against the German and Italian oppressors, as well as against the governments they set up in Belgrade and Zagreb. This struggle is going through many vicissitudes. Bands are entirely dispersed only to form again later on. Villages revolting prematurely are crushed. Officially, several hundred villages have already been reported razed by the Germans and Italians.
Moreover, the movement is widely divided. Information is scarce and often rather dubious, nevertheless it is clear that various bands operate separately. They are separated by national differences: Serbians, Slovenes, Bosnians, Montenegrins, etc.; they are also separated politically and socially. The Chetniks, a Serbian organization under the direct control of Mikhailovich, seems to be the most reactionary. It opposes any social change and thinks only of re-establishing the previous regime. Other bands have set up “Communist” or “Soviet” regimes. What is the reality behind these words? It is rather, difficult to tell. These bands are composed, it seems, of peasants; mine workers have joined many of them and now form a substantial proportion of some bands. At any rate, the differences are great enough to have provoked armed conflicts among the various hands, and Mikhailovich has under-taken repressions against the “Communists.”
Thus, as soon as the weight of oppression is somewhat lightened, the national struggle immediately raises the social question. The example of Yugoslavia shows, although on a limited scale, the extremely unstable character of the movement of national resistance in Europe today and how it leads immediately to the class struggle. Of course, we are entirely on the side of the bands of poor peasants and workers in their conflicts with the reactionary elements. But that does not mean abandoning the ground of national independence. Criticism of Mikhailovich and other conservative groups should proceed on the basis of liberating the country: Mikhailovich’s repressions sabotage the resistance; in order to arouse the peasants we have to open up a social perspective for them, etc. However, temporary military agreements between the revolutionary groups and Mikhailovich are still entirely possible in the future.
Cannot the movement of resistance completely merge with the imperialist war? This is possible and would be nothing new. Many national wars have ended up as imperialist wars. If the Anglo-American camp should open a new front in the Balkans, the national character of the struggle would disappear immediately. But this is tomorrow’s possibility, not today’s reality. At the present time, the struggle in the Balkans is a link in the whole movement of resistance of the European peoples to Nazism, and it thus takes on great importance. The guerrillas, being principally a peasant movement, create the greatest danger for the states where quasi-feudal relations still prevail in the countryside (especially Hungary, but also Rumania, Bulgaria and Slovakia). Revolution in central and south-eastern Europe, where the agrarian problem has never been resolved even in the bourgeois manner, will kindle large peasant revolts, and the present movement of resistance is their direct preparation.
Four months ago the Hungarian government officially announced the arrest of three hundred officers and non-commissioned officers of the Hungarian army for having helped guerrilla bands in Yugoslavia, Poland and the USSR by transmitting arms and information to them. We can measure the importance of this incident if we recall that Hungary is one of the countries where the landlords’ rule over the peasants is most brutal. The resistance in Yugoslavia has called forth revolt in all the neighboring countries. Guerrillas have appeared in Greece, Macedonia, Rumania and Bulgaria. Even in Croatia, to which Hitler gave formal independence, the peasants are starting to form guerrilla bands against the Italians. It would be imprudent to exaggerate the present political consciousness of these movements or to build too great hopes on them as long as they have not found a leadership in the urban proletariat. But to deny their importance for the revolution and to remain indifferent toward them would be blind passivity.
From National Resistance to the Proletarian Revolution Exactly what role will the demand for national liberation play in the preparation and development of the European revolution? Only the historian of the future will be able to answer this question precisely and to him will fall the lot of definitively measuring the place occupied by national revolt in the great torrent of hatred, of anger, of despair and of hope, which carries the peoples of occupied Europe toward the revolution. To us falls the lot of giving an answer for action. This answer is: The slogan of national liberation has played up to the present, and will continue to play for some time, an important role in regrouping the masses, overcoming their atomization and drawing them into the political struggle. This is more than enough for it to appear on our banner.
Through what concrete forms of struggle will the movement of resistance in the various European countries pass? How will it connect with the proletarian revolution? The answer to these questions depends on the relationship of the contending forces, in particular the unfolding of the imperialist war. If Germany should maintain a firm grip on the European continent for many years, it would be difficult for the movement to raise itself above its present political level, which is still primitive, and would threaten to take an increasingly narrow national character. But the perspective of a long German domination over Europe must now appear to he more and more illusory even to Hitler himself.
The resistance of the Soviet workers and kolkhozniki shows more and more clearly the limits of the German military machine. The progressive weakening of German imperialism will bring with it not only a quantitative multiplication of revolutionary actions throughout the continent, but will give a new character to the struggle. Terrorist attempts will he superseded by the action of the masses.
During recent weeks the first signs of this transformation have appeared. Athens has seen a general transport workers’ strike lasting several days. The workers of the Renault factories, heart of the Parisian proletariat, have threatened to go out on strike several times. The Belgian miners of the Borinage have recently unleashed several strike movements, and even, it is reported, obtained the liberation of hostages from the German authorities by threatening a general strike of miners. Above all, the present movement of the French workers of the unoccupied zone has aroused great masses.
These are the first signs of profound changes in the situation. Its principal causes are the weakening of the German oppressor and the rebirth of the collective consciousness of the masses. The renewal of activity of the masses will cause the wave of individual terrorism to recede by giving more reality each day to the perspective of the revolution.. Mutinies have already broken out, it appears, among the German soldiers in Norway and among the Italian troops. It is hard to determine the amount of truth in this information. However, it is at least plausible and, if premature, the future will give it truth. The mutinies will lead directly to the fraternization of German soldiers with the oppressed peoples. The common struggle against common oppression will unite the masses around the program of the Socialist United States of Europe.
The demand for national liberation and participation in the present movement of resistance do not in any way imply that we must expect new bourgeois national revolutions or some revolution of a special character which would be neither bourgeois nor proletarian, but “national,” “popular” or “democratic.” Any large revolution is “national” in the sense that it carries along the great majority of the nation, and the “popular” and “democratic” character of any revolution worthy of the name is apparent at first glance. But we cannot transform this sociological description, essentially superficial, into a political program without turning our backs on the realities of the social classes, that is, abandoning Marxist ground. Both the French revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolution of 1917 were national, popular and democratic, but the first consolidated the reign of private property while the other ended it. That is why one was bourgeois and the other proletarian. As for the coming European revolution, its proletarian character will be apparent from its very first steps.
But will we not pass through a transition period after the fall of the Hitlerian empire? To those who pose this question, we must reply with another question: Of what transition are you speaking? A transition from what to what? A transition from the bourgeois revolution to the proletarian revolution? Or a transition between the Nazi dictatorship and the dictatorship of the proletariat? These are two very different things. Naturally, the proletarian revolution will pass through many vicissitudes; pauses, even temporary retreats. But the first thing to understand, if one does not wish to commit error after error, is that it will be a proletarian revolution struggling with the bourgeois counter-revolution.
Is a “democratic” stage, that is a renewal of bourgeois parliamentarism, possible after the collapse of Nazism? Such an eventuality is not excluded. But such a regime would not be at all the fruit of a bourgeois revolution or of a non-class “democratic revolution"; it would be the temporary and unstable product of a proletarian revolution which has not yet been completed and still has to settle accounts with the bourgeois counter-revolution. He who has not completely penetrated this dialectic has nothing to offer to the European masses.
The present situation in the occupied countries is still profoundly reactionary. The task of the revolutionary socialists is still propaganda work, the gathering together and the formation of cadres. It is our duty to show, everywhere and always, the necessity of organized action of the masses. To all forms of adventurism flourishing at present, we must counterpose the organization of revolutionary violence. In the face of every carefully organized action, on a large or small scale, the Nazis will be disconcerted. They have no “secret weapon” against revolution. They were victorious in Germany only thanks to the incapacity of the workers’ leaders and never have had to face real actions of the masses. When these multiply, the Nazis will know how to answer them only with that combination of violence and imbecility which characterizes all regimes condemned by history.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Show Solidarity With The Chicago Teachers- This Is Our Fight!-Victory To The Chicago Teachers!-Send Donations
Click on the headline to link to the Chicago Teachers Union to show solidarity by messages or donations.
Contribute to the CTU Solidarity Fund
The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.
On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.
Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.
We are asking you to support our struggle for educational justice. You and your organization can show your support by making contribution to our Solidarity Fund. All donations will be used to conduct broad outreach throughout Chicago and nation-wide. Specifically, we plan to print educational materials, to distribute information about our positive agenda, such as the CTU report The Schools Chicago Students Deserve, and to mobilize massive support for educators in rallies and gatherings throughout the city. Any amount you can give will be a great help. You can donate using your credit card below or write a check to the “Chicago Teachers Union Solidarity Fund” and mail it directly to the Chicago Teachers Union Solidarity Fund, 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois 60654. If your organization or union would like to write a letter or resolution of solidarity, we would very much appreciate it.
Thank you for your support.
In Solidarity,
Karen GJ Lewis, NBCT
CTU President
Contribute to the CTU Solidarity Fund
The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.
On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.
Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.
We are asking you to support our struggle for educational justice. You and your organization can show your support by making contribution to our Solidarity Fund. All donations will be used to conduct broad outreach throughout Chicago and nation-wide. Specifically, we plan to print educational materials, to distribute information about our positive agenda, such as the CTU report The Schools Chicago Students Deserve, and to mobilize massive support for educators in rallies and gatherings throughout the city. Any amount you can give will be a great help. You can donate using your credit card below or write a check to the “Chicago Teachers Union Solidarity Fund” and mail it directly to the Chicago Teachers Union Solidarity Fund, 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois 60654. If your organization or union would like to write a letter or resolution of solidarity, we would very much appreciate it.
Thank you for your support.
In Solidarity,
Karen GJ Lewis, NBCT
CTU President
Chicago teachers strike for first time in 25 years-Victory To The Chicago Teachers!
Chicago teachers strike for first time in 25 years
By TAMMY WEBBER and DON BABWIN, AP
2 hours ago
CHICAGO — Thousands of teachers walked off the job Monday in Chicago's first schools strike in 25 years, after union leaders announced that months-long negotiations had failed to resolve a contract dispute with school district officials by a midnight deadline.
The walkout in the nation's third-largest school district posed a tricky challenge for the city and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said he would push to end the strike quickly as officials figure out how to keep nearly 400,000 children safe and occupied.
"This is not a strike I wanted," Emanuel said Sunday night, not long after the union announced the action. "It was a strike of choice ... it's unnecessary, it's avoidable and it's wrong."
Some 26,000 teachers and support staff were expected to join the picket. Among teachers protesting Monday morning outside Benjamin Banneker Elementary School on Chicago's South Side, eighth-grade teacher Michael Williams said he wanted a quick contract resolution.
"We hoped that it wouldn't happen. We all want to get back to teaching," Williams said, adding that wages and classroom conditions need to be improved.
Contract negotiations between Chicago Public School officials and union leaders that stretched through the weekend were expected to resume Monday.
Officials said some 140 schools would be open between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. so the children who rely on free meals provided by the school district can eat breakfast and lunch, school district officials said.
City officials acknowledged that children left unsupervised — especially in neighborhoods with a history of gang violence — might be at risk, but vowed to protect the students' safety.
"We will make sure our kids are safe, we will see our way through these issues and our kids will be back in the classroom where they belong," said Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff.
The school district asked community organizations to provide additional programs for students, and a number of churches, libraries and other groups plan to offer day camps and other activities.
Police Chief Garry McCarthy said he would take officers off desk duty and deploy them to deal with any teachers' protests as well as the thousands of students who could be roaming the streets.
Union leaders and district officials were not far apart in their negotiations on compensation, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said. But other issues — including potential changes to health benefits and a new teacher evaluation system based partly on students' standardized test scores — remained unresolved, she said.
"This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided," Lewis said. "We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve."
Before the strike, some parents said they would not drop their children at strange schools where they didn't know the other students or supervising adults. On Monday, as only a trickle of students arrived at some schools, April Logan said she wouldn't leave her daughter with an adult she didn't know. Her daughter, Ashanti, started school just a week earlier.
"I don't understand this, my baby just got into school," Logan said at Benjamin Mays Academy on the city's South Side before turning around and taking her daughter home.
Some students expressed anger, blaming the school district for interrupting their education.
"They're not hurting the teachers, they're hurting us," said Ta'Shara Edwards, a 16-year-old student at Robeson High School on the city's South Side. She said her mother made her come to class to do homework because so she "wouldn't suck up her light bill."
But there was anger toward teachers, as well.
"I think it's crazy. Why are they even going on strike?" asked Ebony Irvin, a 17-year-old student at Robeson.
Emanuel and the union officials have much at stake. Unions and collective bargaining by public employees have recently come under criticism in many parts of the country, and all sides are closely monitoring who might emerge with the upper hand in the Chicago dispute.
The timing also may be inopportune for Emanuel, whose city administration is wrestling with a spike in murders and shootings in some city neighborhoods and who just agreed to take a larger role in fundraising for Obama's re-election campaign.
As the strike deadline approached, parents spent Sunday worrying about how much their children's education might suffer and where their kids will go while they're at work.
"They're going to lose learning time," said Beatriz Fierro, whose daughter is in the fifth grade on the city's Southwest Side. "And if the whole afternoon they're going to be free, it's bad. Of course you're worried."
The school board was offering a fair and responsible contract that would most of the union's demands after "extraordinarily difficult" talks, board president David Vitale said. Emanuel said the district offered the teachers a 16 percent pay raise over four years, doubling an earlier offer.
Lewis said among the issues of concern was a new evaluation that she said would be unfair to teachers because it relied too heavily on students' standardized test scores and does not take into account external factors that affect performance, including poverty, violence and homelessness.
She said the evaluations could result in 6,000 teachers losing their jobs within two years. City officials disagreed and said the union has not explained how it reached that conclusion.
Emanuel said the evaluation would not count in the first year, as teachers and administrators worked out any kinks. Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said the evaluation "was not developed to be a hammer," but to help teachers improve.
The strike is the latest flashpoint in a very public and often contentious battle between the mayor and the union.
When he took office last year, Emanuel inherited a school district facing a $700 million budget shortfall. Not long after, his administration rescinded 4 percent raises for teachers. He then asked the union to reopen its contract and accept 2 percent pay raises in exchange for lengthening the school day for students by 90 minutes. The union refused.
Emanuel, who promised a longer school day during his campaign, then attempted to go around the union by asking teachers at individual schools to waive the contract and add 90 minutes to the day. He halted the effort after being challenged by the union before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
The district and union agreed in July on how to implement the longer school day, striking a deal to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract dispute would be settled soon, but bargaining continued on the other issues.
___
Associated Press Writer Sophia Tareen contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By TAMMY WEBBER and DON BABWIN, AP
2 hours ago
CHICAGO — Thousands of teachers walked off the job Monday in Chicago's first schools strike in 25 years, after union leaders announced that months-long negotiations had failed to resolve a contract dispute with school district officials by a midnight deadline.
The walkout in the nation's third-largest school district posed a tricky challenge for the city and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said he would push to end the strike quickly as officials figure out how to keep nearly 400,000 children safe and occupied.
"This is not a strike I wanted," Emanuel said Sunday night, not long after the union announced the action. "It was a strike of choice ... it's unnecessary, it's avoidable and it's wrong."
Some 26,000 teachers and support staff were expected to join the picket. Among teachers protesting Monday morning outside Benjamin Banneker Elementary School on Chicago's South Side, eighth-grade teacher Michael Williams said he wanted a quick contract resolution.
"We hoped that it wouldn't happen. We all want to get back to teaching," Williams said, adding that wages and classroom conditions need to be improved.
Contract negotiations between Chicago Public School officials and union leaders that stretched through the weekend were expected to resume Monday.
Officials said some 140 schools would be open between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. so the children who rely on free meals provided by the school district can eat breakfast and lunch, school district officials said.
City officials acknowledged that children left unsupervised — especially in neighborhoods with a history of gang violence — might be at risk, but vowed to protect the students' safety.
"We will make sure our kids are safe, we will see our way through these issues and our kids will be back in the classroom where they belong," said Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff.
The school district asked community organizations to provide additional programs for students, and a number of churches, libraries and other groups plan to offer day camps and other activities.
Police Chief Garry McCarthy said he would take officers off desk duty and deploy them to deal with any teachers' protests as well as the thousands of students who could be roaming the streets.
Union leaders and district officials were not far apart in their negotiations on compensation, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said. But other issues — including potential changes to health benefits and a new teacher evaluation system based partly on students' standardized test scores — remained unresolved, she said.
"This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided," Lewis said. "We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve."
Before the strike, some parents said they would not drop their children at strange schools where they didn't know the other students or supervising adults. On Monday, as only a trickle of students arrived at some schools, April Logan said she wouldn't leave her daughter with an adult she didn't know. Her daughter, Ashanti, started school just a week earlier.
"I don't understand this, my baby just got into school," Logan said at Benjamin Mays Academy on the city's South Side before turning around and taking her daughter home.
Some students expressed anger, blaming the school district for interrupting their education.
"They're not hurting the teachers, they're hurting us," said Ta'Shara Edwards, a 16-year-old student at Robeson High School on the city's South Side. She said her mother made her come to class to do homework because so she "wouldn't suck up her light bill."
But there was anger toward teachers, as well.
"I think it's crazy. Why are they even going on strike?" asked Ebony Irvin, a 17-year-old student at Robeson.
Emanuel and the union officials have much at stake. Unions and collective bargaining by public employees have recently come under criticism in many parts of the country, and all sides are closely monitoring who might emerge with the upper hand in the Chicago dispute.
The timing also may be inopportune for Emanuel, whose city administration is wrestling with a spike in murders and shootings in some city neighborhoods and who just agreed to take a larger role in fundraising for Obama's re-election campaign.
As the strike deadline approached, parents spent Sunday worrying about how much their children's education might suffer and where their kids will go while they're at work.
"They're going to lose learning time," said Beatriz Fierro, whose daughter is in the fifth grade on the city's Southwest Side. "And if the whole afternoon they're going to be free, it's bad. Of course you're worried."
The school board was offering a fair and responsible contract that would most of the union's demands after "extraordinarily difficult" talks, board president David Vitale said. Emanuel said the district offered the teachers a 16 percent pay raise over four years, doubling an earlier offer.
Lewis said among the issues of concern was a new evaluation that she said would be unfair to teachers because it relied too heavily on students' standardized test scores and does not take into account external factors that affect performance, including poverty, violence and homelessness.
She said the evaluations could result in 6,000 teachers losing their jobs within two years. City officials disagreed and said the union has not explained how it reached that conclusion.
Emanuel said the evaluation would not count in the first year, as teachers and administrators worked out any kinks. Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said the evaluation "was not developed to be a hammer," but to help teachers improve.
The strike is the latest flashpoint in a very public and often contentious battle between the mayor and the union.
When he took office last year, Emanuel inherited a school district facing a $700 million budget shortfall. Not long after, his administration rescinded 4 percent raises for teachers. He then asked the union to reopen its contract and accept 2 percent pay raises in exchange for lengthening the school day for students by 90 minutes. The union refused.
Emanuel, who promised a longer school day during his campaign, then attempted to go around the union by asking teachers at individual schools to waive the contract and add 90 minutes to the day. He halted the effort after being challenged by the union before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
The district and union agreed in July on how to implement the longer school day, striking a deal to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract dispute would be settled soon, but bargaining continued on the other issues.
___
Associated Press Writer Sophia Tareen contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days- Letters of Marx and Engels 1848
Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.
Markin comment:
The foundation article by Marx or Engels listed in the headline goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space. Just below is a thumbnail sketch of the first tentative proceedings to form a communist organization that would become a way-station on the road to building a Bolshevik-type organization in order fight for the socialist revolution we so desperately need and have since Marx and Engels first put pen to ink.
*************
Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
************
Markin comment on this series:
No question that today at least the figures of 19th century communist revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are honored more for their “academic” work than their efforts to build political organizations to fight for democratic and socialist revolutions, respectively, as part of their new worldview. Titles like Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The Peasants Wars In Germany, and the like are more likely to be linked to their names than Cologne Communist League or Workingmen’s International (First International). While the theoretical and historical materialist works have their honored place in the pantheon of revolutionary literature it would be wrong to neglect that hard fact that both Marx and Engels for most of their lives were not “arm chair" revolutionaries or, in Engels case, smitten by fox hunts. These men were revolutionary politicians who worked at revolution in high times and low. Those of us who follow their traditions can, or should, understand that sometimes, a frustratingly long sometimes, the objective circumstances do not allow for fruitful revolutionary work. We push on as we can. Part of that pushing on is to become immersed in the work of our predecessors and in this series the work of Marx and Engels to create a new form of revolutionary organization to fight the fights of their time, the time from about the Revolutions of 1848 to the founding of various socialist parties in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
**************
Letters of Marx and Engels 1848
Engels To Marx[191]
In Brussels
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 152;
Written: 14 January 1848;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913 and in full in MEGA, 1929
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paris, 14 January 1848
Dear Marx,
If I haven’t written to you it was because I have as yet still not been able to get hold of that accursed Louis Blanc. Decidedly, he is showing bad will. But I'm determined to catch him every day I go to him or lie in wait for him at the café. Père Flocon, on the other hand, is proving more amenable. He is delighted at the way the Brüsseler-Zeitung and The Northern Star defended the Réforme against the National. Not even the blâme against L. Blanc and Ledru-Rollin have succeeded in flustering him, any more than my announcement that we have now decided in London to come out openly as communists. He, of course, made some capital assertions you are tending towards despotism, you will kill the revolution in France, we have eleven million small peasants who at the same time are the most fanatical property owners, etc., etc., although he also abused the peasants, — after all, he said, our principles are too similar for us not to march together; as for us, we will give you all the support in our power, etc., etc.
I was enormously tickled by the Mosi [Moses Hess] business, although annoyed that it should have come to light. Apart from you, no one in Brussels knew of it save Gigot and Lupus — and Born, whom I told about it in Paris once when I was in my cups. Well, no matter. Moses brandishing his pistols, parading his horns before the whole of Brussels, and before Bornstedt into the bargain!!, must have been exquisite. Ferdinand Wolff’s inventiveness over the minutes made me split my sides with laughter — and Moses believes that! If, by the by, the jackass should persist in his preposterous lie about rape, I can provide him with enough earlier, concurrent, and later details to send him reeling. For only last July here in Paris this Balaam’s she-ass made me, in due form, a declaration of love mingled with resignation, and confided to me the most intimate nocturnal secrets of her ménage! Her rage with me is unrequited love, pure and simple. For that matter, Moses came only second in my thoughts at Valenciennes, my first desire being to revenge myself for all the dirty tricks they had played on Mary.
The strong wine proves to be no more than a 1/3 bottle of Bordeaux. It is only to be regretted that the horned Siegfried did not have his unhappy lot publicly minuted by the Workers’ Society.[158] He is perfectly at liberty, by the way, to avenge himself on all my present, past and future mistresses, and for that purpose I commend to him 1) the Flemish giantess who lives at my former lodgings, 87 chaussée d'Ixelles on the first floor, and whose name is Mademoiselle Joséphine, and 2) a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Félicie who, on Sunday, the 23rd of this month, will be arriving in Brussels by the first train from Cologne on her way to Paris. It would be bad luck if he were to succeed with neither. Kindly pass on this information to him in order that he may appreciate my honourable intentions. I will give him fair play.
It is nearly all up with Heine. I visited him a fortnight ago and he was in bed, having had a nervous fit. Yesterday he was up but extremely ill. He can hardly manage three steps now; supporting himself against the wall, he crawls from armchair to bed and vice versa. On top of that, the noise in his house, cabinet-making, hammering, etc., is driving him mad. Intellectually he is also somewhat spent. Heinzen desired to see him but was not admitted.
I was also at Herwegh’s yesterday. Along with the rest of his family he has influenza and is much visited by old women. He told me that L. Blanc’s 2nd volume [Histoire de la révolution française] has been quite eclipsed by the enormous success of Michelet’s 2nd volume [Histoire de la révolution française]. I have not yet read either because shortage of money has prevented me from subscribing to the reading room. By the way, Michelet’s success can only be attributed to his suspension[192] and his civic spirit.
Things are going wretchedly with the [Communist] League here. Never have I encountered such sluggishness and petty jealousy as there is among these fellows. Weitlingianism and Proudhonism are truly the exact expression of these jackasses’ way of life and hence nothing can be done. Some are genuine Straubingers,[86] ageing boors, others aspiring petty bourgeois. A class which lives, Irish-fashion, by depressing the wages of the French, is utterly useless. — I am now making one last attempt, if that doesn’t succeed, I shall give up this kind of propaganda. I hope that the London papers [i. e. documents of the Second Congress of the Communist League] will arrive soon and help to liven things up somewhat again; then I shall strike while the iron is hot. Not yet having seen any results from the Congress, the fellows are naturally growing completely supine. I am in contact with several new workers introduced to me by Stumpf and Neubeck but as yet there is no knowing what can be made of them.
Tell Bornstedt: 1) In the matter of his subscriptions [to the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung], his attitude towards the workers here should not be so rigorously commercial, otherwise he'll lose them all; 2) the agent procured for him by Moses is a feeble Jeremiah and very conceited, but the only one who still will and can attend to the thing, so he had better not rub him up the wrong way; the fellow has, moreover, gone to great pains, but he can’t put in money — which, for that matter, he has done already. Out of the money coming in to him he has to cover the expenses correspondence, etc. involves for him; 3) if he is sending separate issues, he should never send more than 10-15 at most of [...] one issue, and these as opportunity offers. The parcels go through Duchâtel’s ministry, whence they have to be fetched at considerable expenditure in time and where the ministry exacts a fearsome postal charge in order to ruin this traffic. A parcel of this kind costs 6-8 francs, and what can one do if that’s what they ask? Esselens in Liège wanted to appoint a courier to deliver it. Write to Liège and tell them this will be arranged. 4) The issues that were still here have been sent by third party to South Germany. Should occasion offer, Bornstedt should send us a few more issues to be used as propaganda in cafés, etc., etc. 5) Within the next few days Bornstedt will be receiving an article [Engels, The Movements of 1847] and the thing about the Prussian finances. But you must again cast an eye over the part about the committees of 1843 [193] and alter it where necessary, since my memory of the subject was very hazy at the time of writing.
If the Mosi business eventually leads to your attacking him in the Brüsseler-Zeitung, I shall be delighted. How the fellow can still remain in Brussels, I fail to understand. Here’s another opportunity to send him into exile at Verviers. The matter of the Réforme will be attended to.
Your
E.
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Philipp Gigot
8.-Rue Bodenbroeck, Bruxelles
Markin comment:
The foundation article by Marx or Engels listed in the headline goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space. Just below is a thumbnail sketch of the first tentative proceedings to form a communist organization that would become a way-station on the road to building a Bolshevik-type organization in order fight for the socialist revolution we so desperately need and have since Marx and Engels first put pen to ink.
*************
Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
************
Markin comment on this series:
No question that today at least the figures of 19th century communist revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are honored more for their “academic” work than their efforts to build political organizations to fight for democratic and socialist revolutions, respectively, as part of their new worldview. Titles like Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The Peasants Wars In Germany, and the like are more likely to be linked to their names than Cologne Communist League or Workingmen’s International (First International). While the theoretical and historical materialist works have their honored place in the pantheon of revolutionary literature it would be wrong to neglect that hard fact that both Marx and Engels for most of their lives were not “arm chair" revolutionaries or, in Engels case, smitten by fox hunts. These men were revolutionary politicians who worked at revolution in high times and low. Those of us who follow their traditions can, or should, understand that sometimes, a frustratingly long sometimes, the objective circumstances do not allow for fruitful revolutionary work. We push on as we can. Part of that pushing on is to become immersed in the work of our predecessors and in this series the work of Marx and Engels to create a new form of revolutionary organization to fight the fights of their time, the time from about the Revolutions of 1848 to the founding of various socialist parties in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
**************
Letters of Marx and Engels 1848
Engels To Marx[191]
In Brussels
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 152;
Written: 14 January 1848;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913 and in full in MEGA, 1929
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paris, 14 January 1848
Dear Marx,
If I haven’t written to you it was because I have as yet still not been able to get hold of that accursed Louis Blanc. Decidedly, he is showing bad will. But I'm determined to catch him every day I go to him or lie in wait for him at the café. Père Flocon, on the other hand, is proving more amenable. He is delighted at the way the Brüsseler-Zeitung and The Northern Star defended the Réforme against the National. Not even the blâme against L. Blanc and Ledru-Rollin have succeeded in flustering him, any more than my announcement that we have now decided in London to come out openly as communists. He, of course, made some capital assertions you are tending towards despotism, you will kill the revolution in France, we have eleven million small peasants who at the same time are the most fanatical property owners, etc., etc., although he also abused the peasants, — after all, he said, our principles are too similar for us not to march together; as for us, we will give you all the support in our power, etc., etc.
I was enormously tickled by the Mosi [Moses Hess] business, although annoyed that it should have come to light. Apart from you, no one in Brussels knew of it save Gigot and Lupus — and Born, whom I told about it in Paris once when I was in my cups. Well, no matter. Moses brandishing his pistols, parading his horns before the whole of Brussels, and before Bornstedt into the bargain!!, must have been exquisite. Ferdinand Wolff’s inventiveness over the minutes made me split my sides with laughter — and Moses believes that! If, by the by, the jackass should persist in his preposterous lie about rape, I can provide him with enough earlier, concurrent, and later details to send him reeling. For only last July here in Paris this Balaam’s she-ass made me, in due form, a declaration of love mingled with resignation, and confided to me the most intimate nocturnal secrets of her ménage! Her rage with me is unrequited love, pure and simple. For that matter, Moses came only second in my thoughts at Valenciennes, my first desire being to revenge myself for all the dirty tricks they had played on Mary.
The strong wine proves to be no more than a 1/3 bottle of Bordeaux. It is only to be regretted that the horned Siegfried did not have his unhappy lot publicly minuted by the Workers’ Society.[158] He is perfectly at liberty, by the way, to avenge himself on all my present, past and future mistresses, and for that purpose I commend to him 1) the Flemish giantess who lives at my former lodgings, 87 chaussée d'Ixelles on the first floor, and whose name is Mademoiselle Joséphine, and 2) a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Félicie who, on Sunday, the 23rd of this month, will be arriving in Brussels by the first train from Cologne on her way to Paris. It would be bad luck if he were to succeed with neither. Kindly pass on this information to him in order that he may appreciate my honourable intentions. I will give him fair play.
It is nearly all up with Heine. I visited him a fortnight ago and he was in bed, having had a nervous fit. Yesterday he was up but extremely ill. He can hardly manage three steps now; supporting himself against the wall, he crawls from armchair to bed and vice versa. On top of that, the noise in his house, cabinet-making, hammering, etc., is driving him mad. Intellectually he is also somewhat spent. Heinzen desired to see him but was not admitted.
I was also at Herwegh’s yesterday. Along with the rest of his family he has influenza and is much visited by old women. He told me that L. Blanc’s 2nd volume [Histoire de la révolution française] has been quite eclipsed by the enormous success of Michelet’s 2nd volume [Histoire de la révolution française]. I have not yet read either because shortage of money has prevented me from subscribing to the reading room. By the way, Michelet’s success can only be attributed to his suspension[192] and his civic spirit.
Things are going wretchedly with the [Communist] League here. Never have I encountered such sluggishness and petty jealousy as there is among these fellows. Weitlingianism and Proudhonism are truly the exact expression of these jackasses’ way of life and hence nothing can be done. Some are genuine Straubingers,[86] ageing boors, others aspiring petty bourgeois. A class which lives, Irish-fashion, by depressing the wages of the French, is utterly useless. — I am now making one last attempt, if that doesn’t succeed, I shall give up this kind of propaganda. I hope that the London papers [i. e. documents of the Second Congress of the Communist League] will arrive soon and help to liven things up somewhat again; then I shall strike while the iron is hot. Not yet having seen any results from the Congress, the fellows are naturally growing completely supine. I am in contact with several new workers introduced to me by Stumpf and Neubeck but as yet there is no knowing what can be made of them.
Tell Bornstedt: 1) In the matter of his subscriptions [to the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung], his attitude towards the workers here should not be so rigorously commercial, otherwise he'll lose them all; 2) the agent procured for him by Moses is a feeble Jeremiah and very conceited, but the only one who still will and can attend to the thing, so he had better not rub him up the wrong way; the fellow has, moreover, gone to great pains, but he can’t put in money — which, for that matter, he has done already. Out of the money coming in to him he has to cover the expenses correspondence, etc. involves for him; 3) if he is sending separate issues, he should never send more than 10-15 at most of [...] one issue, and these as opportunity offers. The parcels go through Duchâtel’s ministry, whence they have to be fetched at considerable expenditure in time and where the ministry exacts a fearsome postal charge in order to ruin this traffic. A parcel of this kind costs 6-8 francs, and what can one do if that’s what they ask? Esselens in Liège wanted to appoint a courier to deliver it. Write to Liège and tell them this will be arranged. 4) The issues that were still here have been sent by third party to South Germany. Should occasion offer, Bornstedt should send us a few more issues to be used as propaganda in cafés, etc., etc. 5) Within the next few days Bornstedt will be receiving an article [Engels, The Movements of 1847] and the thing about the Prussian finances. But you must again cast an eye over the part about the committees of 1843 [193] and alter it where necessary, since my memory of the subject was very hazy at the time of writing.
If the Mosi business eventually leads to your attacking him in the Brüsseler-Zeitung, I shall be delighted. How the fellow can still remain in Brussels, I fail to understand. Here’s another opportunity to send him into exile at Verviers. The matter of the Réforme will be attended to.
Your
E.
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Philipp Gigot
8.-Rue Bodenbroeck, Bruxelles
Sunday, September 09, 2012
From "Boston Occupier"-Pardon Bradley Manning Rally At Downtown Boston Obama Headquarters-September 6, 2012
Click on the headline to link to "Boston Occupier"-Pardon Bradley Manning Rally At Downtown Boston Obama Headquarters-September 6, 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Jack The Ripper Redux- Douglas Sirk’s “Lured”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Douglas Sirk’s Lured.
DVD Review
Lured, starring Lucille Ball, Gorge Sanders, Charles Coburn, directed by Douglas Sirk, United Artists, 1947
Some melodramas try to double as thrillers while others just fall into the film noir melodrama trap and be done with it like the film under review, Douglas Sirk’s Lured. Silk was well-known and respected in this melodrama genre but here his wit has failed him in the thriller department and so what he is left with is a so-so boy meets girl (okay man meets woman) drama that has solving some serial killings as a backdrop. In short the film never did decide whether it was serious about solving crime or was a mere send-up on British detective stories.
Here is the plot to give you an idea of why this one didn’t work out. A London taxi-dancer (dime-a-dance girl, okay) goes missing, adding her name to a long list of unsolved pretty young and unattached young women who have gone missing and who have the authorities worried and perplexed. Her American friend Sandra, played by Lucille Ball, concerned, gets in touch with the peelers (okay, coppers) and is recruited to act as, well, a lure, as bait to bring out the dastardly guy who is committing all the murder.
And so we are on our way.
Well almost, because we all know when there are dastardly deeds afoot the butler or the chauffer or somebody like that is knee-deep in the action. All of this is to telegraph to you that you don’t want to follow that path, look for more upscale villains. And by all means don’t get thrown off by some cuckoo ex-fashion designer or even by some white slavery guys. Look to a certain night club owner, played by George Sanders, a man about town who turns head over heels for our amateur detective Lucy. And she reciprocates. He however is also the prime fall guy. So without going further you can see what I mean when I can’t figure out what this film wanted to be.
But maybe it is more that as a child of 1950s black and white television in America and devoted to the comedy shows like Ms. Ball’s I Love Lucy I find it is hard to image back before that time to a time when she was considered something of a femme. And a femme that would catch the eye of a debonair Georges Sanders and have him swooning. Personally I don’t see it. Yes, maybe it is just that, that snappy New York City working class girl meets London swell thing that doesn’t work for me. If you check this one out keep that in mind.
From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Works of Auguste Blanqui 1869-Notes on Positivism
From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement
http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/GA/Minutes
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Works of Auguste Blanqui 1869-Notes on Positivism
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Source: Auguste Blanqui. Instruction pour une prise d'armes. L'Éternité per les astres, hypthèse astronomique et autres textes, Société encyclopédique français, Editions de la Tête de Feuilles. 1972;
Translated: by Andy Blunden and Mitchell Abidor for www.marxists.org, 2003;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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1st April 1869
1st April 1869
(Positive Philosophy, No 5, March-April 1869) article by Hippolyte Stupuy, a remark on Condorcet, pages 201 and following.
A pile of nonsense and sillinesses concerning Christianity and the Middle Ages wrongly attacked by the Revolutionaries, according to the author. Claimed benefits of Catholicism and feudalism. Execrable doctrines of historical fatalism, fatalism in humanity. Everything that happens is for the good, for only what exists, is solely that which happens.
Catholicism is irreproachable so long as it is the strongest. Its wrongs begin only with its weakness. Feudalism also is a good thing as long as it crushes. It becomes plague only by virtue of its decline.
The most audacious misrepresentation of the facts just as inept for the justification of this sinister theory of progress as for things carrying on the same. The grotesque self-satisfaction of these systematisers (in their pedantry). Their alleged sociology sets itself up as an almost mathematical science. The most stupid observations, more (manifestly) ridiculous, presented (unashamedly) as scientifically demonstrated truths.
Auguste Comte did not discover anything in any domain. He classified, categorised, pedantised. His system varies according to his liking of (events and of) the circumstances. This alleged founder of positive science ultimately threw himself into the extravagances of mysticism. This destroyer of dogmas improvised his own religion of humanity with its sacraments and priesthood. Why? The coup d’état [by Napoleon, December 1851] terrified him. It manifested the sudden and unexpected triumph of the past. To bend it and seduce it, he offered an ultra-aristocratic religion, the system of the castes, the control of the masses, the absolute domination of the rich, all the accumulated insanities of Brahmanism and Christianity.
Why do the orthodox disciples refuse to follow him along these lines? By what right do they foreswear this outcome of his philosophy, while proclaiming Comte the supreme prophet who has uttered the last word of humanity?
They speak on his behalf but at the same time disavow him! If he was extravagant in his last prophecies, he cannot infallible in the first.
Positivism, which accuses everyone outside of itself of wrong and travesty, and claims to be the negation of Protestantism, Deism, Atheism, is the very model of negation, thorough, systematic scepticism to the point of the absurdity, dressed up as religion. It is not Positivism, but Negativism, or rather Nihilism. It is a rationalisation, a deception, a trick.
To show its sociological science, it tortures and disguises the historical record with an audacity which would make even Father [Jean] Loriquet jealous. And this is an imposing audacity. It is enough for it to be entitled science, dressed up with a name universally respected so as to turn it into something sacrosanct. Nobody dares to look it in the eye. One must be humble and take off your hat to it.
One also has to say that it has the protection of the cowards, very powerful protection. It is used as shelter for atheists and for shamefaced materialists who make a point of living in peace with the reigning force and never get mixed up with the radical movement. If it were not for this support, the spoon-fed doctrines of distortion and of the equivocation would soon have sunk. But, no matter what one says, the cowards are a first-class rampart.
“Spiritual authority, though respectable and respected in the Middle Ages,” said Stupuy page 203, “discredited itself more and more in the 16th century due the public spectacle of its misconduct and by the endless conflicts surrounding its elections (with the papal elections) ... “.
How could the misconduct of the popes and the scandals of the Conclave in 16th century be compared, even at a stretch, with the infamies (depravity) and the atrocities of the papal competitions of 8th, 9th, 10th centuries, the time when he depicts the spiritual authority as being so established!
Respectable, because it is uncontested and omnipotent thanks to wiping out its opponents (its ferocity). Christianity would certainly not have got very far without (lived only by) violence. Right from the start violence was its single method (the use of the rack which is its ...). Already by the 1st century, in the Dark Ages, it proceeds by force (oppression), spying, calumny. It has as a citadel its organisation, for its weapon, all forms of violence. This formidable organisation resists all, triumphs over all. The first victim is the Roman Empire. Victorious, Christianity is maintained, like that which it conquered, by crushing.
Without this system, it would have died in its cradle, and once master, would not have lasted two hundred years if it had relaxed. Its militia, its wars without quarter, the steel, the flame, torture, enslavement, trickery, the shackling of thought laying siege to every individual, the immediate crushing of any opposition, consolidated it through the centuries and past all obstacles. Fire, carnage, destruction mark its road.
What would have happened, if Christianity had succumbed in any of the fights in which it triumphed? No one can say, even speculate. Even the briefest conjecture on this subject would be a silliness, Because things followed this course, it seems that they could not have followed any other. The accomplished fact has an irresistible power. It is destiny even. The spirit (finds itself) is overwhelmed by it and does not dare to revolt (to resist). It has no foundation. It could base itself only on a vacuum (on nothing).
What a terrible force for the fatalists of history, admirers of this accomplished fact! All the atrocities of the victor, its long series of crimes are coldly transformed into a regular, inescapable evolution, like that of nature. Nothing stops these imperturbable systematisers. Jean XII, Marozie, Théodora, Mathilde, etc, constitute a respectable and respected “spiritual authority"! All that is, is legitimate, useful, essential. One must simply observe the natural procession of things, obligatory for mankind. Unparalleled logic without peer, everything is connected and follows one from another, there is a constant relationship to be found in events, each time is the product of the previous time.
What a beautiful discovery and what a beautiful argument! Without doubt, all things are interconnected and enmeshed with one another. Every second follows according the second before. But the gears of human things are not fatalistic like that of the natural universe. They are modifiable at every moment. A couple are going to marry. I kill the man and take the woman. The children of this woman will then be mine. Couldn’t they have been those of the man who was killed? The murder intervened and changed the father. There is always relationship, but the descent? (is very different).
Nevertheless, it is immoral, it is a crime to glorify the past, to justify it by alleged immutable laws, to call upon the dignity of history which demands respect or even indulgence for the horrors of times gone by. To speak about the services of Catholicism could be, at certain moments, a deception, an illusion of the times. Today however, after the lessons of recent years, one may no longer, in the name of fatalism, plead the cause of this harmful religion. From beginning to end, it has produced nothing and will do only evil. It was no more useful for humanity than small pox, the plague or cholera are necessary to a man’s health.
The doctrine of continuous progress is a fantasy of times of transition. It gave a few years of vogue to Catholicism under the reign of Louis-Philippe. It was one of the forms of the reaction against the mercenary attitude, a reaction to democracy caused by the boiling over and cynical outpouring of material interests. The middle class established without shame the worship of the golden calf and seemed to set it up as the universal religion. Honest thoughts, ideas of social justice were outlawed, self-enrichment at all costs was proclaimed the only virtue.
For a moment, in the initial disgust at this stench, the Revolution forgot the crimes of Catholicism and remembered only its spirituality, and almost had the illusion of seeing in its deposed adversary, an ally against the filthy enemy which had emerged suddenly before it. The Middle Ages were suddenly and universally the fashion, in the popular camp, by mistake and naivety, and among the conservatives by instinct and calculation. This was a shallow unanimity! The mistake disappeared (dissipated, cleared up), the instinct was made into a doctrine. Everything again took on its own colour. The future recognised in Christianity its enemy mortal, the past its last farewell.
Positivism, sewn (attached) to the coat-tails of a Prophet, remains fixed in the admiration of the Middle Ages. Auguste Comte, at the time of this transitory passion, laid down the foundations of his heavy sociological construction. It would have been better if the disciples had buried themselves in the brickwork of their Master. They distort, they cripple history to make it fit in with the ravings of the new holy books. The Bible was a divine inspiration. The volumes of Auguste Count are revealed science. Which is the worse impertinence?
In its systematisation of the Middle Ages, positivism sacrifices with neither pity nor scruple all the martyrs of thought and justice, Abélard, Arnaud de Brescia, Rienzi, etc. Certainly, it does not dare condemn them, it confines itself to concealing their names or their roles, and to simply erasing from history the great figures which contradict its thesis of the legitimacy of the Papacy ... legitimate, and rational, just so long as they had a value in preserving the very powerful, to be damned, as soon as they no longer succeeded in preserving it from decline.
This positivism is truly a rare impudence. It is positivism which discovered the sun, the moon and stars. It is continually making up a mass of things as marvellous as they are ignored, such as bread, wine, candles, etc. Nothing existed before it. It veritably created, arranged (enumerated) everything. Its process of manufacture is curious. It consists in bogging down in a vast marsh of what everyone already knows, two words of the most limpid water. In this way, the simple truth: “One is always a part of one’s own time,” positivism gives to the world twisted in fifty unreadable pages.
Other discoveries by the same method: “All epochs (produce) have retrograde stages and the advanced stages.” Who had discovered (found) that and many other things before Auguste Comte? It is surely he who planted a whole a positive nose in the middle of our faces. Until the arrival of this Messiah, we had only false noses (cardboard noses).
* * *
From its alleged science of sociology, as well as from its philosophy of history, positivism excludes the idea of justice. It does not admit that the law of progress (but at the same time) continues fatalism. Each thing is excellent in its time since it takes place (marks a stage) in the series of improvements (the relationship of progress). All is always the best of all possibilities. There is no criterion to appreciate the good or the bad. Any such criterion would be preconceived, a priori, metaphysics.
The experiment of the centuries shows that the only agent of progress is education, that the light spouts (almost) only out of the exchange (and the shock) of human thought, that consequently all that supports and multiplies this exchange is to the good, all that removes it or obstructs it is evil. However, Christianity has as a fundamental principle the destruction of freedom of thought and the communication of thought. From this observation, it is therefore the darkness and the evil.
Hay! that’s all metaphysics and twaddle! the positivist answers. The truth it is that, it doesn’t matter by what means, Christianity fought and reigned over 1500 years, and was necessarily progressive throughout this period of struggle and power. It started to become evil and an obstacle to progress only from its decline, and only because it declined. – However, at the beginning, at its apogee and in its decline, its method was always the same: “extermination of the thought” That doesn’t matter! Hosannah! Glory to its triumph! Hurrah! (Hou! Hou!) Down! Down! with its defeat!
Such is positive philosophy, as generous as it is just, as noble as it is comforting.
The mania of progress nevertheless, to these blind systematisers, goes up until the charge of retrograde movement and of negative impetus, which is made against the renaissance of Greco-Latin art, and according to them this victory over the infamous work of the Middle Ages is a retreat. It broke the regular evolution of Christianity! It fraudulently introduced old-fashioned paganism into the new world (modernity). Antiquity is an intruder who deceived us; (while causing an ebb tide in the river of the ages) because it made the flow of the ages go back up.
It is true that in reappearing in that day, like the Rhone after its disappearance [under Lake Geneva], antiquity was able to give the lie to (blast) the infatuation of continuous development. Stopping short, then repressed in the night the Middle Ages, it reinstated the idea of freedom on the ruins of the Christiano-absolutist tradition, and the Republic was preserved (remained) in safekeeping in the entrails of the Greek and Latin idioms.
Thus, this theory of uninterrupted and fatalistic progress is false. For Greco-Roman civilisation leapt over Christianity to regenerate modern civilisation in spite of it, against it. There is no clearer proof that this religion, this terrible disease, for nearly two thousand years kept humanity nailed to a bed of sorrows.
If science had a birth, it is with the printing press, which rested on the old world (Antiquity), delivered (saved) of the tiger which had watched over it from the cradle. The positivists like science and sing its praises. Eh! bien, it is the daughter of Antiquity. Christianity failed to kill it. Witch! to the stake! shouted this infamy. Science did not escape without punishment, witness Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully and so many others. She lives again today in order to punish the monster. By what right are the panegyrists of the assassin made the cantors of the victim?
Positivism is just one long series of tricks. The first and best are its name, which grabs for itself the right to all that is truth and reality! It is joined with science from the beginning and endorses it by this marriage. “Positive science,” say the vulgar. “Before Comte there only existed negative science.”
However, this coupling is a redundancy: would “lighting lamp” [lumière éclatante] be more ridiculous, but what does the sin of pleonasm count for positivist gibberish, this corroding scab on our language?
* * *
Positivism calls each of the various known sciences ‘particular science’, and science in general, positive philosophy, that is to say, Comtist classification. It thus modestly installs (introduces) in the humanities as the Science of Sciences, what? the fantasies of a pedant! A nomenclature without any practical value, without any current application, a useless trinket (toy) to be put away (to look good) under a bell jar (glass).
The public carries on and follows, with their eyes closed, quite dazed by the appalling gibberish which seems to them at least to have come out of the cave of Trophonius ...
The whole value of positivism is its materialism. Take away this quality, and nothing any more remains but errors and impertinence. No-one demonstrates the truth of materialism better and, strange to say! it refuses to draw the conclusion and treats materialism as metaphysics. What a joke!
Eh! Messieurs,
You give your qualities to others so ponderously,
and we do not accept them so slowly.
To affirm, in the name of the experiment, the mortality of the soul and the eternity of matter, but to refuse the characterisation of materialist, is a refinement of casuistry inaccessible to the intelligence of a simple mortal. What is materialism, if not the doctrine which declares the universe infinite in time and space, and the spirit a property inseparable from the nervous substance, in life as in death?
With its twisting and turning and its subtleties, positivism more or less says the same thing. To be frank, where is the difference between the two doctrines? – ah! here: one just a particularism – German-style; the other, the universality of human knowledge. So has positivism invented this knowledge? no, it quite simply strings them together in a rosary and delivers up this rosary as its own work.
Positivism is a demigod who knows all, which embraces all, from the furthest boundaries of transcendental mathematics to the meanest details of sociology, past, present and future. Atop its omniscient throne, with a scornful glance, it turns its back on the Myrmidon [loyal followers of Achilles] who dare to make a similar claim and says to them as to a weak insect: “What is there between us?”
* * *
Page 375 – (positive philosophy, No 3, Déc Nov. 1869) article from The Revolution by Littré.
The dreadful pathos of Aug. Comte on the philosophies of Voltaire and Rousseau. The bad faith of the so called Prophet [Révélateur] who makes the pretence of recognising in the 18th century only two schools, both the one and the other deist, without uttering a word about the materialist and atheist school represented by the Pléiade: Diderot, d'Holbach, d'Alembert, Lamétrie, etc (Helvétius, etc).
The good man had his reasons to erase this Pléiade. Put simply, he wanted to invent atheism in the name of positivism. Following the example of the Master, the disciples also pretend to see in atheism only a metaphysics. But take away from their gibberish the atheistic idea and the materialism, and what remains? a whimsical system of classification (of collating). With this word: “positivism”, it almost succeeded in posing as the creators of all the social sciences.
What terrible gibberish is this style of Aug. Comte! could a similar writer ever extract something serious from his brain? [The positivist Emile] Littré finds in this patois an explanation of the reactionary consequences of Thermidor.
“It is”, he says, “the interference (sic) of the Reaction in the Thermidorian movement. Robespierre’s violence had made the reaction imminent.”
This reason is that of Diaforius: “Why does opium make one sleep? – Because it has a dormitive property”; “From whence comes the interference of the Reaction in the Thermidorian movement?” What made it possible? Having already been crushed, why was it that it could raise its head and triumph so suddenly?
The fault was with the composition of the parliaments, all bad without exception, since 1789. The Constituent Assembly, the Legislative Assembly, the Convention were collections of egoistical and cowardly bourgeois, rows of nonentities and mediocrities where people with talent were to be found in small number and rarer still were people of any character.
Crushed by the Revolutionary minority on May 31, then recalled thanks to being rescued from the dictatorship of Robespierre by the Montagnards, the retrograde majority of the Convention found itself free on 9 Thermidor and in control the next day.
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Below, translated by Mitchell Abidor.
April 8,1869
The source of progress is the communication of thought. Evil is thus all that opposes this communication, and good all that favors and multiplies it. In this regard the discovery of the printing press was the greatest benefit, and Christianity the greatest scourge, to afflict humanity. To enchain the human spirit to an immutable dogma, and to demand in principle and to practice in fact systematic destruction in order to maintain this so-called absolute truth and the eternal immobilization of thought: is this not to attack all of humanity? The crime par excellence is thus everything that has as its goal the prolongation of the existence of that religion of death, and our first obligation is the annihilation at whatever price of so horrible a plague.
* * *
In the trial of the past before the future contemporary memoirs are the witnesses, history the judge, and the verdict almost always an iniquity, either through the falsity of its depositions, or the absence – or the ignorance – of the tribunal. Fortunately the appeal remains forever open, and the light of future centuries, cast from afar on past centuries, denounces there the verdict of the shadows.
3/21/69
Catholicism is the first and last support of all oppression. It blesses the coffin of that which expires, and the cradle of that which is being born.
4/15/69
The liberals lie about what they did yesterday, on what they are doing today, and on what they'll do tomorrow.
“Revue Positive” (March-April 1869) article by Wirouboff on Russian drunkenness. Masterpiece of pedantic stupidity and positivist cretinism. The essence of this lovely work is the powerlessness of governments to do anything, to change anything, to modify anything in the peoples they dominate. All of history is the proof of this, is it not? O triumph of sociology!
3/29/69
In violent situations that place life at permanent risk either slaves crushed by terror are needed, or souls exalted by enthusiasm. The profession of a soldier, and even more that of a sailor, is only possible for the two extremes: the dolt or the hero.
* * *
The qualification of “Catholic” given to atheists despite themselves is the worst of outrages. In the registers of prisons, in census documents, that mark is applied to their shoulders. They are made the prisoners of Catholicism. It’s the inquisition in action.
That we weigh down the atheist with the most insulting epithets: so be it. He will willingly accept them as compliments. But Catholic! A name that represents all he hates and holds in contempt; a name that forcibly enrolls him under the enemy flag and makes him the official soldier of his persecutors!
It is thus that the so-called majorities are formed in the name of which people are oppressed. The prosecutions for working on Sunday, the churches built at great cost for a handful of real Catholics, the inquisitorial condemnations by tribunals, all rely on the mass of the indifferent – and even adversaries – disguised as Papist sectarians.
This name inflicted through violence must be rejected, and justice done on the insolent locutions that outlaw all that is not of the Christian sect. Everywhere this name of Christian is substituted for that of man, as if one ceased to be a man on ceasing to be a Christian.
* * *
Whatever the heterodox of Positivism might say, Comte’s second manner existed in germ in his first. He always professed a great respect for Catholicism, limiting himself to saying: “You were sublime in your time, but that time has passed. You are now rancid and rococo. Lay yourself down with dignity in your coffin, like those old savages who can no longer carry out scalpings and voluntarily leave for the Land of the Great Spirit. Off with you, good man. Off to the other world and make room for your natural heir, sacrosanct Positivism.”
“Morale independante” of 3/26/69
Morality defines respect for one’s own person and dignity as respect for the person and dignity of others. An entirely passive morality. “Don’t allow yourself to be impinged upon, and don’t impinge upon others.” This is a narrow, roguish, bristly, barricaded, selfish individualism. It is isolation.
True morality is active. It’s the mutualist idea, solidarity, association, common action...
http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/GA/Minutes
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
**************
Works of Auguste Blanqui 1869-Notes on Positivism
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Source: Auguste Blanqui. Instruction pour une prise d'armes. L'Éternité per les astres, hypthèse astronomique et autres textes, Société encyclopédique français, Editions de la Tête de Feuilles. 1972;
Translated: by Andy Blunden and Mitchell Abidor for www.marxists.org, 2003;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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1st April 1869
1st April 1869
(Positive Philosophy, No 5, March-April 1869) article by Hippolyte Stupuy, a remark on Condorcet, pages 201 and following.
A pile of nonsense and sillinesses concerning Christianity and the Middle Ages wrongly attacked by the Revolutionaries, according to the author. Claimed benefits of Catholicism and feudalism. Execrable doctrines of historical fatalism, fatalism in humanity. Everything that happens is for the good, for only what exists, is solely that which happens.
Catholicism is irreproachable so long as it is the strongest. Its wrongs begin only with its weakness. Feudalism also is a good thing as long as it crushes. It becomes plague only by virtue of its decline.
The most audacious misrepresentation of the facts just as inept for the justification of this sinister theory of progress as for things carrying on the same. The grotesque self-satisfaction of these systematisers (in their pedantry). Their alleged sociology sets itself up as an almost mathematical science. The most stupid observations, more (manifestly) ridiculous, presented (unashamedly) as scientifically demonstrated truths.
Auguste Comte did not discover anything in any domain. He classified, categorised, pedantised. His system varies according to his liking of (events and of) the circumstances. This alleged founder of positive science ultimately threw himself into the extravagances of mysticism. This destroyer of dogmas improvised his own religion of humanity with its sacraments and priesthood. Why? The coup d’état [by Napoleon, December 1851] terrified him. It manifested the sudden and unexpected triumph of the past. To bend it and seduce it, he offered an ultra-aristocratic religion, the system of the castes, the control of the masses, the absolute domination of the rich, all the accumulated insanities of Brahmanism and Christianity.
Why do the orthodox disciples refuse to follow him along these lines? By what right do they foreswear this outcome of his philosophy, while proclaiming Comte the supreme prophet who has uttered the last word of humanity?
They speak on his behalf but at the same time disavow him! If he was extravagant in his last prophecies, he cannot infallible in the first.
Positivism, which accuses everyone outside of itself of wrong and travesty, and claims to be the negation of Protestantism, Deism, Atheism, is the very model of negation, thorough, systematic scepticism to the point of the absurdity, dressed up as religion. It is not Positivism, but Negativism, or rather Nihilism. It is a rationalisation, a deception, a trick.
To show its sociological science, it tortures and disguises the historical record with an audacity which would make even Father [Jean] Loriquet jealous. And this is an imposing audacity. It is enough for it to be entitled science, dressed up with a name universally respected so as to turn it into something sacrosanct. Nobody dares to look it in the eye. One must be humble and take off your hat to it.
One also has to say that it has the protection of the cowards, very powerful protection. It is used as shelter for atheists and for shamefaced materialists who make a point of living in peace with the reigning force and never get mixed up with the radical movement. If it were not for this support, the spoon-fed doctrines of distortion and of the equivocation would soon have sunk. But, no matter what one says, the cowards are a first-class rampart.
“Spiritual authority, though respectable and respected in the Middle Ages,” said Stupuy page 203, “discredited itself more and more in the 16th century due the public spectacle of its misconduct and by the endless conflicts surrounding its elections (with the papal elections) ... “.
How could the misconduct of the popes and the scandals of the Conclave in 16th century be compared, even at a stretch, with the infamies (depravity) and the atrocities of the papal competitions of 8th, 9th, 10th centuries, the time when he depicts the spiritual authority as being so established!
Respectable, because it is uncontested and omnipotent thanks to wiping out its opponents (its ferocity). Christianity would certainly not have got very far without (lived only by) violence. Right from the start violence was its single method (the use of the rack which is its ...). Already by the 1st century, in the Dark Ages, it proceeds by force (oppression), spying, calumny. It has as a citadel its organisation, for its weapon, all forms of violence. This formidable organisation resists all, triumphs over all. The first victim is the Roman Empire. Victorious, Christianity is maintained, like that which it conquered, by crushing.
Without this system, it would have died in its cradle, and once master, would not have lasted two hundred years if it had relaxed. Its militia, its wars without quarter, the steel, the flame, torture, enslavement, trickery, the shackling of thought laying siege to every individual, the immediate crushing of any opposition, consolidated it through the centuries and past all obstacles. Fire, carnage, destruction mark its road.
What would have happened, if Christianity had succumbed in any of the fights in which it triumphed? No one can say, even speculate. Even the briefest conjecture on this subject would be a silliness, Because things followed this course, it seems that they could not have followed any other. The accomplished fact has an irresistible power. It is destiny even. The spirit (finds itself) is overwhelmed by it and does not dare to revolt (to resist). It has no foundation. It could base itself only on a vacuum (on nothing).
What a terrible force for the fatalists of history, admirers of this accomplished fact! All the atrocities of the victor, its long series of crimes are coldly transformed into a regular, inescapable evolution, like that of nature. Nothing stops these imperturbable systematisers. Jean XII, Marozie, Théodora, Mathilde, etc, constitute a respectable and respected “spiritual authority"! All that is, is legitimate, useful, essential. One must simply observe the natural procession of things, obligatory for mankind. Unparalleled logic without peer, everything is connected and follows one from another, there is a constant relationship to be found in events, each time is the product of the previous time.
What a beautiful discovery and what a beautiful argument! Without doubt, all things are interconnected and enmeshed with one another. Every second follows according the second before. But the gears of human things are not fatalistic like that of the natural universe. They are modifiable at every moment. A couple are going to marry. I kill the man and take the woman. The children of this woman will then be mine. Couldn’t they have been those of the man who was killed? The murder intervened and changed the father. There is always relationship, but the descent? (is very different).
Nevertheless, it is immoral, it is a crime to glorify the past, to justify it by alleged immutable laws, to call upon the dignity of history which demands respect or even indulgence for the horrors of times gone by. To speak about the services of Catholicism could be, at certain moments, a deception, an illusion of the times. Today however, after the lessons of recent years, one may no longer, in the name of fatalism, plead the cause of this harmful religion. From beginning to end, it has produced nothing and will do only evil. It was no more useful for humanity than small pox, the plague or cholera are necessary to a man’s health.
The doctrine of continuous progress is a fantasy of times of transition. It gave a few years of vogue to Catholicism under the reign of Louis-Philippe. It was one of the forms of the reaction against the mercenary attitude, a reaction to democracy caused by the boiling over and cynical outpouring of material interests. The middle class established without shame the worship of the golden calf and seemed to set it up as the universal religion. Honest thoughts, ideas of social justice were outlawed, self-enrichment at all costs was proclaimed the only virtue.
For a moment, in the initial disgust at this stench, the Revolution forgot the crimes of Catholicism and remembered only its spirituality, and almost had the illusion of seeing in its deposed adversary, an ally against the filthy enemy which had emerged suddenly before it. The Middle Ages were suddenly and universally the fashion, in the popular camp, by mistake and naivety, and among the conservatives by instinct and calculation. This was a shallow unanimity! The mistake disappeared (dissipated, cleared up), the instinct was made into a doctrine. Everything again took on its own colour. The future recognised in Christianity its enemy mortal, the past its last farewell.
Positivism, sewn (attached) to the coat-tails of a Prophet, remains fixed in the admiration of the Middle Ages. Auguste Comte, at the time of this transitory passion, laid down the foundations of his heavy sociological construction. It would have been better if the disciples had buried themselves in the brickwork of their Master. They distort, they cripple history to make it fit in with the ravings of the new holy books. The Bible was a divine inspiration. The volumes of Auguste Count are revealed science. Which is the worse impertinence?
In its systematisation of the Middle Ages, positivism sacrifices with neither pity nor scruple all the martyrs of thought and justice, Abélard, Arnaud de Brescia, Rienzi, etc. Certainly, it does not dare condemn them, it confines itself to concealing their names or their roles, and to simply erasing from history the great figures which contradict its thesis of the legitimacy of the Papacy ... legitimate, and rational, just so long as they had a value in preserving the very powerful, to be damned, as soon as they no longer succeeded in preserving it from decline.
This positivism is truly a rare impudence. It is positivism which discovered the sun, the moon and stars. It is continually making up a mass of things as marvellous as they are ignored, such as bread, wine, candles, etc. Nothing existed before it. It veritably created, arranged (enumerated) everything. Its process of manufacture is curious. It consists in bogging down in a vast marsh of what everyone already knows, two words of the most limpid water. In this way, the simple truth: “One is always a part of one’s own time,” positivism gives to the world twisted in fifty unreadable pages.
Other discoveries by the same method: “All epochs (produce) have retrograde stages and the advanced stages.” Who had discovered (found) that and many other things before Auguste Comte? It is surely he who planted a whole a positive nose in the middle of our faces. Until the arrival of this Messiah, we had only false noses (cardboard noses).
* * *
From its alleged science of sociology, as well as from its philosophy of history, positivism excludes the idea of justice. It does not admit that the law of progress (but at the same time) continues fatalism. Each thing is excellent in its time since it takes place (marks a stage) in the series of improvements (the relationship of progress). All is always the best of all possibilities. There is no criterion to appreciate the good or the bad. Any such criterion would be preconceived, a priori, metaphysics.
The experiment of the centuries shows that the only agent of progress is education, that the light spouts (almost) only out of the exchange (and the shock) of human thought, that consequently all that supports and multiplies this exchange is to the good, all that removes it or obstructs it is evil. However, Christianity has as a fundamental principle the destruction of freedom of thought and the communication of thought. From this observation, it is therefore the darkness and the evil.
Hay! that’s all metaphysics and twaddle! the positivist answers. The truth it is that, it doesn’t matter by what means, Christianity fought and reigned over 1500 years, and was necessarily progressive throughout this period of struggle and power. It started to become evil and an obstacle to progress only from its decline, and only because it declined. – However, at the beginning, at its apogee and in its decline, its method was always the same: “extermination of the thought” That doesn’t matter! Hosannah! Glory to its triumph! Hurrah! (Hou! Hou!) Down! Down! with its defeat!
Such is positive philosophy, as generous as it is just, as noble as it is comforting.
The mania of progress nevertheless, to these blind systematisers, goes up until the charge of retrograde movement and of negative impetus, which is made against the renaissance of Greco-Latin art, and according to them this victory over the infamous work of the Middle Ages is a retreat. It broke the regular evolution of Christianity! It fraudulently introduced old-fashioned paganism into the new world (modernity). Antiquity is an intruder who deceived us; (while causing an ebb tide in the river of the ages) because it made the flow of the ages go back up.
It is true that in reappearing in that day, like the Rhone after its disappearance [under Lake Geneva], antiquity was able to give the lie to (blast) the infatuation of continuous development. Stopping short, then repressed in the night the Middle Ages, it reinstated the idea of freedom on the ruins of the Christiano-absolutist tradition, and the Republic was preserved (remained) in safekeeping in the entrails of the Greek and Latin idioms.
Thus, this theory of uninterrupted and fatalistic progress is false. For Greco-Roman civilisation leapt over Christianity to regenerate modern civilisation in spite of it, against it. There is no clearer proof that this religion, this terrible disease, for nearly two thousand years kept humanity nailed to a bed of sorrows.
If science had a birth, it is with the printing press, which rested on the old world (Antiquity), delivered (saved) of the tiger which had watched over it from the cradle. The positivists like science and sing its praises. Eh! bien, it is the daughter of Antiquity. Christianity failed to kill it. Witch! to the stake! shouted this infamy. Science did not escape without punishment, witness Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully and so many others. She lives again today in order to punish the monster. By what right are the panegyrists of the assassin made the cantors of the victim?
Positivism is just one long series of tricks. The first and best are its name, which grabs for itself the right to all that is truth and reality! It is joined with science from the beginning and endorses it by this marriage. “Positive science,” say the vulgar. “Before Comte there only existed negative science.”
However, this coupling is a redundancy: would “lighting lamp” [lumière éclatante] be more ridiculous, but what does the sin of pleonasm count for positivist gibberish, this corroding scab on our language?
* * *
Positivism calls each of the various known sciences ‘particular science’, and science in general, positive philosophy, that is to say, Comtist classification. It thus modestly installs (introduces) in the humanities as the Science of Sciences, what? the fantasies of a pedant! A nomenclature without any practical value, without any current application, a useless trinket (toy) to be put away (to look good) under a bell jar (glass).
The public carries on and follows, with their eyes closed, quite dazed by the appalling gibberish which seems to them at least to have come out of the cave of Trophonius ...
The whole value of positivism is its materialism. Take away this quality, and nothing any more remains but errors and impertinence. No-one demonstrates the truth of materialism better and, strange to say! it refuses to draw the conclusion and treats materialism as metaphysics. What a joke!
Eh! Messieurs,
You give your qualities to others so ponderously,
and we do not accept them so slowly.
To affirm, in the name of the experiment, the mortality of the soul and the eternity of matter, but to refuse the characterisation of materialist, is a refinement of casuistry inaccessible to the intelligence of a simple mortal. What is materialism, if not the doctrine which declares the universe infinite in time and space, and the spirit a property inseparable from the nervous substance, in life as in death?
With its twisting and turning and its subtleties, positivism more or less says the same thing. To be frank, where is the difference between the two doctrines? – ah! here: one just a particularism – German-style; the other, the universality of human knowledge. So has positivism invented this knowledge? no, it quite simply strings them together in a rosary and delivers up this rosary as its own work.
Positivism is a demigod who knows all, which embraces all, from the furthest boundaries of transcendental mathematics to the meanest details of sociology, past, present and future. Atop its omniscient throne, with a scornful glance, it turns its back on the Myrmidon [loyal followers of Achilles] who dare to make a similar claim and says to them as to a weak insect: “What is there between us?”
* * *
Page 375 – (positive philosophy, No 3, Déc Nov. 1869) article from The Revolution by Littré.
The dreadful pathos of Aug. Comte on the philosophies of Voltaire and Rousseau. The bad faith of the so called Prophet [Révélateur] who makes the pretence of recognising in the 18th century only two schools, both the one and the other deist, without uttering a word about the materialist and atheist school represented by the Pléiade: Diderot, d'Holbach, d'Alembert, Lamétrie, etc (Helvétius, etc).
The good man had his reasons to erase this Pléiade. Put simply, he wanted to invent atheism in the name of positivism. Following the example of the Master, the disciples also pretend to see in atheism only a metaphysics. But take away from their gibberish the atheistic idea and the materialism, and what remains? a whimsical system of classification (of collating). With this word: “positivism”, it almost succeeded in posing as the creators of all the social sciences.
What terrible gibberish is this style of Aug. Comte! could a similar writer ever extract something serious from his brain? [The positivist Emile] Littré finds in this patois an explanation of the reactionary consequences of Thermidor.
“It is”, he says, “the interference (sic) of the Reaction in the Thermidorian movement. Robespierre’s violence had made the reaction imminent.”
This reason is that of Diaforius: “Why does opium make one sleep? – Because it has a dormitive property”; “From whence comes the interference of the Reaction in the Thermidorian movement?” What made it possible? Having already been crushed, why was it that it could raise its head and triumph so suddenly?
The fault was with the composition of the parliaments, all bad without exception, since 1789. The Constituent Assembly, the Legislative Assembly, the Convention were collections of egoistical and cowardly bourgeois, rows of nonentities and mediocrities where people with talent were to be found in small number and rarer still were people of any character.
Crushed by the Revolutionary minority on May 31, then recalled thanks to being rescued from the dictatorship of Robespierre by the Montagnards, the retrograde majority of the Convention found itself free on 9 Thermidor and in control the next day.
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Below, translated by Mitchell Abidor.
April 8,1869
The source of progress is the communication of thought. Evil is thus all that opposes this communication, and good all that favors and multiplies it. In this regard the discovery of the printing press was the greatest benefit, and Christianity the greatest scourge, to afflict humanity. To enchain the human spirit to an immutable dogma, and to demand in principle and to practice in fact systematic destruction in order to maintain this so-called absolute truth and the eternal immobilization of thought: is this not to attack all of humanity? The crime par excellence is thus everything that has as its goal the prolongation of the existence of that religion of death, and our first obligation is the annihilation at whatever price of so horrible a plague.
* * *
In the trial of the past before the future contemporary memoirs are the witnesses, history the judge, and the verdict almost always an iniquity, either through the falsity of its depositions, or the absence – or the ignorance – of the tribunal. Fortunately the appeal remains forever open, and the light of future centuries, cast from afar on past centuries, denounces there the verdict of the shadows.
3/21/69
Catholicism is the first and last support of all oppression. It blesses the coffin of that which expires, and the cradle of that which is being born.
4/15/69
The liberals lie about what they did yesterday, on what they are doing today, and on what they'll do tomorrow.
“Revue Positive” (March-April 1869) article by Wirouboff on Russian drunkenness. Masterpiece of pedantic stupidity and positivist cretinism. The essence of this lovely work is the powerlessness of governments to do anything, to change anything, to modify anything in the peoples they dominate. All of history is the proof of this, is it not? O triumph of sociology!
3/29/69
In violent situations that place life at permanent risk either slaves crushed by terror are needed, or souls exalted by enthusiasm. The profession of a soldier, and even more that of a sailor, is only possible for the two extremes: the dolt or the hero.
* * *
The qualification of “Catholic” given to atheists despite themselves is the worst of outrages. In the registers of prisons, in census documents, that mark is applied to their shoulders. They are made the prisoners of Catholicism. It’s the inquisition in action.
That we weigh down the atheist with the most insulting epithets: so be it. He will willingly accept them as compliments. But Catholic! A name that represents all he hates and holds in contempt; a name that forcibly enrolls him under the enemy flag and makes him the official soldier of his persecutors!
It is thus that the so-called majorities are formed in the name of which people are oppressed. The prosecutions for working on Sunday, the churches built at great cost for a handful of real Catholics, the inquisitorial condemnations by tribunals, all rely on the mass of the indifferent – and even adversaries – disguised as Papist sectarians.
This name inflicted through violence must be rejected, and justice done on the insolent locutions that outlaw all that is not of the Christian sect. Everywhere this name of Christian is substituted for that of man, as if one ceased to be a man on ceasing to be a Christian.
* * *
Whatever the heterodox of Positivism might say, Comte’s second manner existed in germ in his first. He always professed a great respect for Catholicism, limiting himself to saying: “You were sublime in your time, but that time has passed. You are now rancid and rococo. Lay yourself down with dignity in your coffin, like those old savages who can no longer carry out scalpings and voluntarily leave for the Land of the Great Spirit. Off with you, good man. Off to the other world and make room for your natural heir, sacrosanct Positivism.”
“Morale independante” of 3/26/69
Morality defines respect for one’s own person and dignity as respect for the person and dignity of others. An entirely passive morality. “Don’t allow yourself to be impinged upon, and don’t impinge upon others.” This is a narrow, roguish, bristly, barricaded, selfish individualism. It is isolation.
True morality is active. It’s the mutualist idea, solidarity, association, common action...
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The “Growing Up Absurd In Olde Saco” Series “Franny LeBlanc Makes Do”
Click on the headline to line to a YouTube film clip of the Inkspots performing their classic To Each His Own.
Lyrics: To Each His Own:
A rose must remain with the sun and the rain
Or its lovely promise won't come true
To each his own, to each his own
And my own is you
What good is a song if the words just don't belong?
And a dream must be a dream for two
No good alone, to each his own
For me there's you
If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
To open each door there's a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
Your touch means too much to me
Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you
If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
And to open each door there's gotta be a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
'Cause honey, your touch means too much to me
Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you
************
She, Francine Lorraine LeBlanc, Franny Leclerc she to everybody in Old Saco, that is up in Maine, thank you, ever since she could remember, before she traded in her name in for LeBlanc on that blessed June 1945 day when she and Jimmy swept, while he was on weekend Army leave, into Ste. Brigitte’s to take their vows, was in no hurry, a conscious no hurry, to get down to the Olde Saco Housing Authority offices before they closed on that frost-fighting November 1947 afternoon. Conscious reason number one surprise baby Jacques Louis LeBlanc had had her up half the night with colic, or some other one year old childhood disorder that she could not figure out. Conscious reason number two was that one planned baby Jean Laurent LeBlanc, a mere three months old, had had her up with his screaming for the other half of that night. Conscious reason number three though was the potential stopper, rather more the real reason that she was out of sorts that day. She was heading to those offices to line up with many other young mothers and wives of ex-servicemen in order to sign up for the public-assisted housing that the city of Olde Saco was planning to provide for returning veterans pushed out of the local single family housing market by the post-war crush demand.
The city, under pressure from many appreciative locals and not just those with servicemen, was trying to give retuning servicemen and their starter families a leg up, a way station was the way it was put, on their way to some nice single family home a few years ahead in the Ocean View section or maybe out in Dunesville. But Franny didn’t see it that way. She didn’t see it that way at all as she had been freely telling one and all, family and friends, for days (although conspicuously not the other young mothers and wives lined up with her that November afternoon).
See Franny had started out life with her own family in the now long gone Acre “projects” (really just paper and wind shacks little better than Hooverville cardboard boxes put up in a rush and taken down as quickly) back in the early 1930s when Meme and Papa Leclerc had come back down from the old country up in Quebec around Quebec City where they had been looking for work but there was no work. They had planned to work again in the Olde Saco textile mills but there wasn’t any work in those booming Depression days and so the Leclerc family had had to go on the public dole, including that cardboard shack housing over in the Acre. There had been no lack of embarrassment from school friends and family about their reduced circumstances and Franny had been ashamed to bring anyone over for fear that she would be laughed right out of school, pretty as she was. So Franny had had enough of that kind of tar paper housing with its silent whispers and fearful hatreds although it had only been for a couple of years until the mills started up again and the family just before the war moved over to Ocean View like all the other F-Cs into the extended Leclerc family.
It wasn’t fair though; she fumed, and fumed again every time she thought about it. Here her Jimmy had practically single-handedly saved the world from Hitler and she still had to stand in line for public housing. It just wasn’t right. (By the way that Hitler reference was her take, not Jimmy’s. Jimmy, if he said anything about it and like a like a lot of guys in town he usually didn’t say much, said he just did his “bit” and left it at that. It was the women, the home front “slackers,” and the rear echelon soldiers who wanted to talk endlessly about their sacrifices.)
What really wasn’t right though had more personal sources. Some personal that she was more than willing to announce to one and all (although usually carefully skirting the issue when one of her “targets” was present, or within earshot). It wasn’t right that her best friend from high school, Lilly Genet, a girl who barely graduated and who had done nothing to help the war effort by volunteering at the War Ration Board like she had) was right then moving with some heathen husband from Portland (meaning non F-C) over to the new Dunesville housing tract. Into a house complete with dishwasher and the new washer and dryer combinations. And silly Margot Deauville, who didn’t even finish high school, had been “knocked” up, but had met a forgiving proper F-C, Jean La Croix, was moving there too. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault the MacAdams Textile Mills, where he worked before the war and had returned right after the war, had started short-shifting as it planned to head south for cheaper labor. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that they had had to seek refuge with her parents, two babies and all, in her small former girlhood room. It just wasn’t fair, that’s all.
But the personal frustrations, or better the hurts, that Franny could express to no one, not family or friends, no one, was that her dreams for her and Jimmy and their little family might not work out, might not work out at all. When Jimmy and Franny had met over at the Old Orchard Ballroom near the beach that stardust September 1939 night when Benny Goodman had held sway for two be-bop nights only he had swept her off her feet with his moonlight-sized dreams, his simmering desire for her, and his steady ways which she appreciated after those hated rationed 1930s years. She stuck to him like glue and when war came, well war came and she promised, no vowed is better, to wait, to wait on Jimmy’s dreams.
Jimmy had promised her the moon, and while she was realistic enough to know that half the stuff he said was just stuff, just stuff guys say to girls when they want something, the other half should have come out okay. And she would have accepted that. Accepted that gladly. But something was gnawing at her that day, something that even playing “their song,”’ the Inkspots' To Each His Own, that had gotten her by many a war-torn evening had not worked its magic as it usually did. Yah, something was gnawing at her that day and standing in line with other young mothers with their own dreams, and their own half-dream surrender acceptances didn’t help. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair
After what seemed like an eternity in line and then at the red-faced desk of Marvis Dubois, a girl she went to Olde Saco High with, she had her paper-work processed and her application, due to Jimmy’s war record, was approved right then. They would be moving into their “apartment” (four small rooms and an alcove, jointed together with three other such apartments to make one unit and each of the fifty units made “the projects”) sometime in early 1948. That night, alone because Jimmy was working second shift just to keep his job at the mill, Franny, the babies fed and put to sleep, went over the record player, a wedding gift from her parents, and once again put on To Each His Own. She listened intently to the words this time and this time they brought back the old time fervor for Jimmy and for his mad dreams. Yes, they would make it through somehow.
[Life was not kind to the LeBlanc family, despite the fervent Jimmy dreams, and the Franny half-acceptances. Another unplanned child came in early 1949 to add to the woes. Jimmy lost his job at the mill when it closed in the early 1950s and the company headed south. He decided (pushed along by Franny and her parents) that he couldn’t take his young family down there and rejected the proffered job offer from the mill owners. The economy of the town dried up after the closings however and whatever you might have heard about the golden age of America in the 1950s there were no working class jobs in the area to see him through so he was reduced to odd job catch- as- catch- can jobs as they came along. Worst, worst for a proud war decorated 1950s F-C man (or, hell, any man in go-go times America) Franny had to go to work serving them off the arm, working mother’s hours, over at Jimmy Jakes’ Diner on Atlantic Avenue, the one that catered to the senior citizens and summer time touristas. It was many, many years and many sorrows before the family escaped “the projects” for a little shack of a single family house over in the Atlantic section of town, adjacent to the Acre. Franny stopped playing To Each His Own in the early 1950s and Jimmy did not say anything about it.-JLB]
Lyrics: To Each His Own:
A rose must remain with the sun and the rain
Or its lovely promise won't come true
To each his own, to each his own
And my own is you
What good is a song if the words just don't belong?
And a dream must be a dream for two
No good alone, to each his own
For me there's you
If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
To open each door there's a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
Your touch means too much to me
Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you
If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
And to open each door there's gotta be a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
'Cause honey, your touch means too much to me
Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you
************
She, Francine Lorraine LeBlanc, Franny Leclerc she to everybody in Old Saco, that is up in Maine, thank you, ever since she could remember, before she traded in her name in for LeBlanc on that blessed June 1945 day when she and Jimmy swept, while he was on weekend Army leave, into Ste. Brigitte’s to take their vows, was in no hurry, a conscious no hurry, to get down to the Olde Saco Housing Authority offices before they closed on that frost-fighting November 1947 afternoon. Conscious reason number one surprise baby Jacques Louis LeBlanc had had her up half the night with colic, or some other one year old childhood disorder that she could not figure out. Conscious reason number two was that one planned baby Jean Laurent LeBlanc, a mere three months old, had had her up with his screaming for the other half of that night. Conscious reason number three though was the potential stopper, rather more the real reason that she was out of sorts that day. She was heading to those offices to line up with many other young mothers and wives of ex-servicemen in order to sign up for the public-assisted housing that the city of Olde Saco was planning to provide for returning veterans pushed out of the local single family housing market by the post-war crush demand.
The city, under pressure from many appreciative locals and not just those with servicemen, was trying to give retuning servicemen and their starter families a leg up, a way station was the way it was put, on their way to some nice single family home a few years ahead in the Ocean View section or maybe out in Dunesville. But Franny didn’t see it that way. She didn’t see it that way at all as she had been freely telling one and all, family and friends, for days (although conspicuously not the other young mothers and wives lined up with her that November afternoon).
See Franny had started out life with her own family in the now long gone Acre “projects” (really just paper and wind shacks little better than Hooverville cardboard boxes put up in a rush and taken down as quickly) back in the early 1930s when Meme and Papa Leclerc had come back down from the old country up in Quebec around Quebec City where they had been looking for work but there was no work. They had planned to work again in the Olde Saco textile mills but there wasn’t any work in those booming Depression days and so the Leclerc family had had to go on the public dole, including that cardboard shack housing over in the Acre. There had been no lack of embarrassment from school friends and family about their reduced circumstances and Franny had been ashamed to bring anyone over for fear that she would be laughed right out of school, pretty as she was. So Franny had had enough of that kind of tar paper housing with its silent whispers and fearful hatreds although it had only been for a couple of years until the mills started up again and the family just before the war moved over to Ocean View like all the other F-Cs into the extended Leclerc family.
It wasn’t fair though; she fumed, and fumed again every time she thought about it. Here her Jimmy had practically single-handedly saved the world from Hitler and she still had to stand in line for public housing. It just wasn’t right. (By the way that Hitler reference was her take, not Jimmy’s. Jimmy, if he said anything about it and like a like a lot of guys in town he usually didn’t say much, said he just did his “bit” and left it at that. It was the women, the home front “slackers,” and the rear echelon soldiers who wanted to talk endlessly about their sacrifices.)
What really wasn’t right though had more personal sources. Some personal that she was more than willing to announce to one and all (although usually carefully skirting the issue when one of her “targets” was present, or within earshot). It wasn’t right that her best friend from high school, Lilly Genet, a girl who barely graduated and who had done nothing to help the war effort by volunteering at the War Ration Board like she had) was right then moving with some heathen husband from Portland (meaning non F-C) over to the new Dunesville housing tract. Into a house complete with dishwasher and the new washer and dryer combinations. And silly Margot Deauville, who didn’t even finish high school, had been “knocked” up, but had met a forgiving proper F-C, Jean La Croix, was moving there too. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault the MacAdams Textile Mills, where he worked before the war and had returned right after the war, had started short-shifting as it planned to head south for cheaper labor. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that they had had to seek refuge with her parents, two babies and all, in her small former girlhood room. It just wasn’t fair, that’s all.
But the personal frustrations, or better the hurts, that Franny could express to no one, not family or friends, no one, was that her dreams for her and Jimmy and their little family might not work out, might not work out at all. When Jimmy and Franny had met over at the Old Orchard Ballroom near the beach that stardust September 1939 night when Benny Goodman had held sway for two be-bop nights only he had swept her off her feet with his moonlight-sized dreams, his simmering desire for her, and his steady ways which she appreciated after those hated rationed 1930s years. She stuck to him like glue and when war came, well war came and she promised, no vowed is better, to wait, to wait on Jimmy’s dreams.
Jimmy had promised her the moon, and while she was realistic enough to know that half the stuff he said was just stuff, just stuff guys say to girls when they want something, the other half should have come out okay. And she would have accepted that. Accepted that gladly. But something was gnawing at her that day, something that even playing “their song,”’ the Inkspots' To Each His Own, that had gotten her by many a war-torn evening had not worked its magic as it usually did. Yah, something was gnawing at her that day and standing in line with other young mothers with their own dreams, and their own half-dream surrender acceptances didn’t help. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair
After what seemed like an eternity in line and then at the red-faced desk of Marvis Dubois, a girl she went to Olde Saco High with, she had her paper-work processed and her application, due to Jimmy’s war record, was approved right then. They would be moving into their “apartment” (four small rooms and an alcove, jointed together with three other such apartments to make one unit and each of the fifty units made “the projects”) sometime in early 1948. That night, alone because Jimmy was working second shift just to keep his job at the mill, Franny, the babies fed and put to sleep, went over the record player, a wedding gift from her parents, and once again put on To Each His Own. She listened intently to the words this time and this time they brought back the old time fervor for Jimmy and for his mad dreams. Yes, they would make it through somehow.
[Life was not kind to the LeBlanc family, despite the fervent Jimmy dreams, and the Franny half-acceptances. Another unplanned child came in early 1949 to add to the woes. Jimmy lost his job at the mill when it closed in the early 1950s and the company headed south. He decided (pushed along by Franny and her parents) that he couldn’t take his young family down there and rejected the proffered job offer from the mill owners. The economy of the town dried up after the closings however and whatever you might have heard about the golden age of America in the 1950s there were no working class jobs in the area to see him through so he was reduced to odd job catch- as- catch- can jobs as they came along. Worst, worst for a proud war decorated 1950s F-C man (or, hell, any man in go-go times America) Franny had to go to work serving them off the arm, working mother’s hours, over at Jimmy Jakes’ Diner on Atlantic Avenue, the one that catered to the senior citizens and summer time touristas. It was many, many years and many sorrows before the family escaped “the projects” for a little shack of a single family house over in the Atlantic section of town, adjacent to the Acre. Franny stopped playing To Each His Own in the early 1950s and Jimmy did not say anything about it.-JLB]
From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days- The Communist League-Rules of the Communist League (1847)
Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.
Markin comment:
The foundation article by Marx or Engels listed in the headline goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space. Just below is a thumbnail sketch of the first tentative proceedings to form a communist organization that would become a way-station on the road to building a Bolshevik-type organization in order fight for the socialist revolution we so desperately need and have since Marx and Engels first put pen to ink.
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Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
************
Markin comment on this series:
No question that today at least the figures of 19th century communist revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are honored more for their “academic” work than their efforts to build political organizations to fight for democratic and socialist revolutions, respectively, as part of their new worldview. Titles like Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The Peasants Wars In Germany, and the like are more likely to be linked to their names than Cologne Communist League or Workingmen’s International (First International). While the theoretical and historical materialist works have their honored place in the pantheon of revolutionary literature it would be wrong to neglect that hard fact that both Marx and Engels for most of their lives were not “arm chair" revolutionaries or, in Engels case, smitten by fox hunts. These men were revolutionary politicians who worked at revolution in high times and low. Those of us who follow their traditions can, or should, understand that sometimes, a frustratingly long sometimes, the objective circumstances do not allow for fruitful revolutionary work. We push on as we can. Part of that pushing on is to become immersed in the work of our predecessors and in this series the work of Marx and Engels to create a new form of revolutionary organization to fight the fights of their time, the time from about the Revolutions of 1848 to the founding of various socialist parties in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
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The Communist League-Rules of the Communist League [375]
Working Men of All Countries, Unite!
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Written: December 1847;
Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 633;
First published: Wermuth und Stieber, Die Communisten-Verschwörungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Erster Theil, Berlin, 1853;
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SECTION I
THE LEAGUE
Art. 1. The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property.
Art. 2. The conditions of membership are:
A) A way of life and activity which corresponds to this aim;
B) Revolutionary energy and zeal in propaganda;
C) Acknowledgment of communism;
D) Abstention from participation in any anti-communist political or national association and notification of participation in any kind of association to the superior authority.
E) Subordination to the decisions of the League;
F) Observance of secrecy concerning the existence of all League affairs;
G) Unanimous admission into a community.
Whosoever no longer complies with these conditions is expelled (see Section VIII).
Art. 3. All members are equal and brothers and as such owe each other assistance in every situation.
Art. 4. The members bear League names.
Art. 5. The League is organised in communities, circles, leading circles, Central Authority and congresses.
SECTION II
THE COMMUNITY
Art. 6. The community consists of at least three and at most twenty members.
Art. 7. Every community elects a chairman and deputy chairman. The chairman presides over the meeting, the deputy chairman holds the funds and represents the chairman in case of absence.
Art. 8. The admission of new members is effected by the chairman and the proposing member with previous agreement of the community.
Art. 9. Communities of various kinds do not know each other and do not conduct any correspondence with each other.
Art. 10. Communities bear distinctive names.
Art. 11. Every member who changes his place of residence must first inform his chairman.
SECTION III
THE CIRCLE
Art. 12. The circle comprises at least two and at most ten communities.
Art. 13. The chairmen and deputy chairmen of the communities form the circle authority. The latter elects a president from its midst. It is in correspondence with its communities and the leading circle.
Art. 14. The circle authority is the executive organ for all the communities of the circle.
Art. 15. Isolated communities must either join an already existing circle or form a new circle with other isolated communities.
SECTION IV
THE LEADING CIRCLE
Art. 16. The various circles of a country or province are subordinated to a leading circle.
Art. 17. The division of the circles of the League into provinces and the appointment of the leading circle is effected by the Congress on the proposal of the Central Authority.
Art. 18. The leading circle is the executive authority for all the circles of its province. It is in correspondence with these circles and with the Central Authority.
Art. 19. Newly formed circles join the nearest leading circle.
Art. 20. The leading circles are provisionally responsible to the Central Authority and in the final instance to the Congress.
SECTION V
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
Art. 21. The Central Authority is the executive organ of the whole League and as such is responsible to the Congress.
Art. 22. It consists of at least five members and is elected by the circle authority of the place in which the Congress has located its seat.
Art. 23. The Central Authority is in correspondence with the leading circles. Once every three months it gives a report on the state of the whole League.
SECTION VI
COMMON REGULATIONS
Art. 24. The communities, and circle authorities and also the Central Authority meet at least once every fortnight.
Art. 25. The members of the circle authority and of the Central Authority are elected for one year, can be re-elected and recalled by their electors at any time.
Art. 26. The elections take place in the month of September.
Art. 27. The circle authorities have to guide the discussions of the communities in accordance with the purpose of the League.
If the Central Authority deems the discussion of certain questions to be of general and immediate interest it must call on the entire League to discuss them.
Art. 28. Individual members of the League must maintain correspondence with their circle authority at least once every three months, individual communities at least once a month.
Every circle must report on its district to the leading circle at least once every two months, every leading circle to the Central Authority at least once every three months.
Art. 29. Every League authority is obliged to take the measures in accordance with the Rules necessary for the security and efficient work of the League under its responsibility and to notify the superior authority at once of these measures.
SECTION VII
THE CONGRESS
Art. 30. The Congress is the legislative authority of the whole League. All proposals for changes in the Rules are sent to the Central Authority through the leading circles and submitted by it to the Congress.
Art. 31. Every circle sends one delegate.
Art. 32. Every individual circle with less than 30 members sends one delegate, with less than 60 two, less than 90 three, etc. The circles can have themselves represented by League members who do not belong to their localities.
In this case, however, they must send to their delegate a detailed mandate.
Ait. 33. The Congress meets in the month of August of every year. In urgent cases the Central Authority calls an extraordinary congress.
Art. 34. The Congress decides every time the place where the Central Authority is to have its seat for the coming year and the place where the Congress is next to meet.
Art. 35. The Central Authority sits in the Congress, but has no deciding vote.
Art. 36. After every sitting the Congress issues in addition to its circular a manifesto in the name of the Party.
SECTION VIII
OFFENCES AGAINST THE LEAGUE
Art. 37. Whoever violates the conditions of membership (Art. 2) is according to the circumstances removed from the League or expelled.
Expulsion precludes re-admission.
Art. 38. Only the Congress decides on expulsions.
Art. 39. Individual members can be removed by the circle or the isolated community, with immediate notification of the superior authority. Here also the Congress decides in the last instance.
Art. 40. Re-admission of removed members is effected by the Central Authority on the proposal of the circle.
Art. 41. The circle authority passes judgment on offences against the League and also sees to the execution of the verdict.
Art. 42. Removed and expelled members, like suspect individuals in general, are to be watched in the interest of the League, and prevented from doing harm. Intrigues of such individuals are at once to be reported to the community concerned.
SECTION IX
LEAGUE FUNDS
Art. 43. The Congress fixes for every country the minimum contribution to be paid by every member.
Art. 44. Half of this contribution goes to the Central Authority, the other half remains in the funds of the circle or community.
Art. 45. The funds of the Central Authority are used:
1. to cover the costs of correspondence and administration;
2. to print and distribute propaganda leaflets;
3. to send out emissaries of the Central Authority for particular purposes.
Art. 46. The funds of the local authorities are used:
1. to cover the costs of correspondence;-
2. to print and distribute propaganda leaflets;
3. to send out occasional emissaries.
Art. 47. Communities and circles which have not paid their contributions for six months are notified by the Central Authority of their removal from the League.
Art. 48. Circle authorities have to render account of their expenditure and income to their communities at least every three months. The Central Authority renders account to the Congress on the administration of League funds and the state of the League finances. Any embezzlement of League funds is subject to the severest punishment.
Art. 49. Extraordinary and Congress costs are met from extraordinary contributions.
SECTION X
ADMISSION
Art. 50. The chairman of the community reads to the applicant Art. 1 to 49, explains them, emphasises particularly in a short speech the obligations which the new member assumes, and then puts to him the question: “Do you now wish to enter this League?” If he replies “Yes”, the chairman takes his word of honour to the effect that he will fulfil the obligations of a League member, declares him a member of the League, and introduces him to the community at the next meeting.
London, December 8, 1847
In the name of the Second Congress of the autumn of 1847
The Secretary
Signed Engels
The President
Signed Karl Schapper
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International -Fourth International, October 1942-SWP National Committee-The National Question and Europe
Markin comment:
Below this general introduction is another addition to the work of creating a new international working class organization-a revolutionary one fit of the the slogan in the headline.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Fourth International, October 1942-SWP National Committee-The National Question and Europe
From Fourth International, Vol.3 No.10 (Whole No.26), October 1942, p.319.
Transcription & mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We publish below the section on Europe from the Political Resolution of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party for the forthcoming convention.
We regret that the second of Marc Loris’ discussion articles on the national question in Europe, which we promised to publish in this issue, was not ready in time; it will appear next month.
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11. The fall of France not only testified to Germany’s economic and military superiority on the European continent ; it exposed the rottenness of French bourgeois democracy as well as the inability of the French bourgeoisie to defend their own nation against the fascist invaders. After crushing the workers’ bid for power in 1936, the capitalist politicians and their Stalinist, socialist and syndicalist lieutenants in the labor movement called upon the French workers to fight for the capitalist fatherland in order to defend democracy and national independence. Duped by the bourgeoisie and betrayed by their leaders, the French workers suffered the loss of their democratic rights and their class organizations together with national unity and independence. The main section of French capitalism has entered into collaboration with the fascist conquerors; another group has gone over into the Anglo-American camp.
12. The fate of France contains a great political lesson for the workers of the whole world. It has again demonstrated that the bourgeoisie puts its profits and privileges above either national independence or democracy. Whenever their social and economic interests and their political predominance are imperiled by the proletariat, the bourgeoisie will give up national independence, destroy democracy, substitute their naked class dictatorship and collaborate with the oppressors. For the sake of preserving private property, privileges and profits, or even in the hope of preserving some of them, the bourgeoisie will turn against their own people. Official patriotism serves simply as a mask to conceal the class interests of the exploiters. The subsequent capitulations of the French bourgeoisie to Hitler have proved this to the hilt.
13. The aspiration of the masses of France and the other occupied countries for national liberation has profound revolutionary implications. But, like the sentiment of anti-fascism, it can be perverted to the uses of imperialism. Such a perversion of the movement is inevitable if it proceeds under the slogans and leadership of bourgeois nationalism. The “democratic” imperialist gangsters are interested only in recovering the property which has been taken away from them by the fascist gangsters. This is what they mean by national liberation. The interests of the masses are profoundly different. The task of the workers of the occupied countries is to put themselves at the head of the insurgent movement of the people and direct it toward the struggle for the socialist re-organization of Europe. Their allies in this struggle are not the Anglo-American imperialists and their satellites among the native bourgeoisie, but the workers of Germany. Peace, security and prosperity can be assured for the people of Europe only by its economic unification based on the socialist collaboration of the free nations. Only with this perspective is national liberation worth talking about, still less fighting and dying for. The central unifying slogan of the revolutionary fight is “The Socialist United States of Europe” and to it all other slogans must be subordinated.
14. The German proletariat made a revolution in 1918, only to be robbed of its fruits by the bourgeois-Social-Democratic coalition. For fifteen years thereafter the proletariat remained loyal to the parties avowing workers’ socialism. A revolutionary situation in 1923 was lost by the incapacity of the German Communist Party leadership disoriented by the Comintern, already then in the first stages of its Stalinist degeneration. In the last regular election (1932) the workers’ parties polled 13,000,000 votes. Hitler came to power only by the help of the rottenness, incapacity and treachery of Social Democracy and Stalinism. Betrayed by their own parties the German workers were crushed by Nazism. It may be assumed that Hitler’s diplomatic and military victories created a certain amount of chauvinist intoxication among the masses for a time. Now, however, they gaze on the ruin of Europe – and the ruin of Germany. They mourn millions of dead and wounded, the masses grow hungry as in 1916-1.918, and the end of the war is far away. Chauvinist intoxication must begin to give way before the grim realities. The fear of a new and worse Versailles is the most potent weapon in Hitler’s hands. But that weapon will fall from his hands with the first serious revolutionary developments in the “democracies” or in the occupied countries. The mighty German proletariat will say the most decisive word in the socialist revolution of Europe.
15. The workers of Britain are being impelled toward proletarian revolution by the collapse of the British Empire. The reformism of the British Labour Party and the trade unions was based on the crumbs thrown to a privileged section of the workers by a sated imperialist power; that reformism is losing its foundations. Therewith the road is being cleared for the stormy development of a revolutionary party of the Fourth International. Only the Socialist United States of Europe offers the British proletariat a perspective for hope. All the objective prerequisites for a proletarian revolution are now present in the British Isles. The British Trotskyists stand before their great historic task of organizing and leading the British workers to their revolutionary destiny.
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