From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Johnny Shea’s Femme Fatale Moment

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the classic femme fatale film Out Of The Past to set the scene below.


Jim Sweeney was a great fan of 1940s and 1950s film noir, especially those that featured enticing femme fatales who knew, without lifting a finger sometimes, how to twist a guy in knots and make him like it without working up a hard breathe. He had been crazy for noir since he was kid growing up in 1950s Nashua, New Hampshire when he would go to the old Strand Theater (long since torn down) on Main Street every Saturday afternoon, sometimes with his boys, sometimes alone, although then he didn’t know femme fatale or film noir words from a hole in the wall. What he did know, and maybe only sub-consciously as he thought about later when he discussed the issue with those same boys, was that dames, those femmes on the screen anyway were poison, but what was a guy going to do when he drew that ticket. Take the ride, see what happened, and hope you drew a good femme.

Yes, Jim was a dreamer, a weaver of dreams, a sunny side of life guy, and that was why he was surprised when he told Billy Riley this story about Johnny Shea a few years ago, a guy Jim said put him in the shade for being crazy about femme fatales, and a guy who did not by any stretch of the imagination draw a good femme. Funny, Jim said, that back in the neighborhood corner boy young days, the days of hanging out in front of Joyce’s Variety Store over on Third Street in the Irishtown section of town down by the Merrimac River, Johnny would walk away when anybody spoke of what he called those mushy noir films, his thing was the sci-fi thrillers that scared everybody out of their wits thinking the commies or some awful thing from outer space, or both, was headed straight for Nashua, and would leave no survivors. It was only later, sometime in the 1980s when Johnny was down on his luck a little and happened to spend a space afternoon on 42nd Street in the Bijou Theater where they played revival films, that he got “religion.” The film: Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon and the rest was history.


Billy got to thinking about Jim’s story again recently as he had periodically whenever the subject of noir came to the surface. He was watching a film noir, Impact, a strictly B-noir as far as the story line went, but with a femme worthy of the greats like sultry Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity or coolly calculating Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shang-hai. This Irene (played by Helen Walker) was nothing but a young gold-digger, strictly from cheap street, but she had a plan to murder her rich husband, some San Francisco swell, and run off with her boyfriend after he did dear hubby in. A scheme dames have cooked ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before.

Well things didn’t work out as planned, boyfriend (who acted like a hopped up junkie while he was on screen and may explain why things went awry) didn’t finish the job so hubby didn’t die but was just left in some sierra gully to croak, boyfriend carelessly got himself killed in an accident trying to flee the scene, hubby put two and two together finally when he woke up in that ditch and instead of heading back to ‘Frisco then tried to start a new anonymous life. Meanwhile sweet poison Irene was being held for his murder. She was all set to take the fall, to take the big stretch when, prodded by the “good” woman out in Podunk who had entered hubby’s new life, he decided to come clean. Our Irene then in a reverse twist framed, framed hubby big time, for the murder of her boyfriend. Beautiful. That is why Billy always said that he would listen to a femme tale any time one passes his way. He only asked that the teller make it interesting and not too goofy. See goofy in Billy’s book was just like a million guys get with any dame under any circumstances. He only wanted to hear about guys, hard-nosed guys like Johnny Shea who had been around the block with a frail and lived to tell about it, and who got all tied up in knots about and were ready to ask for more. Here is how Billy remembered Jim telling him his Johnny Shea story, maybe a little off after passing though double hearsay as they say in the courts but certainly with the ring of truth around it :


“He, Johnny Shea, Johnny Jukes, from the old neighborhood up in Nashua, was on record, maybe not a swear on the bible take it to court under oath type record but on record, as being very much enthralled by the bad femme fatales of film noir [of course now from a safe cinematic distance ]. Funny as a kid he would go off the deep end when I mentioned some such film and walk away while I was telling the “lesson” I learned about women and life from a show I had seen at the Saturday matinee. But back in the1980s when he would show up in the old town every now and then and gather the old corner boys around him he would go on and on about how, let’s say, Jane Greer in Out Of The Past off-handedly shot her kept man, Kirk Douglas (or did he keep her, a matter very much in dispute), then put a bullet or six in some snooping sleuth who crowded her just a little and for lunch, just for kicks, turned the tables on a guy, Robert Mitchum, just a stray slightly off-center guy built to handle rough stuff if necessary who thought maybe he could help her out of a jam after he got a look at her and a whiff of that gardenia perfume or whatever she was wearing that made him crazy. Johnny would especially go into detail about how hefty Mitchum would sit around drinking in some dusty desolate cantina down in Mexico, maybe, Tampico, maybe Cuernavaca , he forgot, who was putty in dear Jane’s hands went she walked through the cantina door. Yes, she was a stone-cold killer, blood simple they call it in some quarters, and Johnny couldn’t get enough of her.

On an off day, or when Johnny got tired of telling, and we got tired of listening, about some newly discovered move Jane put on after watching that film for the fifteenth time, he would go on and on about glamorous, 1940s glamorous (although maybe eternal glamorous when you look at her pin-up pictures even today) Rita Hayworth as she framed, framed big time, one Orson Welles in The Lady From Shang-hai just because his was a little smitten with her after smelling that come hither fragrance. She wanted the dough, all of it, from a rich lawyer hubby and she wanted old Orson to work her magic for her. Hubby dead and they off to spend the dough in some foreign port, maybe Asia. Orson bought into the scheme bought into scheme right up to his neck, and all time she was setting him up for the gallows, soaping the rope as she went along. Old Orson just saved his neck in time, as happens sometimes in these things, but it was a close thing, and he would always wonder, wonder if he had played things a little different that maybe they could have found some island some place. Yes, old Orson had it bad, bad as a man can have it.

On other days Johnny might switch up and talk about good femmes, with kind of soft whisper, a soft forlorn whisper, like when his eyes would light up when he spoke of Lauren Bacall and about how she, rich girl she with a doped-up, wayward, sex addled sister, tried to work both sides of the street in The Big Sleep. She soldiered for bad guy Eddie Miles for a while but when the deal went down she hungered for old Bogie (playing the classic noir detective Philip Marlowe) and switched up old Eddie, switched him up bad which tells you even good femmes bear watching your back on. I could go on and on back you get the drift. Johnny was living something out in those films. But here is the clincher, Johnny’s wisdom about the bad femmes, which he never failed to bring up at the end of his spiel. He would
say-Yah, but see these guys had it coming because they went in with their eyes open, took their chances and took the fall, took the fall big time. And maybe in some deep recess of their minds, maybe like John Garfield in The Postman Always Rings Twice, they smiled, and would have done it the same way if they that never to be had second chance to do it over. Pure sweet Johnny Jukes wisdom.

Like I said Johnny, whatever femme film plot line he was thinking of, always came back to that question in the end, the question of questions, the part about a guy taking a beating, taking it hard, and then coming back for more when the femme purred in his ear, or swayed some flash dress into the room or he smelled even a whiff, hell, a half whiff of that damn perfume which let him know she was coming. That part, that doing it again part, always got to him. And this was no academic question, no noir theory, and no clever plotline about the vagaries of human experience, about how low you can go and still breathe. See Johnny had been there, had seen it all, and done it all and so he was haunted forever after about whether if she came in the door again, passed him on some haunted street again, drove by in some flash car again, he would also do it exactly like it was done before. Hell, enough of beating around the bush let Johnny tell it the way he finally spilled one night up in Nashua after we had a few, he was feeling a little low, and had his old time boys around him, and then you decide.

“I not saying Rosa, Rosa Lebron, was as hot as Jane Or Rita, no way but she had her moments, her moments with me when she might as well have been one of those dames. I am not going to say exactly how we meet, or under what circumstances, but it all came together down in sunny Mexico, down Sonora way back in the late 1970s when I was doing a little of this and a little of that in the drug trade. This was before it got real crazy down there with a murder a minute and some busted deal wound up exploding some whole dusty, dirty little braceros town, although it was always a tight thing when you dealt with the Mexicans, and when you dealt with dope. Period.

See Rosa ‘s older brother, hey, let’s call him Pedro alright just to be on the safe side and just because it doesn’t matter what his name was as long as you remember this is about Rosa and her ways, was a primo “distributor” down Sonora way, mainly marijuana (or herb, ice, ganga, rope, hemp, or whatever you call it in your neighborhood) but as time went on cocaine (ditto on what you call it in your town, snow, little sister, girl), but a guy on his way up in the cartel, no question. I met Pedro through mutual business contacts in New York City one night and that got us started on our business.

One time Rosa came up with him and at first I thought she was his girlfriend because they seemed very close. Now Pedro wasn’t a bad looking guy but I didn’t figure he could have such a fox for a girlfriend, you know all dark skin, nice shape, black as night hair, dancing black eyes AND some scent some mystic Aztec, mestizo, conquistador, ten thousand year sense that distracted me from the minute she clasped my hand. (I found out later from her that it was made from some Mexican cacti flowers, I forget the name but I will never forget that scent, that first time, never). Let me put it this way and maybe you can look it up and get a photo to see what I mean she looked like that Mexican artist everybody talks about, that Frida Kahlo, the one that was married to Diego Riviera, the one with the one eyebrow, except Rosa had two. When you see that picture and think what that dame did to guys like Riviera and Leon Trotsky, the big Bolshevik revolutionary who went daffy over her, then you get an idea what Rosa was like. So when Pablo introduced me to Rosa as his sister I was relieved. Especially after she threw (there is no other word for it) those laughing Spanish eyes at me. She had me, had me bad from that moment.

I didn’t see her for a while, maybe a couple of months, although Pedro and I were doing a regular series of business transactions. Then, maybe it was late 1979 or so, I got a call from him to come down to Sonora for what he called a big deal. I showed up at the designated cantina, La Noche, on the main strip, a dusty old place then, maybe now to for all I know. And there was Rosa, all Rosa-like, dark, Spanish, those eyes, the fragrance, and dressed very elegantly in a very fashionable dress (so she told me later). She was the bait. And I bite.

Pedro never showed that night, and it didn’t matter as Rosa and I drank high- shelf tequila (my first time, and like scotch and other whiskies there are gradations of tequila too), danced (even with my two left feet it didn’t seem to matter), and wound up at her casa (room) for the night. The rest of the night you can figure out on your own. What matters is the next morning, early; after I took a shower and was lying on her bed she asked me if I couldn’t do Pedro a favor. The favor: go to Columbia and bring back a load (twenty kilos, forty pounds) of little sister. In those days Pedro’s cartel was testing the route and having a friendly Norte Americano do the run, which at the time would have been unusual and would have faked out the cops, was seen as the best way to iron out the wrinkles. And, well, Rosa would go along too. Sold.

The first trip, and several after, was actually uneventful. Back and forth, sometimes with Rosa sometimes with another female “mule.” After a few months, maybe six, Rosa came up to my hotel room in Sonora one night crying, crying like crazy. She told me that she was being harassed and beaten by Pedro because he had started to “use” some of the product and would get all crazy and lash out at whoever was around. She also said he wasn’t all that crazy now about have a goddam gringo around now that things were already set up and that maybe it was time to terminate my contract. The clincher though was when she said right then and there she said she had to get out, get out before she was maybe killed by Pedro, or one of his thugs on his orders.

Maybe it was the tears, maybe it was that scent that always threw me off or maybe now that I knew the score it was flat- out fear that I would be found face down in some Sonora back alley waiting for some consulate officer to ship my remains back home but I listened to what Rosa proposed.
The next shipment was our salvation; the forty of fifty pound of girl would get us a long way from Mexico and far enough away from Pedro that we could start our own lives. It sounded good, real good. The idea was to go to Columbia but instead of heading back to Mexico head to Panama, unload the dope in a new market, then catch a freighter to, to wherever, some island maybe. I was in, in all the way.

And it worked, worked beautifully. For Rosa. See here is how the deal really went down. We got the dope in Columbia okay, no problema as usual. And we did head to Panama and made the transaction there. Again no problema. Something like a half a million in cash in the proverbial suitcase. Easy street. We were to catch a freighter, some Liberian-registered tanker, headed for Africa the next morning. That night Rosa insisted that we celebrate our “liberation” with some high-shelf tequila in honor of our success and remembrance of our first night together. And that was the last I saw of Rosa Lebron.

The last of her but not quite of the story. After being drunk as a skunk and worn to a frazzle by our love-making (maybe drugged too, I don’t know) I was practically unconscious. The next morning when I awoke Rosa was gone. I frantically looked for her, checking every place including the tanker that we were supposed to take through the Canal. They had no reservations (under our aliases) for any gringo or senorita. No reservations for passengers at all. That’s when I started to panic (and to put two and two together). I couldn’t go back to (a) Columbia or (b) Mexico so I headed back to New York City on the sly. After a while I finally put the pieces together (or rather they got put together for me).

First Rosa was not Pedro’s sister but just part of his organization, his brother Pablo’s ex-girlfriend. It was Pedro who had put Rosa up to setting me up on that last transaction because he was feeling constrained by the cartel he was linked to and wanted to go out on his own. The half million (minus Rosa’s cut) would set him up just fine. The problem was that she ran out on Pedro too. It was Pedro (and you can read about it in the Mexican newspaper of the time when such incidents were fairly rare, unlike now) who wound up face down in that Sonora back alley for his lack of cartel spirit, twelve bullet holes in him. And Rosa? Nowhere to be found . Except here is the funny part, although I am not laughing, Pablo, Pedro’s brother and Rosa’s supposed ex-boyfriend was last seen in Sonora the day Rosa and I left for Columbia on that last easy street transaction. If you see her, her and her dancing eyes and that damn cactus flower fragrance tell her I said hello. ”

[Jesus, this is a no-brainer. Of course our boy Johnny would do it over again. Just like that. Take it easy on the tequila though that stuff will kill you Johnny . Christ I might take a run at Rosa and that fragrance myself and I only like to watch femmes from the comfort of my living room or local theater-JLB]

“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International -Felix Morrow-Washington’s Plans for Italy-(June 1943)

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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Felix Morrow-Washington’s Plans for Italy-(June 1943)


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Source: Fourth International, Vol.4 No.6, June 1943, pp.175-179.
Transcription & mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists’ Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2005. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists’ Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.

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With the invasion of Italy an imminent possibility, Roosevelt’s “unofficial” envoy, Archbishop Spellman, continues his incessant journeying to and from Rome, which he began in February. All formal denials to the contrary, it is obvious that the Vatican is acting as broker for a Darlanist deal. Typical of the situation is the fact that the May 19 New York Times published as “the Vatican proposals” the following summary from its Swiss correspondent:

“In the cadres of the present Italian regional prefects – who for the purpose of civil administration would not be considered to have been active [Fascist] party supporters and would in their turn be subject to the orders of an Allied commission sitting in Rome – a ten-year plan of political metamorphosis would be immediately introduced. During this period civil administration would be handed back to the people by certain well-defined stages. The Fascist party as such would be immediately disbanded.

“No provision is made in this first part for the arrest or handing over to the Allies of any Fascist leaders.” (Our italics.)

The regional prefects, who would thus become the basis of the “new” Italian regime are, of course, all Mussolini appointees, leaders of the Fascist party. In return for their collaboration, they “would ‘expect within a reasonable time’ to receive certain territorial concessions in Italy’s former colonial empire.” These Vatican proposals are of course unconfirmed, but also undenied. How far Washington has agreed to these specific terms is of course idle speculation, but the spirit of them is undoubtedly characteristic of what Washington is seeking and ready to agree to.

Perhaps at this time the best way to understand Washington’s plan for Italy is to examine their effect on the Italian anti-fascist emigrés in this country, who are in a position to understand precisely what is involved. The story of their relations with Washington is in any event well worth telling, for it is a mirror of the future of all the European anti-fascists who are depending on Washington for the liberation of Europe.

We speak, of course, of the “official” Italian emigrés, recognized by Washington in one form or another as the spokesmen for Italian anti-fascism. Their outstanding figure is Count Carlo Sforza, the King’s Minister of Foreign Affairs at the close of World War I and ambassador to France at the time of the “march” on Rome; since January 1942 his program is the democratic republic. Their principal organization in the American hemisphere is the Mazzini Society, which also has a certain – none too firm – authority among Italian-American trade unionists. Its left wing is the semi-socialist publication-group Quaderni Italiani. [1] Speaking for the Mazzini Society are such professors and writers as Gaetano Salvemini, Max Ascoli, G.A. Borgese, etc.

When World War II began, these Italian emigrés found it difficult to pretend that liberation for Italy would come from France and Britain. Chamberlain and Daladier wooed Mussolini despite all the pleas and accurate predictions of the emigrés concerning Mussolini’s game – Sforza was coldly repelled when he told Daladier that Mussolini would enter the war a fortnight before France’s defeat. During the Finnish-Soviet war of 1939-1940, as Sforza himself has told in his book, The Totalitarian War and After, the big bourgeoisie and General Weygand wanted war against the Soviet Union in the hope “that Hitler might turn and become the ally of France in this ‘holy war’.” They got Daladier to declare to the Chamber of Deputies that 50,000 men were ready to sail to Finland (Mannerheim had told Daladier that 300,000 were necessary but Daladier did not have the equipment). Only the hasty peace between Finland and the Soviet Union ended this development. The Italian emigrés could scarcely hope for salvation from a regime which was thus oriented.

Nor could they grow very enthusiastic over Churchill when he came to the helm. He had declared that he would be a fascist if he were an Italian. When Mussolini finally entered the war formally, Churchill did not eat his words. He made it clear from the first that he was ready to make peace with even the Fascist Party and certainly with the monarchy; for Britain’s prime minister “only one man” was responsible for Italian entry into the war.


The Honeymoon

It was, thus, only when the United States entered the war that the Italian emigrés could persuade themselves – or try to – that a new era was really here. Washington would understand what London and Paris would not. The “anti-fascist war” must be fought implacably and no peace made with the fascists, the general staff or the monarchy. Victory for the United Nations would bring revolution to Italy, not merely as an aftermath of defeat but as a consequence desired and aided by the “democracies.”

Inspired with this new hope the Mazzini Society, shortly after Pearl Harbor, launched an Italian-language weekly with the appropriate title Nazioni Unite (United Nations). Roosevelt, in turn, gave the Mazzini Society a semi-official status. The OWI saw to it that free radio time was provided for Mazzini broadcasts. In June 1942 Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson appeared at a Garibaldi memorial meeting of the Mazzini Society, lending it government approval. He brought a “declaration” announcing “American official recognition of the antagonism between Italy and fascism.” And not only the Fascist Party would have to go but also the generals; “the President has made it clear that the liberation of the Italian and other peoples from the military cliques which hold them in their clutches is one of the war aims of the United Nations.” Encouraged by these apparently unambiguous words from the State Department, the Mazzini Society and other groups in North and South America convened a Congress of Free Italians in Montevideo. There, on August 17, 1942 it was decided to create a National Council with Sforza as president which, stated the September 10 Nazioni Unite, should be “recognized officially in a manner similar to the De Gaulle Fighting French Committee.” That was the high point of the hopes of the Italian anti-fascists that Washington would give full support to a democratic revolution in Italy.

Occasionally, it is true, the emigrés offered a criticism, as when Sforza wrote:

“I received responses solicited from Italians in Italy In broadcasts of mine discussing the Atlantic Charter. ‘Yes, you may be right,’ the answers ran. ‘You are certainly right in believing in Roosevelt’s generous and humane intentions. But why are we not told by the chiefs of the democracies what they think about the future of Italy? To raise volunteers, to risk our lives, to risk much more, our honor, we must be sure that we are serving the cause of a free Italy and a free world.” (The Nation, May 9, 1942.)

To answer these questioners, Sforza urged Roosevelt to put forward “a concrete program for achieving” for Italy the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Sforza presumably had no doubt what the “concrete program” would be – a free Italy.


A Rude Awakening

The concrete program, when it came, proved to be Darlanism. Had the Italian emigrés not immediately understood the application of the North African events to Italy, it was soon explained to them in words of one syllable. Walter Lippmann wrote:

“When Mussolini and his henchmen, are disposed of, there will still remain in Italy the vestiges of legitimate and historic authority by means of which the transition to the New Italy can be made. For if there is not such a transition, it will be difficult in the chaos of Italian defeat to find Italian authority able to speak for Italy.” (New York Herald Tribune, November 21, 1942.)

By “legitimate and historic authority,” Lippmann subsequently made plain, he meant the monarchy and the army. Encouraged by events, some Catholic spokesmen even hoped to save not only the monarchy but also Mussolini; thus on November 20, 1942 The Tidings, official organ of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, wrote:

“We must remember that the government of Mussolini is still the lawfully constituted authority in Italy. If we can get Italy out of the war by negotiating with that lawfully constituted authority, that is to our advantage.” (Quoted in Nazioni Unite, December 31, 1942.)

Less crudely and much more authoritatively, the New York Times laid down the line:

“Clearly the United Nations cannot make peace with the existing Fascist regime. Here again, however, a problem would arise regarding the extent to which it is wise to attempt to impose from the outside a democratic regime or a particular form of government on Italy.” (Times, December 1, 1942. Our italics.)

In the face of these statements, Gaetano Salvemini sadly concluded that, at the least,

“the royal House of Savoy, the army and the Pope are being kept on ice by Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt as the legitimate authorities entitled to speak for Italy...” (Nazioni Unite, December 31, 1942.)

For a moment, when Darlan was assassinated, Nazioni Unite expected a miracle. Like the American liberals, it prayed that the murder would bring an end to “expediency”:

“His exit from the political scene at this important moment may prove useful to the cause of France and of the United Nations.

“General Giraud, unanimously elected successor to Darlan, is not an “homme de gauche, but he has not been a collaborator of the German invaders, on the contrary, he has bravely escaped twice from German prisons,” etc., etc. (Editorial Nazioni Unite, December 31, 1942.)

A week later, of course, Nazioni Unite was wailing about Giraud’s choice of Peyrouton as his right-hand man.


The Blows Begin to Fall

The Mazzini people might have found a way to swallow Giraud and close their eyes to the overtures being made to the monarchy and army in Italy. But now they began to receive blows here in America which it was impossible for them to ignore.

They had ecstatically hailed Biddle’s order removing Italians from the status of enemy aliens. Now they discovered its main function. Under it notorious friends of Mussolini – particularly the circle of the newspaper magnate Generoso Pope and the fraternal order Sons of Italy – now appeared in the arena as claimants for leadership of the Italian emigration, naturally as “anti-fascists.” And they appeared with government support. Mazzini Society opposition to this masquerade was brushed aside by the OWI officials in charge of setting up Italian-American Victory Councils in every locality. Since the Mazzini national officers refused to sit with the “ex”-fascists, the OWI went over their head to the local chapters of the Mazzini Society, telling them that it was the government’s desire to have them in the Councils. A government “desire” could not but appear to emigrés as an order, and in Chicago, St. Louis and some other places the Mazzini chapters entered the Councils together with fascist elements. In Philadelphia the chapter refused to join but was included anyway in the official roster of the Council.

In this procedure the OWI got yeoman’s aid from the Stalinists who, in order to get into the Councils themselves, were more than ready to support entry of the fascist groups. With their usual anxiety to establish their respectability, the Mazzini leaders lumped together the fascists and the Stalinists as “totalitarians,” and were maneuvered by the OWI and the Stalinists into a position where the main dispute appeared to be over the inclusion of the Stalinists.

A warning of things to come was an OWI statement in December branding as a forgery written in America an appeal of the underground Italian Socialist Party for civil disobedience.

The document had been vouched for as authentic by the Mazzini and other groups, including the Italian-American Labor Council. It has all the marks of being genuine, and far more dubious documents “from Europe” have been accepted by the OWI. For the OWI to go out of its way to repudiate the document can only mean an attempt to denude the Mazzini and like-minded groups of any semblance of authority to speak for the anti-fascist elements in Italy.

The handwriting was on the wall and could not be denied. What Washington was really up to now had to be told. Max Ascoli described how “one of those tough realists who crowd the public corridors and the hotel bars in Washington” – Ascoli was still too polite to say that they also crowd the State Department – formulates the government’s policy:

“‘Professor, don’t be a dope. Nobody who has any sense around here wants a revolution in Italy or anywhere else in fact. Revolutions are unhealthy affairs. After we lick Hitler, it will be through due process of law that the four freedoms are going to be obtained anywhere. What we mean is this: Couldn’t Italy use whatever independence she has left so that at the right moment she would give a good stab in the back to Germany? See? We do not mean the Italian people, but some of the basic, legitimate institutions of Italy, like the army, the monarchy, the church or the fascist party. Which of these legitimate institutions is the one that we can use as a pivot in organizing the turn around? See?” (Nazioni Unite, Jan. 21, 1943.)

“Of course,” adds Ascoli despairingly, “everybody will turn – one moment before our total victory.” Even Mussolini.

Gaetano Salvemini now said:

“the State Department and the OWI not only are giving no encouragement to any groups [in Italy] which might organize resistance, but are actually doing everything in their power to discourage such action. Since they cannot rely upon a revolution in Italy before British and American armed intervention has smashed the Fascist military machine, and since a later revolution would serve no military purpose, they are not interested in anti-Fascist revolution. Further, they do not Intend to have any such nuisance...

“It appears that Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter, which pledged Britain and America to ‘respect the right of all peoples, to choose the form of government under which they will live, is to be interpreted as meaning that they will be allowed to choose only forms of government like those of Franco in Spain or Petain in France, or such as Otto of Austria would set up somewhere in Central Europe.

“... anyone addressing the Italians on an American broadcasting station must pledge himself not to remind the Italian people that the King is as responsible as Mussolini for the tragedy of present-day Italy. And an army of newspapermen is instructed by the State Department to teach us, day in and day out, that if not the King then at least his son is to be regarded as the ‘leader of the anti-Fascist groups’; or perhaps the Crown Prince’s wife, or the King’s cousin, the Count of Turin... or Badoglio, or Grandi or Ciano...” (Nazioni Unite, February 4, 1943.)


A Lost Desperate Plea

Shelved by the State Department, the scolding “democrats” have still one string to their bow: the threat of proletarian revolution. Like De Gaulle, they warn Roosevelt that Darlanism is dangerous because it leads to civil war. The “democratic” emigré Catholic priest, Luigi Sturzo (who in 1919-20, as leader of the Popular Party, worked with the fascists under the slogan of “restoration of public order and the suppression of Socialism”) forebodingly urges Roosevelt to understand:

“But if, together with the Monarchy, they want to constitute a government ‘à la Petain’ at the will of Churchill and Roosevelt, then the Italian people will be forced to bend toward secret and revolutionary movements.” (Nazioni Unite, January 8, 1943.)

Similarly Salvemini adduces as the worst consequence of this Roosevelt-Churchill policy:

“that in their endeavor to force down the throats of the Italian people ‘pro-Allied Fascism without Mussolini,’ discredited politicians and a discredited royal house, they are making unavoidable in Italy an even more fearful post-war crisis than that which the collapse of the Nazi-Fascist military machine will bring about.” (La Controcorrente, January 1943.)

De Gaulle at least has insisted that his movement is indispensable if revolution is to be prevented in France. The Italian “democrats” are not so bold. If, alas, in spite of all their pleas they are to be shelved in favor of the present Washington policy, they still offer advice on how to prevent a proletarian revolution. Thus Salvemini, after assuming that Mussolini and the King will sign the armistice, begs the Americans and British, “engrossed in immediate military tasks, to let the anti-fascists make short work of Mussolini, the King, the Crown Prince, Badoglio, Grandi, Ciano and their like.” And then, presumably no longer engrossed in immediate military tasks,

“the armies of occupation should prevent an irresponsive extremist clique from seizing power, and the people should be given time to organize themselves again into political parties, to discuss the issues before them, and finally to choose their own government. This would be the right course; and the United States, in pursuing it, would not only remain loyal to its traditions but would gain the love and gratitude of all peoples.” (Nazioni Unite, February 4, 1943. Our italics.)

In short, Salvemini, who elsewhere correctly makes sport of “their futile attempt to make anti-Mussolinian omelette without breaking the Fascist eggs,” here asks Roosevelt and Churchill to use their troops against the “irresponsible extremist clique” without breaking the anti-fascist revolution.

The threat of revolution adduced by the “democrats” in beseeching more consideration from Washington is not an empty one. The “democrats” are, in truth, far more disturbed by what is happening in Italy than they are by what is happening in Washington. One article cites a letter from a “young representative of the Italian Underground” who recently wrote:

“We have never pinned all our hopes on this war, and... we recognize as ours only the anti-Fascist war, which is playing a decreasing role in this second world conflict.” (Nazioni Unite, March 4, 1943.)

This quotation is extremely interesting; one would wish that Nazioni Unite had given us the entire letter. It is clear, however, that its writer has no illusions about being liberated by the “democracies.” In contrast to this anti-fascist in Italy, the Sforzas and Salveminis pinned all their hopes on this war, i.e., on supporting the “democracies.” And, as we have seen, even now, they continue to offer their unsolicited advice to the “democracies.” In these few words they quote from an antifascist in Italy one can detect the abyss of experience and therefore of ideas which separates the Italian underground from the petty-bourgeois emigrés.


Why Roosevelt Prefers Darlanism

Why, despite all their craven pleas, are these “democrats” so rudely rejected by Roosevelt?

There was a time when such pleas would have carried weight – in the epoch of the stability of democratic capitalist regimes. But that time is gone forever, as history since 1917 testifies. Sforza is in effect proposing that Washington and London attempt to repeat the experiment of the Weimar Republic – let subservient “democrats” rule defeated Italy. But the imperialists have scarcely forgotten how very nearly the proletarian revolution conquered in Germany in 1918-23. If Ebert came close to the fate of Kerensky, the danger would be far greater in the case of Sforza. Ebert had the many-millioned Social Democracy and the trade unions, firmly dominated by a bureaucracy which had generations of experience and prestige. Through what instrumentality could Sforza hope to rule apart from naked force? The emigré professors? The Italian bourgeoisie as a class is indelibly identified with the fascist regime and the monarchy in the mind of every worker and peasant; hence the proletarian revolution is on the order of the day the moment the regime cracks. Washington can have no reason to believe that the Sforzas will be able to hold back the revolutionary torrent. Precisely for this reason Washington does not want the regime to crack, and seeks an understanding with its principal pillars: the monarchy, the church, the army and the capitalist class.

Moreover, even if the Sforza alternative had possibilities of success, Washington has domestic reasons for preferring the Darlanist method. In the years 1918-23 the Weimar Republic was compelled to go far to the left more than once in order to save itself from Bolshevism. Ebert’s first government was called the Council of People’s Commissars in imitation of Lenin’s. For a while it had to recognize the legality of the Soldiers’ and Workingmen’s Soviets. After the workers defeated the Kapp Putsch in 1920 the Social Democracy had to pretend it was planning socialization of industry. No government could exist without the support of the Social Democratic Party. A Sforza regime would have to do at least as much. What would be the effect of such radicalism on the Italian workers in this country ? Many of them would undoubtedly be inspired by revolutionary developments in Italy to become revolutionists here; even those who accept Sforza’s reformism as good coin would seek the same thing here. That happened to the German, Russian, Ukrainian, Finnish workers here after the last war. Thus the Italians would be found in the vanguard of the leftward moving American proletariat.

According to the 1940 census, 3,766,820 people in America give Italian as their mother tongue. More than one-third of these are in New York state alone. Another half-million are in Pennsylvania, and nearly as many in New Jersey. Thus concentrated in great industrial centers, they are predominantly workers. Unlike the radical foreign-born workers of 1918, these Italian-Americans (most of them born here) generally speak English and could reach out to the American workers. Generoso Pope and his stripe have kept them in the hands of Tammany Hall and other city machines. But that would be ended in the course of the Italian revolution. That is why Washington prefers Pope to Salvemini here and the monarchy and the army instead of Sforza in Italy.

To support the pillars of the Italian regime is a desperate enterprise. The social hatred that has been accumulating in the Italian masses for twenty years is directed at all the ruling summits. To try to prevent it from having any real vent – that is what Washington proposes – means to continue in Italy still further the twenty-year accumulation of social bitterness. When it does explode, as it inevitably must, there will be no safety valves left, as Sforza warns Roosevelt. Yet, fantastic as this enterprise appears to Sforza – and it is fantastic in the long run – the American bourgeoisie must make the attempt. By any means they must seek to bolster the machines of the Generoso Popes in the Italian-American communities. They know that a leftward upsurge of the American proletariat is coming. If thereby they can keep some part of the nearly four million Italian-Americans out of it for a time, Darlanism will have served its purpose. Like every ruling class in decline, they can have no long-term perspective.

Within the limits of this basic policy Washington naturally will do what it can to embellish the ugly reality. It will find among the Mazzini Society leaders some who will be more than willing to go as American overseers of the “ex”-fascist regime. Particularly those emigrés like Professor Max Ascoli, who have become American citizens and who have no serious perspective of returning to live in Italy, will see a seat or even a secretaryship on an Allied Commission in Rome as a stepping-stone to a distinguished career in America. Nor is it altogether unlikely that Sforza himself may serve. Even now he is as much concerned “that the Italian frontiers will not be violated” by the peace as he is about anti-fascism. And by Italian frontiers he means also the colonial possessions which he retained for Italy as Foreign Minister in 1920; for example, the Dodecanese Islands, populated by Greeks, which he refused to permit to join Greece despite his predecessor’s pledge to do so and which he still will not grant to Greece. [2] Perhaps it will be for the sake of saving such “Italian” possessions that Sforza will join the “new” regime. In any event there will be a sufficient number of “anti-fascists” who, just as they were able to persuade themselves that Washington would liberate Italy, will likewise persuade themselves that the formal dissolution of the Fascist party has “freed” Italy enough to justify their collaboration with Washington and the “ex”-fascists.

Furthermore, Washington will undoubtedly seek to avoid using Italian figures exactly equivalent to Darlan. It will try to limit collaboration to second-rank fascists, not only to mollify American public opinion, but also because there is reason to believe that collaboration with Darlan, Nogues and Peyrouton proved much less fruitful than Washington had imagined. The top-ranking “ex”-Vichyites, in so far as they could, tried to play their own game and seriously interfered with American-British military operations. In seeking collaborationists a notch or two lower down, Washington will also be better able to dress up such lesser-known figures as really anti-fascists at heart. For this purpose particularly it will find useful the services of the Mazzini Society leaders.



Footnotes

1. A review of the program of this group was published In the International Notes of the February 1943 Fourth International.

2. The Dodecanesian League of America, 211 W. 33 St., New York has just published a pamphlet on this, Sforza vs. Sforza, contrasting his “democracy” with his imperialism.

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days-Revolution and Counter-Revolution In Germany (1852) -The Prussian State

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.
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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, merely smitten by late Victorian fox hunts with the upper crust. 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 specifically 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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Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany

II.
The Prussian State.


OCTOBER 28th, 1851.

THE political movement of the middle class or bourgeoisie, in Germany, may be dated from 1840. It had been preceded by symptoms showing that the moneyed and industrial class of that country was ripening into a state which would no longer allow it to continue apathetic and passive under the pressure of a half-feudal, half-bureaucratic Monarchism. The smaller princes of Germany, partly to insure to themselves a greater independence against the supremacy of Austria and Prussia, or against the influence of the nobility of their own States, partly in order to consolidate into a whole the disconnected provinces united under their rule by the Congress of Vienna, one after the other granted constitutions of a more or less liberal character. They could do so without any danger to themselves; for if the Diet of the Confederation, this mere puppet of Austria and Prussia, was to encroach upon their independence as sovereigns, they knew that in resisting its dictates they would be backed by public opinion and the Chambers; and if, on the contrary, these Chambers grew too strong, they could readily command the power of the Diet to break down all opposition. The Bavarian, Wurtemberg, Baden or Hanoverian Constitutional institutions could not, under such circumstances, give rise to any serious struggle for political power, and, therefore, the great bulk of the German middle class kept very generally aloof from the petty squabbles raised in the Legislatures of the small States, well knowing that without a fundamental change in the policy and constitution of the two great powers of Germany, no secondary efforts and victories would be of any avail. But, at the same time, a race of Liberal lawyers, professional oppositionists, sprung up in these small assemblies: the Rottecks, the Welckers, the Roemers, the Jordans, the Stuves, the Eisenmanns, those great "popular men" (Volksmänner) who, after a more or less noisy, but always unsuccessful, opposition of twenty years, were carried to the summit of power by the revolutionary springtide of 1848, and who, after having there shown their utter impotency and insignificance, were hurled down again in a moment. These first specimen upon German soil of the trader in politics and opposition, by their speeches and writings made familiar to the German ear the language of Constitutionalism, and by their very existence foreboded the approach of a time when the middle class would seize upon and restore to their proper meaning political phrases which these talkative attorneys and professors were in the habit of using without knowing much about the sense originally attached to them.

German literature, too, labored under the influence of the political excitement into which all Europe had been thrown by the events of 1830. A crude Constitutionalism or a still cruder Republicanism, were preached by almost all writers of the time. It became more and more the habit, particularly of the inferior sorts of literati, to make up for the want of cleverness in their productions, by political allusions which were sure to attract attention. Poetry, novels, reviews, the drama, every literary production teemed with what was called "tendency," that is with more or less timid exhibitions of an anti-govermental spirit. In order to complete the confusion of ideas reigning after 1830 in Germany, with these elements of political opposition there were mixed up ill-digested university-recollections of German philosophy, and misunderstood gleanings from French Socialism, particularly Saint-Simonism; and the clique of writers who expatiated upon this heterogeneous conglomerate of ideas, presumptuously called themselves "Young Germany," or "the Modern School." They have since repented their youthful sins, but not improved their style of writing.

Lastly, German philosophy, that most complicated, but at the same time most sure thermometer of the development of the German mind, had declared for the middle class, when Hegel in his "Philosophy of Law" pronounced Constitutional Monarchy to be the final and most perfect form of government. In other words, he proclaimed the approaching advent of the middle classes of the country to political power. His school, after his death, did not stop here. While the more advanced section of his followers, on one hand, subjected every religious belief to the ordeal of a rigorous criticism, and shook to its foundation the ancient fabric of Christianity, they at the same time brought forward bolder political principles than hitherto it had been the fate of German ears to hear expounded, and attempted to restore to glory the memory of the heroes of the first French Revolution. The abstruse philosophical language in which these ideas were clothed, if it obscured the mind of both the writer and the reader, equally blinded the eyes of the censor, and thus it was that the "young Hegelian" writers enjoyed a liberty of the Press unknown in every other branch of literature.

Thus it was evident that public opinion was undergoing a great change in Germany. By degrees the vast majority of those classes whose education or position in life enabled them, under an Absolute Monarchy, to gain some political information, and to form anything like an independent political opinion, united into one mighty phalanx of opposition against the existing system. And in passing judgment upon the slowness of political development in Germany no one ought to omit taking into account the difficulty of obtaining correct information upon any subject in a country where all sources of information were under the control of the Government, where from the Ragged School and the Sunday School to the Newspaper and University nothing was said, taught, printed, or published but what had previously obtained its approbation. Look at Vienna, for instance. The people of Vienna, in industry and manufactures, second to none perhaps in Germany; in spirit, courage, and revolutionary energy, proving themselves far superior to all, were yet more ignorant as to their real interests, and committed more blunders during the Revolution than any others, and this was due in a very great measure to the almost absolute ignorance with regard to the very commonest political subjects in which Metternich's Government had succeeded in keeping them.

It needs no further explanation why, under such a system, political information was an almost exclusive monopoly of such classes of society as could afford to pay for its being smuggled into the country, and more particularly of those whose interests were most seriously attacked by the existing state of things, namely, the manufacturing and commercial classes. They, therefore, were the first to unite in a mass against the continuance of a more or less disguised Absolutism, and from their passing into the ranks of the opposition must be dated the beginning of the real revolutionary movement in Germany.

The oppositional pronunciamento of the German bourgeoisie may be dated from 1840, from the death of the late King of Prussia, the last surviving founder of the Holy Alliance of 1815. The new King was known to be no supporter of the predominantly bureaucratic and military monarchy of his father. What the French middle class had expected from the advent of Louis XVI., the German bourgeoisie hoped, in some measure, from Frederick William IV. of Prussia. It was agreed upon all hands that the old system was exploded, worn-out, and must be given up; and what had been borne in silence under the old King now was loudly proclaimed to be intolerable.

But if Louis XVI., "Louis le Desire," had been a plain, unpretending simpleton, half conscious of his own nullity, without any fixed opinions, ruled principally by the habits contracted during his education, "Frederick William le Desire" was something quite different. While he certainly surpassed his French original in weakness of character, he was neither without pretensions nor without opinions. He had made himself acquainted, in an amateur sort of way, with the rudiments of most sciences, and thought himself, therefore, learned enough to consider final his judgment upon every subject. He made sure he was a first-rate orator, and there was certainly no commercial traveller in Berlin who could beat him either in prolixity of pretended wit, or in fluency of elocution. And, above all, he had his opinions. He hated and despised the bureaucratic element of the Prussian Monarchy, but only because all his sympathies were with the feudal element. Himself one of the founders of, and chief contributors to, the Berlin Political Weekly Paper, the so-called Historical School (a school living upon the ideas of Bonald, De Maistre, and other writers of the first generation of French Legitimists), he aimed at a restoration, as complete as possible, of the predominant social position of the nobility. The King, first nobleman of his realm, surrounded in the first instance by a splendid court of mighty vassals, princes, dukes, and counts; in the second instance, by a numerous and wealthy lower nobility; ruling according to his discretion over his loyal burgesses and peasants, and thus being himself the chief of a complete hierarchy of social ranks or castes, each of which was to enjoy its particular privileges, and to be separated from the others by the almost insurmountable barrier of birth, or of a fixed, inalterable social position; the whole of these castes, or "estates of the realm" balancing each other at the same time so nicely in power and influence that a complete independence of action should remain to the King—-such was the beau ideal which Frederick William IV. undertook to realize, and which he is again trying to realize at the present moment.

It took some time before the Prussian bourgeoisie, not very well versed in theoretical questions, found out the real purport of their King's tendency. But what they very soon found out was the fact that he was bent upon things quite the reverse of what they wanted. Hardly did the new King find his "gift of the gab" unfettered by his father's death than he set about proclaiming his intentions in speeches without number; and every speech, every act of his, went far to estrange from him the sympathies of the middle class. He would not have cared much for that, if it had not been for some stern and startling realities which interrupted his poetic dreams. Alas, that romanticism is not very quick at accounts, and that feudalism ever since Don Quixote, reckons without its host! Frederick William IV. partook too much of that contempt of ready cash which ever has been the noblest inheritance of the sons of the Crusaders. He found at his accession a costly, although parsimoniously arranged system of government, and a moderately filled State Treasury. In two years every trace of a surplus was spent in court festivals, royal progresses, largesses, subventions to needy, seedy, and greedy noblemen, etc., and the regular taxes were no longer sufficient for the exigencies of either Court or Government. And thus His Majesty found himself very soon placed between a glaring deficit on one side, and a law of 1820 on the other, by which any new loan, or any increase of the then existing taxation was made illegal without the assent of "the future Representation of the People." This representation did not exist; the new King was less inclined than even his father to create it; and if he had been, he knew that public opinion had wonderfully changed since his accession.

Indeed, the middle classes, who had partly expected that the new King would at once grant a Constitution, proclaim the Liberty of the Press, Trial by Jury, etc., etc.—in short, himself take the lead of that peaceful revolution which they wanted in order to obtain political supremacy-the middle classes had found out their error, and had turned ferociously against the King. In the Rhine Provinces, and more or less generally all over Prussia, they were so exasperated that they, being short themselves of men able to represent them in the Press, went to the length of an alliance with the extreme philosophical party, of which we have spoken above. The fruit of this alliance was the Rhenish Gazette of Cologne, [1] a paper which was suppressed after fifteen months' existence, but from which may be dated the existence of the Newspaper Press in Germany. This was in 1842.

The poor King, whose commercial difficulties were the keenest satire upon his Mediaeval propensities, very soon found out that he could not continue to reign without making some slight concession to the popular outcry for that "Representation of the People," which, as the last remnant of the long-forgotten promises of 1813 and 1815 had been embodied in the law of 1820. He found the least objectionable mode of satisfying this untoward law in calling together the Standing Committees of the Provincial Diets. The Provincial Diets had been instituted in 1823. They consisted for every one of the eight provinces of the kingdom:—(I) Of the higher nobility, the formerly sovereign families of the German Empire, the heads of which were members of the Diet by birthright. (2) Of the representatives of the knights, or lower nobility. (3) Of representatives of towns. (4) Of deputies of the peasantry, or small farming class. The whole was arranged in such a manner that in every province the two sections of the nobility always had a majority of the Diet. Every one of these eight Provincial Diets elected a Committee, and these eight Committees were now called to Berlin in order to form a Representative Assembly for the purpose of voting the much-desired loan. It was stated that the Treasury was full, and that the loan was required, not for current wants, but for the construction of a State railway. But the united Committees gave the King a flat refusal, declaring themselves incompetent to act as the representatives of the people, and called upon His Majesty to fulfil the promise of a Representative Constitution which his father had given, when he wanted the aid of the people against Napoleon.

The sitting of the united Committees proved that the spirit of opposition was no longer confined to the bourgeoisie. A part of the peasantry had joined them, and many nobles, being themselves large farmers on their own properties, and dealers in corn, wool, spirits, and flax, requiring the same guarantees against absolutism, bureaucracy, and feudal restoration, had equally pronounced against the Government, and for a Representative Constitution. The King's plan had signally failed; he had got no money, and had increased the power of the opposition. The subsequent sitting of the Provincial Diets themselves was still more unfortunate for the King. All of them asked for reforms, for the fulfilment of the promises of 1813 and 1815, for a Constitution and a Free Press; the resolutions to this effect of some of them were rather disrespectfully worded, and the ill-humored replies of the exasperated King made the evil still greater.

In the meantime, the financial difficulties of the Government went on increasing. For a time, abatements made upon the moneys appropriated for the different public services, fraudulent transactions with the "Seehandlung," a commercial establishment speculating and trading for account and risk of the State, and long since acting as its money-broker, had sufficed to keep up appearances; increased issues of State paper-money had furnished some resources; and the secret, upon the whole, had been pretty well kept. But all these contrivances were soon exhausted. There was another plan tried: the establishment of a bank, the capital of which was to be furnished partly by the State and partly by private shareholders; the chief direction to belong to the State, in such a manner as to enable the Government to draw upon the funds of this bank to a large amount, and thus to repeat the same fraudulent transactions that would no longer do with the "Seehandlung." But, as a matter of course, there were no capitalists to be found who would hand over their money upon such conditions; the statutes of the bank had to be altered, and the property of the shareholders guaranteed from the encroachments of the Treasury, before any shares were subscribed for. Thus, this plan having failed, there remained nothing but to try a loan, if capitalists could be found who would lend their cash without requiring the permission and guarantee of that mysterious "future Representation of the People." Rothchild was applied to, and he declared that if the loan was to be guaranteed by this "Representation of the People," he would undertake the thing at a moment's notice—if not, he could not have anything to do with the transaction.

Thus every hope of obtaining money had vanished, and there was no possibility of escaping the fatal "Representation of the People." Rothschild's refusal was known in autumn, 1846, and in February of the next year the King called together all the eight Provincial Diets to Berlin, forming them into one "United Diet." This Diet was to do the work required, in case of need, by the law of 1820; it was to vote loans and increased taxes, but beyond that it was to have no rights. Its voice upon general legislation was to be merely consultative; it was to assemble, not at fixed periods, but whenever it pleased the King; it was to discuss nothing but what the Government pleased to lay before it. Of course, the members were very little satisfied with the part they were expected to perform. They repeated the wishes they had enounced when they met in the provincial assembles; the relations between them and the Government soon became acrimonious, and when the loan, which was again stated to be required for railway constructions, was demanded from them, they again refused to grant it.

This vote very soon brought their sitting to a close. The King, more and more exasperated, dismissed them with a reprimand, but still remained without money. And, indeed, he had every reason to be alarmed at his position, seeing that the Liberal League, headed by the middle classes, comprising a large part of the lower nobility, and all the different sections of the lower orders—that this Liberal League was determined to have what it wanted. In vain the King had declared, in the opening speech, that he would never, never grant a Constitution in the modern sense of the word; the Liberal League insisted upon such a modern, anti-feudal, Representative Constitution, with all its sequels, Liberty of the Press, Trial by Jury, etc.; and before they got it, not a farthing of money would they grant. There was one thing evident: that things could not go on long in this manner, and that either one of the parties must give way, or that a rupture—a bloody struggle—must ensue. And the middle classes knew that they were on the eve of a revolution, and they prepared themselves for it. They sought to obtain by every possible means the support of the working class of the towns, and of the peasantry in the agricultural districts, and it is well known that there was, in the latter end of 1847, hardly a single prominent political character among the bourgeoisie who did not proclaim himself a "Socialist," in order to insure to himself the sympathy of the proletarian class. We shall see these "Socialists" at work by and by.

This eagerness of the leading bourgeoisie to adopt, at least the outward show of Socialism, was caused by a great change that had come over the working classes of Germany. There had been ever since 1840 a fraction of German workmen, who, travelling in France and Switzerland, had more or less imbibed the crude Socialist or Communist notions then current among the French workmen. The increasing attention paid to similar ideas in France ever since 1840 made Socialism and Communism fashionable in Germany also, and as far back as 1843, all newspapers teemed with discussions of social questions. A school of Socialists very soon formed itself in Germany, distinguished more for the obscurity than for the novelty of its ideas; its principal efforts consisted in the translation of French Fourierist, Saint-Simonian, and other doctrines into the abstruse language of German philosophy. The German Communist school, entirely different from this sect, was formed about the same time.

In 1844, there occurred the Silesian weavers' riots, followed by the insurrection of the calico printers of Prague. These riots, cruelly suppressed, riots of working men not against the Government, but against their employers, created a deep sensation, and gave a new stimulus to Socialist and Communist propaganda amongst the working people. So did the bread riots during the year of famine, 1847. In short, in the same manner as Constitutional Opposition rallied around its banner the great bulk of the propertied classes (with the exception of the large feudal land-holders), so the working classes of the larger towns looked for their emancipation to the Socialist and Communist doctrines, although, under the then existing Press laws, they could be made to know only very little about them. They could not be expected to have any very definite ideas as to what they wanted; they only knew that the programme of the Constitutional bourgeoisie did not contain all they wanted, and that their wants were no wise contained in the Constitutional circle of ideas.

There was then no separate Republican party in Germany. People were either Constitutional Monarchists, or more or less clearly defined Socialists or Communists.

With such elements the slightest collision must have brought about a great revolution. While the higher nobility and the older civil and military officers were the only safe supports of the existing system; while the lower nobility, the trading middle classes, the universities, the school-masters of every degree, and even part of the lower ranks of the bureaucracy and military officers were all leagued against the Government; while behind these there stood the dissatisfied masses of the peasantry, and of the proletarians of the large towns, supporting, for the time being, the Liberal Opposition, but already muttering strange words about taking things into their own hands; while the bourgeoisie was ready to hurl down the Government, and the proletarians were preparing to hurl down the bourgeoisie in its turn; this Government went on obstinately in a course which must bring about a collision. Germany was, in the beginning of 1848, on the eve of a revolution, and this revolution was sure to come, even had the French Revolution of February not hastened it.

What the effects of this Parisian Revolution were upon Germany we shall see in our next.

LONDON, September, 1851.

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Étienne Cabet 1842-Voyage en Icarie-[excerpt]

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.
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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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Étienne Cabet 1842-Voyage en Icarie-[excerpt]

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Source: Voyage en Icarie (Paris, 1842): 39-55. Translation by John W. Reps (1946) from Cabet’s 5th ed., 1848: 20-22, and from E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel (eds.), French Utopias: An Anthology of Ideal Societies (New York: Schocken Books, 1971): 332-338.

Cabet (1788-1856) was a French lawyer from Dijon who, because of his part in the Revolution of 1830, was in effect exiled to Corsica where he became Procureur General. He continued his opposition to government policies, was forced to resign, returned to France, and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Finally exiled for five years for critical articles in his journal, Le Populaire, Cabet went to England where he became acquainted with the theories of Robert Owen. In 1840 he took advantage of a general amnesty and returned to France where he wrote his socialist utopia from which these passages are taken. This work attracted considerable support, and in 1848 a group of 1500 set off for America to establish a colony on the model of Icarie. Swindled out of land in Texas, the group moved to Illinois where they occupied Nauvoo, the Illinois town abandoned by the Mormons. The group split, and Cabet himself died in St. Louis shortly thereafter.


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In an early part of the book a citizen of Icara, the capital of Cabet’s model commonwealth, describes the Paris-like plan of the city to two visitors:

“See! The city, nearly circular, is divided into two almost equal parts by the Tair [River], whose course has been straightened and confined between two walls in an almost straight line, and whose bed has been deepened to accommodate vessels arriving by sea....

“You see that in the center of the city the river divides into two arms which flow together again so as to form a circular island....

“This island is the central place, planted with trees, in the middle of which rises a palace enclosing a vast and superb terraced garden from the center of which springs an immense column topped by a colossal statue which towers over all the buildings. On each side of the river you will notice a large wharf bordered by public monuments.”

Of the street system, the Icaran has this to say:

“All of them [are] wide and straight! There are 50 principal streets which cross the city parallel to the river and 50 which cross perpendicularly.... Those which you see marked in black and which connect the squares are planted with trees like the boulevards of Paris.” He continued with these further observations: “Notice these areas distinguished by the light multi-coloured tints with which the entire city is marked.... They are...[the]...sixty quarters or communities, all very nearly equal and each one representing the extent of population in an ordinary town.

“Each quarter bears the name of one of the sixty principal cities of the ancient and modern world, and exhibits in its monuments and dwellings and architecture of one of the sixty principal nations....

“Here is the plan of one of these quarters. All coloured spots represent public buildings. Here is the school, the hospital, the temple. Red indicates the great factories, yellow the large retail shops, blue the places for public gatherings, violet the monuments.

“Notice that all these public buildings are so located that they are in all the streets and that every street contains the same number of houses....

“Now here is a plan of a street. See! sixteen houses on each side, with a public building in the middle and two other houses at the ends. These sixteen houses are treated alike on the exterior or combined to form a single building, but no street exactly matches any of the others.

What follows is the text of a letter Eugene, a visitor, is supposed to have written to his brother, Camille, describing some of the features of the great city of Icara.

Tear up your city plans, my poor Camille, and yet rejoice, for I am sending, to replace them, the plan of a model city which you have long wanted. I feel the keenest regret that you are not here to share my wonderment and delight.

First of all, imagine in Paris or London the most magnificent reward offered for the plan of a model city, a great open competition, and a big committee of painters, sculptors, scholars, travellers, who gather the plans or descriptions of all known cities, sift the opinions and ideas of the whole population including foreigners, discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of existing cities and proposals submitted, and choose among thousands the most perfect blueprint. Envision a city more beautiful than any which have preceded it; you will then begin to have a notion of Icara, especially if you bear in mind that all its citizens are equal, that it is the republic which is in command and that the rule invariably and constantly followed in all matters is: first, the necessary, then the useful, and last the pleasing.

Now, where shall I start? That’s a problem for me! All right, I will follow the rule that I have just mentioned and begin with the necessary and the useful.

I will pass over the measures taken to promote good health, to assure the free circulation of pure air, to decontaminate it if required. Within the city there are no cemeteries, no noxious products manufactured, no hospitals: all these establishments are on the outskirts, in open places, near swift-flowing streams or in the country.

I could never tell you how resourceful they are in devising methods to keep the streets clean. That the side-walks are swept and washed every morning and are always perfectly clean goes without saying: but in addition, the streets are so paved or constructed that the water constantly drains out of them into subterranean canals.

If mud forms, it is collected in one place by ingenious and handy equipment and washed down into the same canals by water from the fountains; but every conceivable means is employed to minimise the accumulation of mud and dust in the first place.

Examine the construction of the streets! Each has eight tracks of iron or stone to accommodate four coaches, two going in one direction and two in the other. The wheels never jump the tracks and the horses do not stray from the middle ground. These four areas are paved with stone or pebbles, all the other strips with brick. The wheels stir up neither mud nor dust, the horses practically none, the engines on railroad-streets none at all.

Note too that the big workshops and warehouses are situated along the canal streets and railroad streets; that the wagons, which incidentally are never overloaded, move only on these streets; that streets with tracks are reserved for omnibuses; and that half the streets do not even admit omnibuses or wagons but only carts pulled by big dogs for making daily deliveries to families residing there.

Then, no sort of trash is ever thrown from the houses or shops into the street; never are straw, hay, or manure dumped there because all the stables and their provisioners are on the outskirts; all the wagons and conveyances shut so tightly that none of their contents can spill out of them, and all unloading is done with machines so that nothing dirties the sidewalk and the gutter.

In each street, fountains supply the water for cleaning, laying the dust, and refreshing the air.

Thus everything is arranged, as you see, so that the streets are naturally clean, not misused, and easy to tidy up.

The law — you will be inclined to laugh but this will give way to admiration — the law has decreed that the pedestrian must be safe, that there are never to be any accidents caused by vehicles, horses or other animals, or anything else. Reflect, and you will soon realise nothing is impossible for a government that wants the good of its citizens.

First, frisky saddle horses are not allowed inside the city; riding is permitted only outside it, and the stables are located at the city limits.

As for stage coach-, bus- and draft-horses, apart from all sorts of precautions to keep them from running away, they can never leave their tracks or mount the sidewalks, and their drivers are obliged to lead them on foot as they near pedestrian cross-walks; these intersections furthermore are surrounded by every sort of necessary precaution: they are usually indicated by columns extending across the street and forming a sort of gateway for vehicles, and by a kind of intermediary platform where the pedestrian can halt until he ascertains that it is safe to proceed. Needless to say, these cross-walks are almost as clean as the sidewalks. In some streets, the passage is even underground like the tunnel in London, while in some others it is a bridge beneath which vehicles move.

There is another simple precaution which eliminates many accidents, but which is not taken seriously in our cities because nothing is done to teach it to people and encourage them to observe it: everywhere vehicles and pedestrians keep to the right of the road.

You understand also that drivers of vehicles, all of them workers for the Republic and not in anyone’s private employ, have no interest in exposing themselves to accidents and are on the contrary eager to avoid them.

You realise further that since the whole population is in the workshops or at home until three o'clock, and the transport vehicles circulate only when the omnibuses do not run and when pedestrians are few, and the wheels never jump the tracks, accidents and collisions are pretty much eliminated

As to other animals, one never sees droves of oxen and flocks of sheep like those which encumber and disgrace the streets of London, causing a thousand accidents, creating anxiety and often spreading terror and death, while people become habituated to the idea of slaughter. For here the slaughterhouses and the butcher shops are outside the city; the beasts never come into it, one never sees blood or animal carcasses; and great numbers of butchers do not become callused to human butchery through constantly steeping their knives and hands in the blood of other kinds of victims.

I shall not abandon the subject of the animals without speaking of the dogs. The Republic feeds, shelters, and employs a great number of dogs remarkable for their size and strength to convey many goods with still less danger than if horses were used. These dogs, well fed, always bridled and muzzled or led on a leash, can never go mad, or bite, or frighten anyone, or create the kind of scene which, in our cities, destroys in a moment all the worth of years of training.

Everything is so well figured out that no chimney, flower-pot, nor any object whatsoever can be flung down by a storm or thrown from a casement.

Pedestrians are protected even against the caprices of the weather; for all the streets are equipped with side-walks, and all these side-walks are covered with glass panes to keep out the rain without excluding the light, and with awnings to combat the heat. One even finds some streets entirely covered, especially those connecting the great warehouses, and all the cross-walks are likewise covered.

They have pushed these measures to the extent of constructing, at different points on each side of the street, covered platforms where the omnibuses stop, so that one can board or alight without fear of rain or mud.

You see, dear friend, that one can go all over the city of Icara, in a carriage when one is in a hurry, through the gardens when the weather is fine, and under the porticoes when it is bad, without ever requiring a parasol or an umbrella and with perfect confidence; while thousands of accidents and disasters, which each year overwhelm the people of Paris and London, point a finger at the shameful impotence or barbarous indifference of their governments.

You are right if you think that the city is perfectly illuminated, as well as Paris and London, even much better, because the source of light is not absorbed by the shops, since there are none, or by the factories, since nobody works at night. Illumination is then concentrated on the streets and public monuments; and not only is the gas odourless because means have been found to purify it, but the illumination combines to the highest degree the pleasing and the useful, through the elegant and varied forms of the street lamps and the thousand shapes and colours which they give the light. I have seen fine illumination in London in some streets on certain holidays; but in Icara the illumination is always magnificent, and sometimes it creates a veritable fairy-land.

You would see here neither cabarets, nor roadhouses, nor cafes, nor smoking joints, nor the stock-exchange, nor gaming or lottery houses, nor establishments for shameful or culpable pleasures, nor barracks and guard-rooms, nor gendarmes and stool- pigeons, just as there are no prostitutes or pickpockets, no drunkards or mendicants; but instead you would find everywhere privies, as elegant as they are clean and convenient, some for women, others for men, where modesty may enter for a moment without fear for itself or for public decency.

You would never again be offended by the sight of all those cartoons, drawings, scrawls which defile the walls of our cities even as they make one avert one’s eyes with shame; for the children are trained not to spoil or dirty anything, and to blush at whatever might be indecent or knavish.

You would not even have the pleasure or annoyance of seeing so many signs and posters above the doors of the houses, nor so many notices and advertisements which usually disfigure buildings: instead you would see beautiful inscriptions on the monuments, workshops, and public depots, just as you would see all the useful hand-bills, attractively printed on papers of many colours, and posted by the Republic’s placarders on special bulletin boards, in such a way that the notices themselves are ornamental.

You would see no more those rich and pretty shops of every sort that one finds in Paris and London in all the houses on commercial streets. But what are the finest of these shops, the richest of these stores and bazaars, the most extensive of these markets or fairs, compared with the factories, shops, stores of Icara! Imagine that all the goldsmith and jewellery workshops and stores of Paris or London, for example, were merged into one or two of each; imagine the same for all branches of industry and commerce; and tell me if the stores for jewellery, watches, flowers, feathers, piece goods, fashions, instruments, fruits, and so on, would not inevitably cast into the shade all the shops in the rest of the world; tell me whether you would not feel as much and perhaps more pleasure in visiting them than in touring our museums and artistic monuments. Ah well, such are the shops and stores of Icara!

And all of them are purposely spread through the city to enhance its beauty and serve the maximum convenience of the inhabitants, and to make them even more decorative, they are built to resemble on the outside monuments where simplicity and the marks of industry are the dominant notes.

I have just mentioned utilitarian monuments: I need hardly say that all the monuments and useful institutions that exist elsewhere are, with all the more reason, found here — the schools, hostels, temples, courts, places of popular assembly, even arenas, circuses, theatres, museums of all sorts, and all the establishments whose agreeableness makes them more or less essential.

No aristocratic mansions, likewise no private carriages; but no prisons or almshouses! No royal or ministerial palaces; but the schools, hostels, popular assemblies are as impressive as palaces, or, if you like, all the palaces are dedicated to public purposes!

I would never finish, my dear brother, if I were to enumerate all the useful things contained in Icara: but I have said enough, perhaps too much, although I am sure that in your love for me you will relish all these details....

Let us look then at the externals of the houses, the streets, and the monuments.

I have already told you that all the houses on a street are similar, but that all the streets are different, and all the attractive houses of foreign lands are represented.

Your eye would never be offended here by the sight of those hovels, dumps, and street-corner hang-outs that elsewhere crowd the most magnificent palaces, nor by the view of those rags and tatters that are the neighbours of aristocratic luxury.

Your gaze would no longer alight on those dismal railings that surround the moats of London houses, and combine with the sooty bricks to give them the appearance of a vast prison.

The chimneys, so hideous in many other countries, are here an ornament or are at least inconspicuous, while iron balustrades give a charming aspect to the tops of the houses.

The sidewalks or gracefully-columned porticoes which border every street, already magnificent, will be something enchanting when, as is planned, all the colonnades are bedecked with foliage and flowers.

Shall I undertake to describe to you the fountains, the squares, the promenades, the columns, the public monuments the colossal gates of the city, and its magnificent avenues? No, my friend: my vocabulary would be inadequate to depict my admiration, and besides I would have to write you volumes. I will bring you all the plans, and will limit myself here to giving you only a general idea.

Ah, how sorry I am that I cannot visit them again with my brother! You would see that each fountain, square, monument, is unique, and that all the varieties of architectural style are here exemplified. You would think yourself in Rome, Greece, Egypt, India, everywhere; and never would you be infuriated, as we have been in London at St. Paul’s, by the shops which deprive you of a birdseye view of the whole magnificent monument.

Nowhere would you see more paintings, sculpture, statues than here in the monuments, on the squares, along the promenades, and in the public gardens; for, while elsewhere these works of art are hidden in the palaces of kings and rich men, while in London the museums, shut on Sundays, are never open to the People, who cannot leave their work to visit them during the week, here all the curios exist only for the People and are displayed only in the spots frequented by them.

And since it is the Republic under whose auspices the painters and sculptors work, since the artists, fed, clad, lodged, and equipped by the Community, have no other motive but love of art and glory, and no other guide but the inspirations of genius, you can imagine the results.

Nothing useless and especially nothing harmful, but everything directed toward the goal of utility! Nothing favouring despotism and Aristocracy, fanaticism and superstition, but everything favouring the People and their benefactors, liberty and its martyrs, or opposing the old tyrants and their minions.

Never those paintings of nudes or voluptuous scenes which are publicly shown to cater to the tastes of influential libertines, all the while that hypocrites pay endless lip service to decency and chastity. Such pictures no husband would want his wife and the mother of his children to behold.

Never more those works which betray only ignorance or lack of skill, works that elsewhere poverty sells for a pittance to buy bread, and that corrupt public taste while they dishonour the arts; for here nothing is passed by the Republic without examination; and as in Sparta weak or deformed children were destroyed at birth, here they mercilessly thrust into oblivion whatever productions are unworthy of the radiance of the God of the arts.

I am stopping, dear Camille, although I had much to tell you about the garden-streets, the river and canals, the quays and bridges, and the monuments which have just been started or planned.

But what will you say when I add that all the cities of Icaria, though much smaller, are built on the same plan, except for the omission of the large national institutions.

And so I hear you exclaim with me: “Lucky Icarians! Unlucky Frenchmen!”

The more I moved about the city after that, the more accurate did Eugene’s description appear to me.

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days- Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany-Germany at the Outbreak of the Revolution

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.
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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, merely smitten by late Victorian fox hunts with the upper crust. 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 specifically 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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