IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.
FORGET DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS - BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
In the summer of 2006 I originally wrote the following commentary (used in subsequent election cycles and updated a little for today’s purpose) urging the recruitment of independent labor militants as write-in candidates for the mid-term 2006 congressional elections based on a workers party program. With the hoopla already in full gear for the 2012 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftists to use the 2012 campaign to further our propagandistic fight for a workers’ party that fights for a workers government.
A Modest Proposal-Recruit, Run Independent Labor Militants In The 2012 Elections
All “anti-parliamentarian”, “anti-state”, “non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Barcelona Uprising, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois government of a bourgeois state. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades with us when the time comes.
As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2012 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Afghanistan (and unfinished business in Iraq and threats to Iran), immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti -same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design.’ And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and the other smaller bourgeois parties have a monopoly on the public square?
I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives, or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives or not compromise themselves in any untoward manner. You, in any case, get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that this crowd. This writer presents a five point program (you knew that was coming, right?) that labor militants can run on. As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.
1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!
The quagmire in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iran) is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.
But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the “popular front” days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere fight for this position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yes, those 'progressive Democrats') who almost unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. War President Barack Obama desperately needs to be opposed by labor militants. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.
2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.
It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less a family can live on the minimum wage (now $7/hr. or so). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s; go a long way to turning the conditions of labor around.
3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.
Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with anti-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2012 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But so be it.
4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.
The Donkeys, Elephants and other smaller bourgeois parties have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers’ party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans!
5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT. THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS.
We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.
Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yes, with my tongue in my cheek after all my dental bills, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is however you formulate it you have got to fight for it.
Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin-The Revolutionary Party In The Revolution- The Bolshevik Experience In The Russian Revolution of 1917
*******
Apparently after the events of the past couple of years in the Middle East and more recently in Europe we are once again broadly in the age of revolution. This period may well take its place in history along with 1789, 1848, 1871, and 1917 as a watershed period when humankind pushed the envelope once again. While this period of upheaval provides opportunities for revolutionaries after a very long dry spell that began somewhat before the demise of the Soviet Union and its associated states it also means that many of those who wish to seek a revolutionary path, including those who look to the revolutionary socialist left for guidance have very little actual working knowledge about how to bring a revolution about. Moreover although we are witnessing revolutions right before our eyes we are not witnessing yet the kind of revolutions, socialist revolutions, which can lead humankind to create a more productive, co-operative and just world. Our bright shining example is still the Bolshevik-led October Revolution in 1917 and I will try today to highlight some of the lessons from that revolution that we, and other thoughtful labor militants throughout the world, should be thinking about as we ride the wave of the current class struggle upsurge in this wicked old bourgeois-ruled world.
Originally when I thought about this presentation I had intended to give a rough draft of the main events of the Russian Revolution in 1917. But when I thought about it further I realized that I would wind up recreating an oral version of Leon Trotsky’s History Of The Russian Revolution and there is just not enough time for that. So I decided to scale back and concentrate on the role of the party, the Bolshevik party. And that decision makes sense because in the final analysis, as Trotsky continually argued after he got “religion” on the organization question , that has been the decisive difference when the struggle for state power has been up for grabs. We have seen the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international working class in the advanced capitalist age, the vanguard party question to state the proposition bluntly, confirmed many times, too many times, in the negative in such places and times as early 1920s Germany and Italy up until today in places like Tunisia, Egypt and Greece not to take a careful look at that experience. Even almost one hundred years later, and maybe just because of that time lapse there are great general points to be drawn from Russia in 1917.The Bolsheviks got it right for their times and so while we understand that conditions today will be vastly different from the broken down monarchy sunk in the fourth year of a debilitating war, in a place where the land question cried out for solution, and where oppressed nations sought independence from the oppressive empire, we can learn how they worked their program into a successful conclusion against some very high odds against them. That combination of revolutionary leadership, program and the objective conditions for revolution (basically the ruling class in disarray and the masses fed up with the old order and ready to contest the issue) came together for the Bolsheviks to be able to be in a position to implement their socialist program.
Probably the biggest political lesson for us today with our tiny forces and huge tasks from the Bolshevik experience is kind of a truism of all political work- don’t be afraid to be in the minority. While I have, along with Lenin and Trotsky, no truck with those who are happy to stay mired in the circle spirit in left-wing politics that we have too often found ourselves here in America sometimes an organization if it is true to itself has to stand “against the current” to use an old expression. Especially as the events of 1917 unfolded it was apparent that the Bolsheviks, and those revolutionaries in other organizations or individuals like Trotsky who were drawn in that party’s wake, were the only ones capable of taking advantage of the dual power situation (between the old order Provisional Government and the new order Soviets from February to October) and leading the struggle against imperialist war, for bread (work really), and for land to the tiller.
As Lenin, and later Trotsky when he was hard-pressed to defend the legacy of the party in the mid-1920s, noted the Bolsheviks were not without their own internal problems as far as orientation toward the actual flow of events in 1917 particularly before Lenin arrived from abroad. I will speak in a moment about the decisive nature of the April Theses and the April Bolshevik conference where the new party orientation got its first work-out. But here I would only mention that parties like the Bolsheviks that had essentially healthy revolutionary instincts are always searching for a revolutionary path even if that path was not always linear and set in stone. The Bolsheviks had the experience of having formed early clandestine propaganda groups, fought out through polemics the extreme political differences on the nature of the struggle in Czarist Russia with other left-wing organizations, had done underground political work when necessary and above ground when possible, had worked in the Duma and the Soviets during and after the 1905 revolution, had members exiled, banished, and imprisoned, and a myriad of other experiences of mass struggle (as well as hard times like after 1905 and the first parts of WWI) that gave them some valuable experiences which they were able to apply in 1917.
Obviously not all organizations that had also gone through many of those same experiences in the pre-World War period drew the requisite conclusions, and here I would contrast the Bolsheviks to the Mensheviks. More importantly in international working class history that some of you may be familiar with I would contrast the Bolsheviks with the POUM in Spain during the Spanish revolution in the 1930s. In the end the Mensheviks might have had some revolutionaries in their organization (most of the best, and some not of the best, went over to the Bolsheviks in various periods) but they were not a revolutionary socialist organization for 1917 times. They were caught up in the linear thinking of the traditions of the French Revolutions (1789 and 1848), bourgeois revolutions when the time for those types of revolution in Europe had passed. (A key point that Trotsky drew for Russia after 1905 in formulating his theory of permanent revolution.) That last point is why I like to use the POUM (Party Of Marxist Unification in English) as a better example than the Mensheviks of what I mean. The Menshevik stood for the socialist revolution in the great by and by and their policies reflected that reformist impulse (if not just flat out counter-revolutionary impulses).The POUM, as their name says, formally stood for socialist revolution but their program, their strategy, and their whole line before and during the revolution make it clear that, at best, they were what we call a centrist party- revolutionary in talk, reformist in deed. They had no appetite to stand alone if necessary; they had no appetite to struggle with other leftist organizations to lead the revolution. It is unbelievable, although telling, that there are defenders (in hindsight which makes it worst) of the POUM today who saw basically nothing wrong in their work in the Spanish revolution. Jesus. *******
I mentioned above that we study the Bolshevik revolution because it is our one shining example of working class victory over the last one hundred and fifty years. We study that revolution just like Lenin, Trotsky and the rest studied the Paris Commune , the Revolutions of 1848 and the Great French Revolution in order to draw the lessons of previous precious revolutionary experience (as we should too). The important thing about the October Revolution that I want to discuss for a minute now is how the Bolsheviks were able to, for the most part, gauge the revolutionary temper of the masses. Their cadre down at the base was able to stir up with propaganda and agitation the main grievances of the masses- the famous three whales of Bolshevism -the simple yet profound fight for the eight hour day, worker control of factory production and peasant control of agricultural production and the fight for a democratic republic through the slogan of a fight for a constituent assembly. Out on the streets in 1917 the Bolshevik were able to narrow those slogans down even further for mass consumption –peace, bread and land to the tiller. The other so-called revolutionary organizations due to faulty and untimely senses of where the masses were heading were catch flat-footed when the deal went down and they, one way or another, supported some form of bourgeois regime after the Czar abdicated. Trotsky made a big point in Lessons of October and elsewhere as well that when explaining the tempo of the revolution it is necessary for revolutionaries to KNOW when to strike and when to hold back. In contrast, the two examples I like to use from the early 1920s that are illustrative are Germany in 1921 when the young German Communist party got ahead of the masses for a number of reasons and more importantly 1923 when they were behind the masses. Sometimes, as the Russian Social-Democratic soviet experience in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 1905 demonstrates, you are forced to go through some experiences whether the situation is ripe or not. The point though is to know when to move one way or the other. In 1917 the Bolsheviks, as will be discussed a little more below, KNEW when to move, and when not to move.
*******
Modern capitalist, especially now in its rather long imperialist stage, has produced many defenses, political, social, economic, and in the final analysis its military and police apparatuses, to defend its rule. Before the Bolshevik revolution there was some wishful thinking, exemplified by the German Social-Democratic Party, that somehow socialism could grow organically out of capitalism without the fuss of revolution. We know, we know painfully, where that has led. That party as became clear when they had their opportunities in 1918 had not revolutionary strategy. But revolutionary struggle since 1917 dictates that revolutionary organizations have a strategic orientation. In that sense the Russian example is extremely important first because the Bolsheviks showed that without a revolutionary strategy we cannot win and secondly with a correct strategic orientation and the ability to shift you can take advantage of weaknesses in the bourgeois power structure. There were three basic strategies at play in 1917 among Russian Social Democrats (other tendencies like the Social-Revolutionaries and Anarchists played off the main themes developed by the social democracy). The most prevalent one prior to 1905 was that Russia was headed for a liberal bourgeois republic like others in Europe and that working class organizations would play the role of loyal opposition to the bourgeois liberals. This was prime Menshevik strategy. The main Leninist theme until 1917 was essentially that this capitalist bourgeois republic would be governed by a worker-peasant coalition. While the Bolsheviks knew that the liberals has move historically to the right it still premised it position on a capitalist state arising at least in the short term. Of course the third strategy, the one Lenin forced, in his own way, on the Bolsheviks kicking and screaming for the most part, was Trotsky’s famous theory of permanent revolution, where the workers “leaning” on the amorphous peasantry would create a workers republic through the soviets. Lenin’s timely understanding of Russian politics which lead him to revamp his strategy is prima facie evidence both of his revolutionary abilities and of the keen understanding of the role of a strategic orientation in order to drive the revolution forward. There was no room in Russia in 1917, as Alexander Kerensky learned to his dismay, for that middle strategy vacated by the Bolsheviks under Lenin’s (and Trotsky’s) prodding.
A look at most revolutionary periods shows that the question of war, including a bloody losing war, is a catalyst that plays a great part in fomenting upheavals. Socialist thinkers from Marx onward have noted that war is the mother of revolution (in Marx’s own time the prime example being the formation of the Paris Commune in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War). War, as Trotsky and others have noted, takes the civilian population out of its ordinary routine, places great stress on society and requires great sacrifices and/or personnel in order to be pursued. The Bolsheviks had already established themselves on the war issue before 1917 by their opposition to the war budgets (and had their Duma deputies exiled to Siberia for their opposition), their role in the fledgling anti-war Zimmerwald movement and their slogans of the “main enemy is at home” and “turn the guns around.” When the Czar abdicated and a form of popular front government took its place many, including elements of the Bolshevik Party leadership in Russia, wanted to turn defensist (for the Entente) under the new circumstances. The Bolsheviks majority in contrast called for continued opposition to the war and played their “peace card” in their propaganda in the barracks by understanding that the peasant soldiers at the front were war-weary and wanted to be alive when the land was distributed. Very powerful incentives to walk away from the stalemated trenches.
The April Theses are probably the most graphic document we have about the Bolshevik party and its ability shift gears in the revolutionary process. In essence Lenin came over to Trotsky’s view of the nature of the revolution in front of him. Without that shift (and at the time before Trotsky got back to Russia), which did not go unopposed, October would not have happened .The question of the orientation toward support of the Provisional Government was the key question of the pre-insurrection period by all the parties. This government was really an example of the popular front as a substitute for revolutionary action as we saw in Chile in the early 1970s. For those unaware of what a popular front is that is a mix of working- class parties and bourgeois parties (although not usually the main ones) that are thrown up in time of crisis (although not always a full-blown social crisis as various French parliamentary examples in the recent past have shown). In Russia the main components for our purposes were the bourgeois liberal Cadets, various Social-Revolutionary tendencies representing various segments of the peasantry and the Mensheviks representing the reformist wing of the working class movement.
The reality of the popular front is twofold-first the program is limited to what is acceptable to the bourgeois bloc partners and secondly- and more importantly for our concerns, it is a strategy put forth by reformist elements in the working class (and other plebeian organizations) to frustrate revolution. The Mensheviks were the past master of this strategy stemming from their bourgeois liberal-dominated conception of the revolution. What set the Bolsheviks apart and was masterful on their part was the various tactics they used toward the popular front. Once Lenin got the Bolshevik Party to buy into the April Theses and to stop giving critical support to the Provisional Government a whole series of tactics came into play. So, for example, in June the Bolsheviks led demonstrations calling for the ouster of the ten capitalist ministers in the Provisional Government rather than a straight “down with the provisional government” a slogan that did not respond to the tempo of the revolution. In short the Bolsheviks called on the Mensheviks and various S-R factions to form a solely socialist ministry and the Bolsheviks promised, pretty please promised, they would not overthrow that government. Of course the reformists rejected this idea but in the process exposed themselves before the masses that were more and more looking to the soviets rather that the increasingly pro-war and anti-land seizure provisional government for political guidance. As the dual power situation (Provisional Government versus Soviets) continued and as the masses became disillusioned with the actions of the government in prolonging the war effort (and not resolving the land question, or much else for that matter) some segments of the Petrograd population (and key units in the army) wanted to overthrow the government in July. That again was premature as they and the Bolsheviks did not have the masses behind them. Rather than leave the ill-advised vanguard to suffer the results alone the Bolsheviks tried to lead an orderly retreat and in the short term took a serious beating (Lenin in hiding, Trotsky arrested, etc.) but one that showed that of all the tendencies the Bolsheviks stood with the demand of the masses.
As the Provisional Government’s grasp on power got shakier and was threatened from the right, essentially the remnants of the monarchical parties, the Bolsheviks organized, in the name of the soviets, the defense of Petrograd during the Kornilov scare. This flowed from the eminently practical position that when the right-wing in clawing at the door it is the duty of revolutionaries to defend even the most tepid democratic institutions a position we still uphold to today. In the Bolsheviks case the military defense of the provisional government by an organization which had been outlawed began the process of bringing the masses over to the soviets and though that organization the Bolsheviks (and incidentally began the serious process of the Mensheviks and S-Rs doing everything possible to defang and liquidate the soviets). During the fall of 1917 the demand for elections for an authoritative Constituent Assembly were being pressed by various petty bourgeois parties and individuals including, as mentioned above, those whose power rested in the soviets. The Bolsheviks had various attitudes toward a couple of formations that were supposed to prepare for the Constituent Assembly-the Democratic Conference and the Pre-Parliament. They participated in the Democratic Conference and once it became clear that it was just a “talk shop” and not the road to the constituent assembly and Trotsky led the boycott walk-out of the Pre-Parliament (much to Lenin’s grateful praise).
In the final analysis the role of the revolutionary party is to make the revolution and so the last point I would like to make about the importance of the Bolshevik experience, and what virtually all other movements since that time have faltered on, is the art of insurrection. As I noted above, for example, the situation in the early 1920s in Germany showed a party, an immature, communist party to be sure, that tried to insurrect too early and without the masses and later, perhaps as a result of that first failure in part, failed to take advantage of an exceptional revolutionary opportunity. The Bolsheviks knew, as they had their cadre on the ground in the city, the barracks, and the soviets, the pulse of the masses, who among the masses and military units would follow them, and most importantly under what conditions they would follow. In this sense Trotsky’s insurrectional organizing strategy of acting on the defensive (of soviet power) while going on the offense was brilliant. Moreover using the soviets as the organizing center rather than the narrower confines of the party worked to legitimize the seizure of power in important segments of the masses. This seizure of power by them in the name of the soviets was no narrow coup, although many bourgeois historians have argued that point to the contrary. Much ink has been spilled on the question of which organization; party, soviets or factory committees is the appropriate vehicle for the seizure of power. The answer: whatever organization (s) is ready to move when the time is ripe for revolution. Thank you
Friday, September 21, 2012
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-Refutation of the Revue des Deux Mondes
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
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!
***********
Étienne Cabet 1842-Refutation of the Revue des Deux Mondes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written: September 25, 1842;
Translated: from the original for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2005.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet another serious writing that combats communism by twisting it.
Already in September 1841 the Revue des Deux Mondes attacked communism and the National of September 2, 1841 repeated these attacks.
We answered the Revue and the Journal in the Populaire of September 5...Here is a new attack, more lively still on the part of the same Revue, but our previous refutations authorize us to respond briefly.
Revue des Deux Mondes – In the issue of July 1842 M. Louis Reybaud examines “Communist Ideas and Sects.” But this examination appears to have nothing serious about it, nothing truly philosophical; for the writer misrepresents true communism, avoids the real question, and does nothing that is necessary to understand and appreciate a doctrine, a system adopted by too many eminent men for it to be permitted to not seriously examine it. A few quotations will suffice to justify what I have just written:
As is common, after having treated communism as a dream the author adds:
“They don’t content themselves with feeding these illusions; they try to impose them by force. They want to make the universe an accomplice in their delirium. It is perhaps on this level that the history of these vertigos is not without interest.”
No. We Icarian communists, as the author calls us, want to impose nothing, and we have said this too often for a critic to be permitted to ignore it.
“It is true that Plato said two thousand years ago, when speaking of his imaginary republic: ‘wherever it is realized or is to be realized it is necessary that wealth be held in common among citizens, and that the greatest care must be taken in cutting the very word ‘property’ off from the business of life. But Plato created an ideal and cast it out beyond the confines of the possible. He abandoned the real world to enter the world of fables.”
But doesn’t the quotation from Plato prove exactly the contrary, since he says:
“Wherever it is realized or is to be realized?”
“Plato opposed to the vices of a civilization existing in time the fiction of the marvels of a chimerical society. He used a plan for a society in order to end in a lesson in morality.”
Well, then! Even if our communism were nothing but a lesson in morality against the unquestionable vices of current civilization, would it not then deserve even more consideration?
“It can’t be said that the Community has never been attempted. It was several times. The Therapeutics and the Essenes left traces in history and imitators over the course of the centuries.”
In all good conscience, is this an argument worthy of a serious writer? Have there not been things vainly attempted a thousand times that were then attempted with success? It would be necessary to renounce representative government, the republic, universal peace, etc., so often and fruitlessly attempted. Today’s community and the present circumstances, are they the same as the community and the circumstances of old? Can our industrial and productive might be ignored? Our machines? Our railroads, etc, etc.?
“It seems to us that the spectacle of aborted efforts should have sufficed to turn contemporary minds, even the sickest ones, away from a pursuit so often recognized as vain. But such is not the case: man willingly plays the role of the insect who eternally burns himself on the same flame.”
So Galileo and Christopher Columbus, and Fulton and so many thousand others were nothing but insects! They eternally burned their wings by persevering in ideas that the world rejected as madness and that the world ended by adopting as benefits!
“Until now this equality, source of all happiness, has hardly ever shown itself except by sacrifices. It disposed of the individual like an automaton, abolished family relations by taking away children, suppressed arts and letters in the interest of the common ignorance.”
But this is precisely the contrary of what is seen in Icaria!
“We remember the incident of a communist trial where the editor-in-chief of an accused paper (l'Humanitaire) declared with naiveté that he didn’t know how to either read or write.”
But this is completely false! The defendant in question was not the editor in chief. And this is how philosophical criticism is done!
After having said that one of the communist sects prohibits the discussion of the principle of Community he gratuitously generalizes this fact and reasons as if all communists prohibit this discussion!
And he reasons, according to this supposition, that the communists want neither labor nor the development of human activity, culture or intelligence. But things are precisely the contrary in Icaria! How can one discuss with a critic who misrepresents all facts and speaks contrary to the truth?
M. Louis Reybaud, forgetting the mass of sects, journals, revues and systems that divide each party, mocks Communism for the diversity of its ideas.
“It would be difficult to say in what consist the nuances that divide the communists. Perhaps one should see there naught but a difference in names. Nevertheless, the Egalitaires, the Fraternitaires, the Humanitaires, the Unitaires, the Communitaires or Icariens, the Communists, the Comunionnistes, the Communautistes, and the Rationalistes are all cited.
But almost all of this is erroneous, imaginary, invented by the critic in an effort to ridicule (which is hardly philosophical). M. Louis Reybaud knows communism less well than M. Bastard de l'Estang who, in his Quenisset Report, divides the communists into two categories, the Icarians who adopt the family, and the editors of l'Humanitaire, who reject the family.
“Among the writings of our day that have presented themselves as the interpreters of Communist principles there are few that merit the honors of a refutation...Among the avowed Communists there figures the author of ‘A Voyage in Icaria'”
M. Louis Reybaud only speaks of this work, without citing any other, while M. Thore only uses others without speaking of it! Thus, M. Louis Reybaud, like M. Bastard de l'Estang consider “The Voyage in Icaria” as the principal interpreter of Communism!
But when M. Reybaud wants to give an idea of Icaria, he twists almost all the facts in order to have a pretext for mockery (as if it meant something that a writer obtained the facile merit of mocking something by twisting it!)
Nevertheless, despite the haughty tone he affects, if M. Louis Reybaud wants to seriously, honestly, and philosophically discuss the Icarian system, we would dare to push our temerity so far as to respond to all his arguments, and we are presumptuous enough to believe that we would answer in such a way as to convince him that he is ignorant of many things, and that in this case he is entirely wrong.
“In absolutely no Communist charter is there room for intellectual labor. Brute production and its physical needs despotically reign. Delicate creations, refined satisfactions only figure there in a subaltern position: they are not formally recognized. At the very best they are tolerated. Is this a situation which writers can recognize without failing their very dignity? Communism excludes letters, yet it finds in letters defenders and apologists.”
But this, too, is an error, a materially false affirmation! There is no system, NONE, which so cultivates and develops intelligence and thought as the Icarian system! And what kind of portrait has the author just drawn of WRITERS, of MEN OF LETTERS? Doesn’t he fear painting them as the very type of egoists and materialists?
He reasons as if the Community constitutes the despotism and enslavement of the individual. But it is precisely the contrary in Icaria, for we there see the sovereignty of the people, the most perfect democracy, universal suffrage for citizens who are completely free and whose existence is assured by their labor, and finally the participation of all in the making of laws, i.e., the most real of freedoms. To suppose the contrary about the community is to create at will a phantom in order to have the pleasure of more easily combating it!
The author says that M. Pierre Leroux is a Communist. All the better! We would be happy to see him at the head of the Communists!
He reproaches him for his denial, and addresses these remarkable words to him:
“In truth, it is difficult to understand why M. Pierre Leroux thus retreats before his own ideas. The theoretical discussion of the Community offers no dangers. The principle can be openly confessed, and every day this is freely done. The conscience is not enchained by this point, and it doesn’t seem that persecution has attached itself to purely speculative doctrines. If this right, maintained in almost all times, were to be seriously threatened, there is not a single independent pen that wouldn’t be ready to defend it.”
We make note of this important avowal on the part of a governmental writer.
September 25, 1842
Cabet
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
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!
***********
Étienne Cabet 1842-Refutation of the Revue des Deux Mondes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written: September 25, 1842;
Translated: from the original for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2005.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet another serious writing that combats communism by twisting it.
Already in September 1841 the Revue des Deux Mondes attacked communism and the National of September 2, 1841 repeated these attacks.
We answered the Revue and the Journal in the Populaire of September 5...Here is a new attack, more lively still on the part of the same Revue, but our previous refutations authorize us to respond briefly.
Revue des Deux Mondes – In the issue of July 1842 M. Louis Reybaud examines “Communist Ideas and Sects.” But this examination appears to have nothing serious about it, nothing truly philosophical; for the writer misrepresents true communism, avoids the real question, and does nothing that is necessary to understand and appreciate a doctrine, a system adopted by too many eminent men for it to be permitted to not seriously examine it. A few quotations will suffice to justify what I have just written:
As is common, after having treated communism as a dream the author adds:
“They don’t content themselves with feeding these illusions; they try to impose them by force. They want to make the universe an accomplice in their delirium. It is perhaps on this level that the history of these vertigos is not without interest.”
No. We Icarian communists, as the author calls us, want to impose nothing, and we have said this too often for a critic to be permitted to ignore it.
“It is true that Plato said two thousand years ago, when speaking of his imaginary republic: ‘wherever it is realized or is to be realized it is necessary that wealth be held in common among citizens, and that the greatest care must be taken in cutting the very word ‘property’ off from the business of life. But Plato created an ideal and cast it out beyond the confines of the possible. He abandoned the real world to enter the world of fables.”
But doesn’t the quotation from Plato prove exactly the contrary, since he says:
“Wherever it is realized or is to be realized?”
“Plato opposed to the vices of a civilization existing in time the fiction of the marvels of a chimerical society. He used a plan for a society in order to end in a lesson in morality.”
Well, then! Even if our communism were nothing but a lesson in morality against the unquestionable vices of current civilization, would it not then deserve even more consideration?
“It can’t be said that the Community has never been attempted. It was several times. The Therapeutics and the Essenes left traces in history and imitators over the course of the centuries.”
In all good conscience, is this an argument worthy of a serious writer? Have there not been things vainly attempted a thousand times that were then attempted with success? It would be necessary to renounce representative government, the republic, universal peace, etc., so often and fruitlessly attempted. Today’s community and the present circumstances, are they the same as the community and the circumstances of old? Can our industrial and productive might be ignored? Our machines? Our railroads, etc, etc.?
“It seems to us that the spectacle of aborted efforts should have sufficed to turn contemporary minds, even the sickest ones, away from a pursuit so often recognized as vain. But such is not the case: man willingly plays the role of the insect who eternally burns himself on the same flame.”
So Galileo and Christopher Columbus, and Fulton and so many thousand others were nothing but insects! They eternally burned their wings by persevering in ideas that the world rejected as madness and that the world ended by adopting as benefits!
“Until now this equality, source of all happiness, has hardly ever shown itself except by sacrifices. It disposed of the individual like an automaton, abolished family relations by taking away children, suppressed arts and letters in the interest of the common ignorance.”
But this is precisely the contrary of what is seen in Icaria!
“We remember the incident of a communist trial where the editor-in-chief of an accused paper (l'Humanitaire) declared with naiveté that he didn’t know how to either read or write.”
But this is completely false! The defendant in question was not the editor in chief. And this is how philosophical criticism is done!
After having said that one of the communist sects prohibits the discussion of the principle of Community he gratuitously generalizes this fact and reasons as if all communists prohibit this discussion!
And he reasons, according to this supposition, that the communists want neither labor nor the development of human activity, culture or intelligence. But things are precisely the contrary in Icaria! How can one discuss with a critic who misrepresents all facts and speaks contrary to the truth?
M. Louis Reybaud, forgetting the mass of sects, journals, revues and systems that divide each party, mocks Communism for the diversity of its ideas.
“It would be difficult to say in what consist the nuances that divide the communists. Perhaps one should see there naught but a difference in names. Nevertheless, the Egalitaires, the Fraternitaires, the Humanitaires, the Unitaires, the Communitaires or Icariens, the Communists, the Comunionnistes, the Communautistes, and the Rationalistes are all cited.
But almost all of this is erroneous, imaginary, invented by the critic in an effort to ridicule (which is hardly philosophical). M. Louis Reybaud knows communism less well than M. Bastard de l'Estang who, in his Quenisset Report, divides the communists into two categories, the Icarians who adopt the family, and the editors of l'Humanitaire, who reject the family.
“Among the writings of our day that have presented themselves as the interpreters of Communist principles there are few that merit the honors of a refutation...Among the avowed Communists there figures the author of ‘A Voyage in Icaria'”
M. Louis Reybaud only speaks of this work, without citing any other, while M. Thore only uses others without speaking of it! Thus, M. Louis Reybaud, like M. Bastard de l'Estang consider “The Voyage in Icaria” as the principal interpreter of Communism!
But when M. Reybaud wants to give an idea of Icaria, he twists almost all the facts in order to have a pretext for mockery (as if it meant something that a writer obtained the facile merit of mocking something by twisting it!)
Nevertheless, despite the haughty tone he affects, if M. Louis Reybaud wants to seriously, honestly, and philosophically discuss the Icarian system, we would dare to push our temerity so far as to respond to all his arguments, and we are presumptuous enough to believe that we would answer in such a way as to convince him that he is ignorant of many things, and that in this case he is entirely wrong.
“In absolutely no Communist charter is there room for intellectual labor. Brute production and its physical needs despotically reign. Delicate creations, refined satisfactions only figure there in a subaltern position: they are not formally recognized. At the very best they are tolerated. Is this a situation which writers can recognize without failing their very dignity? Communism excludes letters, yet it finds in letters defenders and apologists.”
But this, too, is an error, a materially false affirmation! There is no system, NONE, which so cultivates and develops intelligence and thought as the Icarian system! And what kind of portrait has the author just drawn of WRITERS, of MEN OF LETTERS? Doesn’t he fear painting them as the very type of egoists and materialists?
He reasons as if the Community constitutes the despotism and enslavement of the individual. But it is precisely the contrary in Icaria, for we there see the sovereignty of the people, the most perfect democracy, universal suffrage for citizens who are completely free and whose existence is assured by their labor, and finally the participation of all in the making of laws, i.e., the most real of freedoms. To suppose the contrary about the community is to create at will a phantom in order to have the pleasure of more easily combating it!
The author says that M. Pierre Leroux is a Communist. All the better! We would be happy to see him at the head of the Communists!
He reproaches him for his denial, and addresses these remarkable words to him:
“In truth, it is difficult to understand why M. Pierre Leroux thus retreats before his own ideas. The theoretical discussion of the Community offers no dangers. The principle can be openly confessed, and every day this is freely done. The conscience is not enchained by this point, and it doesn’t seem that persecution has attached itself to purely speculative doctrines. If this right, maintained in almost all times, were to be seriously threatened, there is not a single independent pen that wouldn’t be ready to defend it.”
We make note of this important avowal on the part of a governmental writer.
September 25, 1842
Cabet
From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin - Out In The North Adamsville Jukebox Saturday Night
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube Film clip of Ben E. King performing Spanish Harlem.
A while back I was on a tear hunting down every old but goodie, 1950s and 1960s versions if you please, rock and roll compilation, set, 45 RPM record (look that up if you don’t know, look it up on Wikipedia if you are in a hurry) that was not nailed down to some musty, dusty attic floor. Reason? Who knows the reason except this: I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots. Maybe the earliest that I could call my own, be-bop rock and roll (not that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Inkspots stuff, jesus no, that got my parents’ generation through the Great Depression [1930s variety] and World War II although that was endlessly heard wafting through the teenage house). While time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes (who, for example, really wants to remember Gene Pitney’s Town Without Pity, that I played endlessly on girl-less Saturday nights) it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-62, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked elsewhere about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, naturally, “coffin nail” ready, usually Luckies but on occasion Camels) hanging from the lips, Coke, big-sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, please. And, finally, the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, with the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.
Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days, bowling alleys, drugstores, pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and maybe at the daytime beach, if you lived near a beach. I remember on such beach place called, surprise, surprise the Surf Club that catered to summer vacation teens during the day and doubled as a no teens, no goddamn teens allowed, hot spot nightclub for be-bop hipsters (really faux hipster by then), motorcycle daddies with their mamas (or somebody’s mama) on back, and your average just that moment at large hood. But all this jukebox seeking by pimply teen or chain-wielding biker was done while boy or girl watching. So juke heaven was basically any place where kids (and those oldsters just mentioned as well) were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.
Funny, a lot of hanging around the jukes was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was that these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention after you had sized them up as they came in the door. I remember one time at this all the kids in town after school afternoon hang-out diner waiting for Cokes and burgers this dreamy girl waiting for her platters (records, okay, again check Wikipedia if you are lost) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. And this tee-shirted sullen guy, me (could have been you though, right?), just hanging around the machine waiting for just such a well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) to show up, maybe chatting idly for what might be worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Okay, I got the number that time but get this. Don’t call after nine at night though or before eight because those were times when she was talking to her boyfriend. Scratch that one. Lucky guy he, maybe.
But here is where the real jukes skill came in, and where that white-tee-shirted guy just mentioned seemed to be in his element, although a million guys have stories about how they worked this one. You started out just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking, usually to girlfriends, as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next.
Then you made your move-“Have you heard Spanish Harlem?. NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up. Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to... for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. Sometimes it actually worked. Beautiful.
Now that I am at a great remove from jukes I can give you my basic spiel playlist well worked out during those periods when things were slow and I really was killing time. Here’s the list and there are some stick outs that might work today and others, well remember the fate of Gene Pitney and his damn town without pity because you know it’s tough out there on those mean streets.
I have added a few that worked some of that “magic” just mentioned above on tough nights too: 1) My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels (in honor of the shapely brunette above with the boyfriend with the telephone ear); 2) Nadine (Is It You?) (only use if the “target” looks like a little rock and roller and if you have a strong enough heart to stand the rejection when she turns you over in a week or so for the next best thing) - Chuck Berry; 3)Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King (only if you can do the “sensitive” guy thing otherwise save this one for the last dance for that girl you have been getting sore eyes over all night) ; 4)Come & Get These Memories (strictly for known Motown heads) - Martha & the Vandellas; 5)Perfidia (for smart girls who might even know what this word means) - The Ventures; 6)Lover's Island (figure this one out yourselves but think beach and starlight nights)- The Blue Jays; 7)Playboy (not for the “girl next door” types, please) - The Marvelettes; 8)Little Latin Lupe Lu (strictly for be-bop girls, girls with many quarters) - The Righteous Brothers; 9)It's Gonna Work Out Fine (backseat Saturday night, okay) - Ike & Tina Turner; 10)When We Get Married ( for dreamy girls-without boyfriends)- The Dreamlovers; 11)The One Who Really Loves You ( ditto the “sensitive guy” thing)- Mary Wells; 12)Little Diane ( for the “girl next door”) - Dion; 13)Dear Lady Twist ( strictly friends, except…)- Gary "U.S." Bonds; 14); Heartaches (“recovering” girls) - The Marcels; 15)Feel So Fine (Feel So Good)( back to Mr. Sensitive, you had better learn that approach)- Johnny Preston; 16) If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody (please, please, James Brown, please) - James Ray; 17)All in My Mind (for girly girls)- Maxine Brown; 18)Maybe I Know ( strictly for telephone number givers)- Lesley Gore; 19)Heart & Soul (you have it, Mr. Sensitive, don you see a pattern here) - The Cleftones; 20)Peanut Butter (goofy tough night girls)- The Marathons; 21)I Count the Tears (Mr. Sen…need I say more) - The Drifters; 22)Everybody Loves a Lover (for the girls with telephone boyfriends)- The Shirelles. There it is all laid out for you- Good luck.
A while back I was on a tear hunting down every old but goodie, 1950s and 1960s versions if you please, rock and roll compilation, set, 45 RPM record (look that up if you don’t know, look it up on Wikipedia if you are in a hurry) that was not nailed down to some musty, dusty attic floor. Reason? Who knows the reason except this: I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots. Maybe the earliest that I could call my own, be-bop rock and roll (not that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Inkspots stuff, jesus no, that got my parents’ generation through the Great Depression [1930s variety] and World War II although that was endlessly heard wafting through the teenage house). While time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes (who, for example, really wants to remember Gene Pitney’s Town Without Pity, that I played endlessly on girl-less Saturday nights) it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-62, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked elsewhere about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, naturally, “coffin nail” ready, usually Luckies but on occasion Camels) hanging from the lips, Coke, big-sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, please. And, finally, the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, with the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.
Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days, bowling alleys, drugstores, pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and maybe at the daytime beach, if you lived near a beach. I remember on such beach place called, surprise, surprise the Surf Club that catered to summer vacation teens during the day and doubled as a no teens, no goddamn teens allowed, hot spot nightclub for be-bop hipsters (really faux hipster by then), motorcycle daddies with their mamas (or somebody’s mama) on back, and your average just that moment at large hood. But all this jukebox seeking by pimply teen or chain-wielding biker was done while boy or girl watching. So juke heaven was basically any place where kids (and those oldsters just mentioned as well) were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.
Funny, a lot of hanging around the jukes was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was that these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention after you had sized them up as they came in the door. I remember one time at this all the kids in town after school afternoon hang-out diner waiting for Cokes and burgers this dreamy girl waiting for her platters (records, okay, again check Wikipedia if you are lost) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. And this tee-shirted sullen guy, me (could have been you though, right?), just hanging around the machine waiting for just such a well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) to show up, maybe chatting idly for what might be worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Okay, I got the number that time but get this. Don’t call after nine at night though or before eight because those were times when she was talking to her boyfriend. Scratch that one. Lucky guy he, maybe.
But here is where the real jukes skill came in, and where that white-tee-shirted guy just mentioned seemed to be in his element, although a million guys have stories about how they worked this one. You started out just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking, usually to girlfriends, as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next.
Then you made your move-“Have you heard Spanish Harlem?. NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up. Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to... for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. Sometimes it actually worked. Beautiful.
Now that I am at a great remove from jukes I can give you my basic spiel playlist well worked out during those periods when things were slow and I really was killing time. Here’s the list and there are some stick outs that might work today and others, well remember the fate of Gene Pitney and his damn town without pity because you know it’s tough out there on those mean streets.
I have added a few that worked some of that “magic” just mentioned above on tough nights too: 1) My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels (in honor of the shapely brunette above with the boyfriend with the telephone ear); 2) Nadine (Is It You?) (only use if the “target” looks like a little rock and roller and if you have a strong enough heart to stand the rejection when she turns you over in a week or so for the next best thing) - Chuck Berry; 3)Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King (only if you can do the “sensitive” guy thing otherwise save this one for the last dance for that girl you have been getting sore eyes over all night) ; 4)Come & Get These Memories (strictly for known Motown heads) - Martha & the Vandellas; 5)Perfidia (for smart girls who might even know what this word means) - The Ventures; 6)Lover's Island (figure this one out yourselves but think beach and starlight nights)- The Blue Jays; 7)Playboy (not for the “girl next door” types, please) - The Marvelettes; 8)Little Latin Lupe Lu (strictly for be-bop girls, girls with many quarters) - The Righteous Brothers; 9)It's Gonna Work Out Fine (backseat Saturday night, okay) - Ike & Tina Turner; 10)When We Get Married ( for dreamy girls-without boyfriends)- The Dreamlovers; 11)The One Who Really Loves You ( ditto the “sensitive guy” thing)- Mary Wells; 12)Little Diane ( for the “girl next door”) - Dion; 13)Dear Lady Twist ( strictly friends, except…)- Gary "U.S." Bonds; 14); Heartaches (“recovering” girls) - The Marcels; 15)Feel So Fine (Feel So Good)( back to Mr. Sensitive, you had better learn that approach)- Johnny Preston; 16) If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody (please, please, James Brown, please) - James Ray; 17)All in My Mind (for girly girls)- Maxine Brown; 18)Maybe I Know ( strictly for telephone number givers)- Lesley Gore; 19)Heart & Soul (you have it, Mr. Sensitive, don you see a pattern here) - The Cleftones; 20)Peanut Butter (goofy tough night girls)- The Marathons; 21)I Count the Tears (Mr. Sen…need I say more) - The Drifters; 22)Everybody Loves a Lover (for the girls with telephone boyfriends)- The Shirelles. There it is all laid out for you- Good luck.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Johnny Shea’s Femme Fatale Moment
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 where 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 it 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 Billy Riley was surprised when he told him 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 spare afternoon on 42nd Street in New York City in the Bijou Theater where they played revival films, that he got “religion.” The film: Humphrey Bogart played his Sam Spade heart out to nefarious Mary Astor’s Bridget O'Shaughnessy 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 just like many dames have cooked up 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 so “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 passed 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 it 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 Johnny 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 the 1980s 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, 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, and who was putty in dear Jane’s hands when 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 crabby lawyer hubby and she wanted old Orson to work his shoot-out magic for her. Hubby dead and they off to spend the dough in some foreign port, maybe in Asia. Orson bought into the scheme, bought into scheme right up to his neck, and all the 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 differently that maybe they could have found some island some place. Yes, old Orson had it bad, bad as a man can have it for a woman. Damn that damn scent.
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 on old Eddie, switched him up bad which tells you even good femmes bear watching your back on. I could go on and on but 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 Johnny. 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 through 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 had a few, he was feeling a little low, and had his old time corner boys around him, and then you decide.
“I not saying Rosa, Rosa Lebron, was as hot as Jane Greer or Rita Hayworth, 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 where we meet, or exactly 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. That will give you the idea why I want to be vague about my meeting up with Rosa, okay. This, by the way, was before it got real crazy down there a few years back with a murder a minute, some of it gang-related, some just pure batos locos craziness from the drugs and the dough. All hell craziness when some busted gabacho deal winds up exploding some whole dusty, dirty little bracero town, although even back then it was always a tight thing when you dealt with the Mexicans, and when you dealt with dope. Period. Sometime when I don’t want to talk about femmes I will tell you some back road, dusty trail stuff that will curl the hairs on the back of your neck and that was when things were “cooled out.” But back to Rosa.
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. That was when a little smarts, street smarts like a lot of Mexican kids had, and a little English which most didn’t, got you pretty far when the vast bulk of the trade was heading norte. So Pedro was no stinking little bracero always staring at you, staring through you really, looking like he would cut your throat for a dollar and change. I met Pedro through mutual business contacts in a New York City bar one night and that got us started on our business, our “nuestra cosa .”
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 scent that distracted me from the minute she clasped my hand. (I found out later from her that it was made from some Mexican cactus 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 the painter Diego Riviera, the dish with the one eyebrow, except Rosa had two. When you see that picture and think what that dame did to big time 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 too 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). 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 quarter 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. We drank and made love like it was our last night on earth. 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 quarter 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. Yah, I was a chump but if you see her, her and her dancing eyes and that damn cactus flower fragrance, tell her I said hello. And tell her to remember that night she danced the dance of the seven veils for me because I sure do.”
[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 next time though that stuff will kill you Johnny. Christ after hearing that story 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 -Problems of the European Revolution-By a Group of European Comrades-London, July 1944
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.
**********
Problems of the European Revolution-By a Group of European Comrades-
London, July 1944
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written: July, 1944.
First Published:November, 1944
Source:Fourth International, New York, November 1944, Vol. 5, No. 11
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido and David Walters, December, 2005
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskism On-Line, 2006. 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 address of this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The article which appears below is the abridged first part of a document written in July 1944 by a group of European comrades in London in. answer to the questions raised in the “Three Theses” and in the bulletin, “Europe under the Iron Heel” recently published in England. The second and concluding section of this work will appear in a subsequent issue of Fourth International, which has already carried a number of articles on the same question.
The “Three Theses” referred to in the text appeared in the December 1942 issue of our magazine. The official position of the Socialist Workers Party on the issues involved is embodied in the political resolution adopted at the 1942 Convention; the pertinent section of this resolution appeared in the October 1942 number of Fourth International.
* * *
The collapse of Italian fascism, the strikes in Britain, the mass movements in the Balkans and in the rest of occupied Europe are heralding the coming European Revolution. All Europe has become a powder barrel, filled with the explosives of class contradictions. No one can predict, with watch in hand, when the grand denouement will take place. New imperialist slaughters in the West may for a time retard the revolutionary development and may give rise to a period of chauvinist reaction. But the revolution will re-emerge with fresh vigor. The sufferings of the masses will only be intensified—the illusions, the expectations they have in one or another imperialist power will soon be gone—there will remain the one and only way out from the agony: revolution. The struggles of the past months and years which have so vividly demonstrated the trend of development will break out again with increased intensity. There cannot be any doubt. Europe now stands on the eve of revolution.
Our world party is faced with the obligation of reviewing its forces—their theoretical clarity and their ability to give to the revolutionary class—the proletariat—what only the Fourth International can give: program and leadership. This is why the dispute with the group of European comrades who published the ‘Three Theses” (See December 1942 Fourth International) has become one of the most important problems of the International. It requires the attention and active intervention of all sections of the International. . . .
This group of European comrades attempts to waive aside as ridiculous the criticism of various responsible comrades in the Fourth International while continuing their false policy. For reasons not wholly comprehensible, these comrades consider their theories and conceptions as superior to those of the rest of the International. They themselves are therein their own judges—nobody else in the International has up to now confirmed this judgment. It is necessary to consider their theoretical venture critically. Before dealing with our main subject, we wish to make in connection with the Russian questions, some remarks about the bulletin “Europe under the Iron Heel,” issued by these comrades. . .
This bulletin contains an article by Comrade Held written in September 1940. These comrades considered Held’s 1940 article so important that they reprint it now, presumably as an authoritative presentation of their position. That Comrade Held, at the time of the Russo-Finnish war, and at the time of the controversy in the Socialist Workers Party, openly advocated “revolutionary defeatism” for Russia in Unser Wort — would be of relatively small significance, viz., would be of interest only for the “record,” inasmuch as the present tendency assures us it agrees with Trotsky on this question. Until now we thought this statement to be sincere. But what can we think of it when these comrades now publish an article which contains the following:
“After a year of war, the regime of the Iron heel has subjected almost the entire European continent. Finland, Sweden and Switzerland have still a remnant of independence and democratic form of government— however, all these countries lie under the shadow of the iron heel. All signs foreshadow that Finland will also share the fate of the Baltic countries.” (Our emphasis.)
It was the fate of the Baltic countries to be occupied by Russia. The regime of the iron heel, is thus not only German imperialism—fascism—but also the Soviet Union.
Shachtman thought it superfluous to distinguish between an annexation in the interest of imperialism and an annexation for the defense of the Soviet Union against imperialism. The renegade Burnham later developed on this basis his theory of the “Managerial Society”—he could just as well have called it the “Iron Heel.”
The claim of these comrades that they base themselves on the program of the Fourth International loses in our eyes much of its value when they print and solidarize themselves with statements which are exactly the contrary of the position of Trotsky and the Fourth International.
Comrade Held’s Views
For a long time we did not pay special attention to the article of Comrade Held—it is brimming with literary superficialities, it is bare of any scientific exactness. It has now been published, however, together with two similar articles, in the name of a section of the Fourth International.
The above quotation is not the only blow which these European comrades aim against our position on the Soviet Union. On page 3 of this bulletin, it is said that the English Tories have understood relatively late “that the SU has ceased to constitute a danger for the European bourgeoisie” on the grounds of internal transformations within the Soviet Union.
As opposed to this, the Manifesto of the Fourth International, “The Imperialist War and the Proletarian Revolution” quotes from the theses on “War and the Fourth International” as follows: “Taken on the historical scale the contradiction between world imperialism and the Soviet Union is infinitely more profound than the antagonisms which set the individual countries in opposition to each other.”
What the English Tories have understood relatively late, the Fourth International, according to Held, has not understood to this day. Then, why not say so openly? The Fourth International has always been of the opinion that the existence of the Soviet Union represents a danger to imperialism, that the socialist economy of Russia, i.e. the workers’ state, is an important part of the world contradiction—Proletariat-Bourgeoisie—a point that Shachtman did not understand, but which is very well understood by the English Tories as well as by all other imperialists.
And finally we read in the bulletin:
“Originally endowed with the dynamic idea of world revolution, the Soviet Union is transformed into a bureaucratic-conservative aim-in-itself and finally into a totalitarian police-State, a stifling parasite on the foundation of October, without any historical perspective.” (Our emphasis.)
Let us consider the “dynamics” of this sentence in order the better to see its senselessness. The Soviet Union is here transformed into a bureaucratic conservative “aim-in-itself,” “a totalitarian police-State,” “a stifling parasite on the foundations of October”. . .”without any historical perspective.”
Not a trace of dialectic! Any bourgeois writer could have said this. It is true that this is not the first time that the comrades maintain that the Soviet Union is without historical perspective. Neither is it the first time that we have criticized them for this. More than six years ago they maintained this position in an article, “ Program Einer Bilanz.”É
Actually, it is the Stalinist bureaucracy which has no historical perspective—the parasite on the foundation of October, the abscess on the body of the Soviet Union which does not base itself on and does not serve that class to which the future belongs—the proletariat—but becomes the agent of the world bourgeoisie and will perish with it....
Let us now proceed to discuss the “Three Theses” and the articles of Held and Brink, i.e. their position on the European situation.
Character of Our Epoch
I. The present epoch—are epoch of national insurrections and wars of national liberation? Or the epoch of the death agony of capitalism? One of the main mistakes which the supporters of the “Three Theses” make is their estimate of the present epoch. Fascism has often been compared to a political regime similar to absolutism. Such a comparison, with the necessary qualifications and delimitations, is justified. If one, however, omits the necessary delimitation, one comes to the completely incorrect conclusions. . . .
The victory of Hitler over Europe threw a few comrades into a mood of pessimism. It was then that Trotsky wrote: “The victories of Fascism are important, but the death agony of capitalism is much more important.” It would have been well for these comrades to have heeded these words.
Unfortunately, they did not heed this advice. Enumerating the victories of German imperialism, Held says: “No illusion is possible any more. Europe will remain fascist for the next historical period.” Jack London, who never pretended to be a politician, is presented as a witness. The rule of the “Iron Heel” lasted, as is known, about 300 years in London’s novel—this appears too pessimistic to Held, just as he deems a short term too optimistic. However, these comrades are politicians. For them it is important to know in what age they live. The thesis of Comrade Held and therewith of the others thus reads: “An epoch which the progressive thinkers in Europe for long thought to be overcome, now is to be repeated, that of the national insurrections and wars of liberation.”
To corroborate this thesis they give a quotation from Lenin which is in reality an argument against the conception that, in the very course of the imperialist world war, although it already enslaved peoples, the epoch is one of national wars of liberation.
“ If the European proletariat were to remain impotent for another 20 years— if the present war were to end in victories similar to those achieved by Napoleon, in the subjugation of a number of virile national states; if imperialism outside of Europe (primarily American and Japanese) were to remain in power for another 20 years without a transition to socialism . . . then a great national war in Europe would ‘be possible.” (Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. XIX, pp. 203-204. English edition.)
Such a development Lenin deems improbable but not impossible:
“For to picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily ... is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.” ( Idem)
Whereupon, Comrade Held hurries to add: “If these coming insurrections and wars of national liberation are not to lead anew to a state of fascist barbarism, etc., etc.” Comrade Held and the others could not wait for these “ ifs “ specified by Lenin to come true—they prefer to ignore them. How otherwise could Held prove that we live in an epoch of national insurrections and wars of liberation? . . .
None of the “ ifs “ posited by Lenin has thus far been realized, and we dare to contradict the prophetic pessimism of Jack London and the prophecy of our opponents. We hold such a development to be quite improbable.
The proletariat is not impotent, it is stirring mightily. In Italy it has already overthrown fascism; powerful strikes preceded this overthrow. The rulers in Berlin clearly recognized the significance of this event, as their counter-measures showed. Soon the day will come when Himmler will no longer have hooligans enough to hold down the German proletariat. The proletariat of Russia is dealing blows to German imperialism from which the latter will scarcely recover. Mass strikes have occurred in England, etc., etc. Does this resemble an epoch of national insurrections and wars of national liberation?
The war is not finished ... On the contrary, the unspeakable sufferings this war brings to the oppressed masses can only hasten the revolution which has so mightily announced itself. The thesis of Held is neither proven, nor has it the authority of Lenin.
Fascism, imperialist wars, national oppression, foreign occupation, all these are victories of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, especially over the oppressed masses of the small nations. It is the bloody victory of imperialism over the forces of socialism. The unconscious historical process, the instinctive elementary striving of the proletariat to reconstruct society on a Communist basis, remains a fact so long as the proletariat, the most decisive, potentially most powerful class of capitalist society, exists. There can be no other orientation, especially for Europe. These comrades are improvising. They lost their head when French imperialism lost its empire. It is time they correct themselves. The military misfortunes of an imperialist bandit cannot alter our orientation. Our policy never based itself on the changes of the military map, but on the basic, objective conditions of capitalist society.
From the standpoint of international Socialism, the national oppression caused by the occupation of Europe is a secondary factor which cannot alter the strategical aim of the Socialist United States of Europe. It is the role of scientific socialism, therewith of our International, to give conscious expression to the unconscious striving of the proletariat.
The present epoch is that of imperialism, i.e. wars and revolutions. On this the entire policy of the Fourth International is based. It is a thoroughly revolutionary epoch. The deep and frequent changes on an international scale, the shifting of frontiers and trenches on the national scale, the sudden changes from a revolutionary situation (i.e. a situation where the seizure of power by the proletariat is on the order of the day) into a counter-revolutionary situation, or the change to a provisional or coalition government are nothing else than the manifestation of the basic antagonism between the productive forces and the capitalist fetters: national and social. Each of these changes deeply shakes the decaying capitalist edifice. Every revolutionary crisis reproduced anew by this antagonism poses the question of power in all its sharpness. The national orientation of the proletariat can only be determined by this world orientation and not the other way round.
Our Prognosis
Trotsky wrote his last, important document, “The Imperialist War and the Proletarian Revolution,” after the occupation of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and part of France. In the section, “This is not our war,” he stated:
“The Fourth International builds its policy not on the military fortunes of the capitalist states but on the transformation of the imperialist war into a war of the workers against the capitalists... on the world socialist revolution. The shifts in the battle lines at the front, the destruction of national capitals, the occupation of territories, the downfall of individual states, represent from this standpoint only tragic episodes on the road to the reconstruction of modern society. “Independently of the course of the war, we fulfill our basic task: we explain to the workers the irreconcilability between their interests and the interests of bloodthirsty capitalism; we mobilize the toilers against imperialism;... we call for the fraternization of the workers and soldiers within each country; and of soldiers with the soldiers of the opposite Side of the battle front; we mobilize the women and the youth against the war; we carry on consistent, persistent, tireless preparation of the revolution—in the factories, in the mills, in the villages, in the barracks, at the front and in the fleet. This is our program. Proletarians of the world, there is no other way out except to unite under the banner of the Fourth International!”
This is our program. These comrades have another one. In the past, they recognized at least Trotsky’s authority. But it seems to us that they did so only in words, just as on the Russian question. Trotsky lived to see the fall of France, the Nazi occupation of Europe. These comrades should name a single example where he failed to take a position towards an important political event, whether in Russia or in China, in Germany or in France, in Austria, Spain, England, America, or anywhere else in the world. Would he have overlooked the fact that the wheel of history had turned back for approximately 100 years?
II.— The transition from fascist dictatorship to the proletarian dictatorship: Democratic Revolution or Proletarian Revolution?
It is necessary to give clear answers to the two following questions if we are to intervene in the political events in Europe:
(1) The character of the coming European revolution and the strategy flowing from it:
(2) The tactical utilization of revolutionary possibilities, the use of democratic slogans, etc., in order to gain the leadership of the proletariat.
How do the proponents of the “Three Theses” answer these questions? Comrade Held has postponed the proletarian revolution to an indefinite future; the “Three Theses” make a hopeless attempt at introducing the idea of a democratic revolution—hopeless because the Trotskyist movement has behind it many years of struggle against this very conception, and our cadres have been educated and trained through this struggle.
The defeat of the German proletariat, and finally the triumph of reaction throughout the continent, have sown demoralization and confusion among the proletariat, and have unfortunately not left these comrades unscathed. There is no other explanation for their political evolution, for their skepticism, despair, pessimism and confusion.
Through fascism the bourgeoisie had hoped to rid itself of the threat of social revolution. Parties—the highest political expression of classes—were annihilated, society was atomized and class collaboration was imposed, for a time at least. Thus the bourgeoisie actually succeeded in throwing back the political development of the proletariat; the achievements which had taken long decades of struggle to conquer, were lost. But history does not merely repeat itself. Fascism did not abolish classes, nor did it divide up society into Fascists and “anti-fascists.” The comrades stress the absence of political parties, and believe that this relieves them of the duty of upholding our class position. To the question of the character of the coming European revolution, they answer with the neutral word “democratic,” i.e., they introduce between the fall of fascism and the coming of socialism an intermediary stage “which is basically equivalent to a democratic revolution.”
Character of the Transition
We do not deny the necessity of a transitional period, but we demand clarity, even at the risk of frightening off some progressive bourgeois and radical intellectuals; what we mean here, is a transitional period from the fascist dictatorship to proletarian dictatorship, i.e., a phase of the proletarian revolution during which the revolutionary leadership cannot by any means restrict itself to democratic slogans. In fact, there may occur several phases between the fascist dictatorship and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It has always been the tactic of the revolutionary party to mobilize the proletariat and the masses around democratic slogans in retrograde phases of the revolution. No one can predict all the phases, nor draw up in advance all the appropriate slogans. These are only general guiding lines: the state of consciousness of the masses and our strategic goal—the proletarian dictatorship—these are the factors determining our slogans. It is the task of the revolutionary leadership to influence in this direction every struggle, and through every single event to show the proletariat the nature of capitalist society, its parties, its classes and institutions and to make the workers conscious of their historic tasks.
Only a hopeless schematist can say: first a democratic revolution, and then socialism. The proletariat awakes from its apathy, rises through strikes and demonstrations, draws new layers and sections of the working classes into the struggle, thereby learns to know its own strength and appears as a powerful force to all the oppressed classes which it draws into the struggle. The revolutionist does not only participate in this Struggle, but stands in the foremost rank. He will not restrict himself to democratic slogans, but in these struggles he will propagate the idea of Soviets, and at the first favorable opportunity he will organize them. In Italy factory committees appeared before there was freedom of the press or freedom of association, and the revolution in other countries will pass through a similar development.
This transitional period consists of convulsions, mass actions, demonstrations, strikes, clashes with the police, etc., during which the revolutionary party will be strengthened and built up, and during which the proletariat will organize itself and prepare to take power. At the same time, these struggles may lead to democratic changes in the bourgeois government. The Russian Revolution offers numerous examples of this. We repeat: we have to do, here, with phases of the proletarian revolution during which democratic possibilities are exhausted, the revolutionary leadership wins over the working class, and the proletariat establishes its own organs of power, appears and acts as a class, as a unity, grouping around itself all oppressed layers of society. Democratic demands, such as freedom of the press, the right to strike, freedom of assembly and association, municipal elections, constituent assembly (democratic representation in parliament), will be of enormous importance, and, together with our transitional demands, such as workers’ militia, factory committees, control of production, Soviets, will open the way for the proletarian dictatorship.
A False Approach
Instead of approaching the question from the class point of view, instead of giving a revolutionary strategy based upon a correct appreciation of the historic epoch, instead of developing a revolutionary tactic that takes into account the state of consciousness of the proletariat and of the masses whilst remaining subordinate to the revolutionary strategy; the revisionist tendency begins by describing movements in a manner which is nothing but a meaningless enumeration of classes and layers of society: workers, agricultural laborers, peasants, urban petty-bourgeoisie, civil servants, priests, intellectuals, shopkeepers, manufacturers and generals, all combine to form an anti-fascist aggregate or a national movement. Opposing them, we have the fascists or foreign oppressors. What is the conclusion?
“So strong is the common enemy and so great the common need that separate interests can be pushed into the background for a time,” says Brink in a variation upon the arithmetical logic of the People’s Front. (Not once in his article does Brink mention class interests.) Following the same order of ideas, the “Three Theses” state: “Everything will be levelled to a desire for the overthrow of this enemy [German fascism] and, in fact, it must be recognized that without it there can be no question of change in existing conditions.”
If one cannot conceive of a modification of the existing, i.e. capitalist conditions, as long as there is fascism, who then will overthrow fascism? Certainly not the generals, manufacturers, shopkeepers and priests! These were precisely the gentry who put fascism in power in Italy, in Germany, in Austria and in Spain, and who in Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France concluded a compromise with German imperialism and who are now going over to the camp of Anglo-American imperialism—acting every time to guard and guarantee against the proletarian revolution.
There is only one possibility left, if we consider the revisionist tendency as capable of properly formulating its ideas: they demand that the proletariat and the oppressed classes fight against fascism and renounce their own class interests. They must do so—”for some time,” says Brink; until “Socialism”, say the “Three Theses” . . .
In China, a similar policy cost the lives of tens of thousands of Communists, and it did not bring socialism, but Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship. Half a. million of Spain’s best sons-had to bleed to death because their leaders said: first throw over the enemy No. 1, the main obstacle, and then change “the existing conditions”: this paved the way for Franco. While the “Popular Front” “postponed” the fight against the “existing conditions,” the masses of Spanish Morocco remained colonial slaves and fell prey to Franco’s demagogy. Under the “existing conditions,” peasants remained landless and saw no reason for fighting for the Republican camp. The capitalists, who were themselves fighting openly in the camp of the counterrevolution, left behind their advocates who saw to it that “existing conditions” remained inviolate and if possible profits should continue to roll in.
It is true that, at the time, the comrades of the revisionist tendency were with us, denouncing these “People’s Front” traitors. But that does not excuse their present position. On the contrary. Actually, there can be no real mass movement in the European countries unless the masses know what they are fighting for and fight for their own class interests . . .
The “Three Theses” are rendering a bad service to the inexperienced younger generation by talking of a democratic intermediary stage and maintaining that democratic demands alone can constitute a “complete transitional program,” by considering it unnecessary to explain the role of the various classes, by concealing the fact that the bourgeoisie of all European countries is either collaborating with German imperialism or with Anglo-American imperialism; by speaking of socialism when they should refer to the dictatorship of the proletariat; by failing to take into account the role of the Soviet Union, by failing to denounce the Stalinist diplomacy and the character of the political concentration in Algiers, London and Washington and in the “liberated” countries; and finally by inspiring this generation with pessimism instead of revolutionary optimism, and confidence in the proletariat, its revolutionary cause and the Fourth International.
Repeating Old Mistakes
But it is obvious that the revisionist tendency has nothing to teach the inexperienced generations. It even proves incapable of learning itself. The revisionist tendency following the Menshevik example, is hunting for radical intellectuals in order to prove the blossoming of bourgeois democracy or of the democratic revolution.
A bourgeois “democratic”, “people’s” revolution is inconceivable without a progressive bourgeoisie. But the progressive days of the bourgeoisie are a thing of the past, and hysterical crying about the setbacks suffered by the working class movement will not alter anything.
What Trotsky wrote about the role of the Chinese bourgeoisie is truer still for the bourgeoisie in the occupied countries, i.e. for the generals, manufacturers, professors, shopkeepers, and priests.
“To present matters as if there must inevitably flow from the fact of colonial oppression the revolutionary character of a national bourgeoisie, is to produce inside out the fundamental error of Menshevism, which holds that the nature of the Russian bourgeoisie must flow from the oppression of feudalism and the autocracy” (Trotsky, “Problems of the Chinese Revolution,” The Third International after Lenin.)
The revisionist tendency believes that under fascism the generals, merchants, manufacturers, professors and bishops have undergone a change, and that their role as a class has been modified because they “stumble on the main obstacle . . .” But let us once again turn to Trotsky:
“The question of the nature and the policy of the bourgeoisie is settled by the entire internal class structure of a nation waging the revolutionary struggle, by the historical epoch in which that struggle develops, by the degree of economic, political and military dependency of the national bourgeoisie upon world-imperialism as a whole or a particular section of it, finally, and this is most important, by the degree of class activity of the native proletariat, and by the state of its connections with the international revolutionary movement.” ( Idem.)
Has the revisionist tendency learned anything from Trotsky? Have they, for instance, considered the class structure of France? Undoubtedly, no. In their short-sightedness they can only see the heap of ruins which the war has erected on the continent. But this is far too little a basis for revolutionary politics.
The historical setback which fascism and the war have inflicted upon the labor movement, has thrown the revisionist tendency still further back. They did not land, however, in an epoch of “national insurrections and wars of liberation,” but in the swamp of petty-bourgeois ideology.
A Revisionist Tendency
With a wave of the hand they brush aside the economic, military and political dependence on world imperialism. “The real mass movement of the European continent has nothing to do with the miserable agency of Anglo-American imperialism,” says Brink hopefully, and thereby believes to have exhausted the question. Meanwhile, imperialism proceeds to strangle the progressive part of the Greek movement; is threatening Yugoslavia with the same fate, and is preparing in France all the premises for similar action.
“The degree of class activity of the native proletariat” is a thing of the past in which the revisionist tendency has ceased to believe; they seek salvation in a dialogue with priests, merchants, manufacturers and such . . .
Finally, to quote Trotsky once more:
“A democratic or national liberation movement may offer the bourgeoisie an opportunity to deepen and broaden its possibilities of exploitation. Independent intervention of the proletariat on the revolutionary arena threatens to deprive the bourgeoisie of the possibility to exploit altogether.”
Independent intervention of the proletariat on the revolutionary arena, or a program striving towards this goal, is precisely what the revisionist tendency brands as “ultra-leftist.” They insinuate that up to the present the political line of the Fourth International has been restricted to a fight for improved wages and workers’ conditions . . . The revisionist tendency’s revolution is “basically equivalent to a democratic revolution,” and it lasts . . . until Socialism. Meanwhile, one must think of a change in the existing conditions and “separate” interests must be subordinated—that is the “permanent revolution” a la Brink & Co . . .
In conclusion we have to say: he who wants first to liquidate the “main enemy,” or the “main obstacle,” i.e., fascism or national oppression, and only then to think of modifying capitalist conditions, is unlikely to witness any changes in the bourgeois system, and still less to see the advent of Socialism. That would be the road towards the victory of reaction.
London, July 1944
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)