***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Warren Smith’s “Rock And Roll Ruby”

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman


WARREN SMITH ROCK´N´ ROLL RUBY LYRICS

Well I took my Ruby jukin'

On the out-skirts of town

She took her high heels off

And rolled her stockings down

She put a quarter in the jukebox

To get a little beat

Everybody started watchin'

All the rhythm in her feet


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock

And when she started rockin'

She just couldn't stop

She rocked on the tables

And rolled on the floor

And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


It was 'round about four

I thought she would stop

She looked at me and then

She looked at the clock

She said: "Wait a minute Daddy

Now don't get sour

All I want to do

Is rock a little bit more"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


One night my Ruby left me all alone

I tried to contact her on the telephone

I finally found her about twelve o'clock

She said: "Leave me alone Daddy

'cause your Ruby wants to rock"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul
*****
Nobody had seen Billie (William James Bradley for those who are sticklers for detail and, by the way, not Billy, not some billy-goat thing like the boys in first grade called him, called him the last time anybody did so and he made Billie stick, and you will call him that too unless you want more, much more, than you can handle from a wiry, deceptively strong guy) for a while, a few months anyway back then, back in the late 1950s. I had drifted away from his circle, his corner boy circle, when my family moved across town to the other side of Adamsville, North Adamsville a couple of years before. And when Billie got into some stuff, some larceny stuff, mainly “clipping” things (you know five-finger discount at jewelry stores and drugstore mainly to get his girls, that’s plural, not a typo, some pretty “gift to show his Billie love), and stealing cars if you must know, and when I decided, decided almost at the last minute, that I wanted no part of that scene that pretty much ended our best friend friendship. I still kept in touch with him for about a year or so after that and then when he got into his new “jag,” robbing stores, gas stations and the like, through keeping in touch others.

Rumor had it, and it was always rumor with Billie whether he was right in the room or got his fate reported by one of his boys, one of his legend-producing boys which definitely including me at one time (I was the fawning flak par excellence and would have made Tony Curtis’s Sydney Falco in the film Sweet Smell Of Success look like nothing but kid’s stuff with my Billie build-ups), that he was shacked up with some “broad.” I admit I did my fair share to build up the Billie legend but that’s all, he just naturally filled in the empty spaces, empty spaces that he hated, and that characteristic goes a long way in telling why we hadn’t heard from him for a while except through that rumor mill.

The rumor mill also had it, to fill in the particulars, that he had stolen some car, a classic hopped-up 1949 Nash owned by a tough guy, real tough guy, named “Blindside” Buckley (that moniker tells you all you need to know about that august gentleman just keep clear of him, alright. So that’s two hombres to stay clear of in this sketch) or something like that, or maybe it was that he had stolen one car, abandoned it, and had stolen another. Either way sounds about right. Stole the cars and was holed up somewhere with a honey, Lucy (description to follow), that he had met down at the Sea and Surf teen nightclub across from the Paragon Park Amusement Park in Nantasket, a few miles outside of the town limits of Adamsville. Now this honey, this Lucy honey, was a little older than Billie but, and like I say this is rumor, she jumped on him from minute one when he walked in the door, leaving the guy she was with looking kind of stupid. And in the scheme of things he was probably prepared to commit mayhem on Billie (no brother, bad move, bad career, hell, bad life move).

Billie, no question, was a good-looking guy, was a real good dancer and, best of all, he had a great voice, a great rock and roll voice, that fit nicely, very nicely into the music that we were all listening to, listening to like crazy, on our little transistor radios back in the 1950s, mostly late 1950s. So maybe, for all I know, Lucy had heard Billie sing, sing at one of the two billion talents shows that he was always entering in order, as he constantly said, to win his fame and fortune. Like I said he was good, good at covering Top Forty stuff, but just short, just a short, I guess, of making that “projects” jail break-out move that he was always confident would occur once the talent guys heard him, really heard. At some point that dream faded like a lot of projects dreams faded early and hence his alternative career as a stick-up man.

And this honey, this red-headed Lucy, a luscious red-lipped honey was, reportedly, just the exact kind of honey that Billie dreamed of grabbing for his own. Great shape (great shape then meaning all fill-out curves and leggy legs, or something like that), great boffo hair (dark red, an obviously Irish girl), kittenly sexy, and most importantly ready to go all night whether dancing, doing this and that (figure it out, okay ), or helping plan some caper. Just the kind of girl the priests and parents of even the projects neighborhood were always warning us against but which we boys still secretly dreamed of running up against, dreamed of hard. Yah, this Lucy was just Billie’s action, just his catnip. And so when I first heard that rumor, that Billie holed- up and out of sight rumor, I said yah, that seemed about right.

See Billie one night, one twelve- year old summer night, down in back of old Adamsville South Elementary School where we used to hang out because that was the only real hang-out place around, and talk, talk of futures, talk of dreams just like everybody else, every twelve- year old everybody else Billie kind of laid the whole thing out for us. He was going to parlay his singing voice, his rock and roll singing voice, into fame and fortune and when his ship came in he was going to search for his rock and roll soul-mate. He didn’t put it just this way but the idea was to get the hottest, sexiest, dancing-est girl around and sail off into the sunset leaving that dust of the projects behind, way behind.

So it looked like Billie had one part of his dream coming true, although being on the lam, being big time on the lam, from the cops, the owner of that hopped-up classic 1949 Nash, and maybe even that guy Lucy left looking stupid, take your choice, wasn’t part of the description back in those twelve- year old summer nights. But being sixteen, being in some dough, and being with the rock and roll queen of the seaside night still seems like a bargain worth having made with whatever devil Billie needed to consult to pull the caper off. Hell, it makes me think that maybe I made a mistake moving away from Billie’s orbit. But just call that a rumor too in case any cops are around, alright. Anyway, my reaction was now that Billie was holed up, any girls, red-headed or otherwise, who wanted to dance the night away please just call out my name. Hey, I could dream too.

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-Literature and Revolution

Trotsky once wrote that of the three great tragedies in life- hunger, sex and death- revolutionary Marxism, which was the driving force behind his life and work, mainly concerned itself with the struggle against hunger. That observation contains an essential truth about the central thrust of the Marxist tradition. However, as Trotsky demonstrates here, Marxist methodology cannot and should not be reduced to an analysis of and prescription for that single struggle. Here Trotsky takes on an aspect of the struggle for mass cultural development.

In a healthy post-capitalist society mass cultural development would be greatly expanded and encouraged. If the task of socialism were merely to vastly expand economic equality, in a sense, it would be a relativity simple task for a healthy socialist society in concert with other like-minded societies to provide general economic equality with a little tweaking after vanquishing the capitalism mode of production. What Marxism aimed for, and Trotsky defends here, is a prospect that with the end of class society and economic and social injustice the capacity of individual human beings to reach new heights of intellectual and creative development would flourish. That is the thought that underpins Trotsky’s work here as he analyzes various trends in Russian literature in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. In short, Marxism is certainly not a method to be followed in order to write great literature but it does allow one to set that literature in its social context and interrelatedness.

You will find no Deconstructionist or other fashionable literary criticism here. Quite the contrary. Here Trotsky uses his finely tuned skill as a Marxist to great effect as he analyzes the various trends of literature as they were affected (or not affected) by the October Revolution and sniffs out what in false in some of the literary trends. Mainly at the time of writing the jury was still out about the prospects of many of these trends. He analyzes many of the trends that became important later in the century in world literature, like futurism and constructivism, and others- some of which have disappeared and some of which still survive.

The most important and lasting polemic which Trotsky raised here, however, was the fight against the proponents of ‘proletarian culture’.The argument put forth by this trend maintained that since the Soviet Union was a workers state those who wrote about working class themes or were workers themselves should in the interest of cultural development be given special status and encouragement (read a monopoly on the literary front). Trotsky makes short shrift of this argument by noting that, in theory at least as its turned out, the proletarian state was only a transitional state and therefore no lasting ‘proletarian culture’ would have time to develop. Although history did not turn out to prove Trotsky correct the polemic is still relevant to any theory of mass cultural development.

One of the results of the publication of this book is that many intellectuals, particularly Western intellectuals, based some of their sympathy for Trotsky the man and fallen hero on his literary analysis and his ability to write. This was particularly true during the 1930’s here in America where those who were anti-Stalinist but were repelled by the vacuity of the Socialist Party were drawn to him. A few, like James T. Farrell (Studs Lonigan trilogy), did this mostly honorably. Most, like Dwight MacDonald and Sidney Hooks, etc. did not and simply used that temporary sympathy as a way station on their way to anti-Communism. Such is the nature of the political struggle.

A note for the politically-inclined who read this book. Trotsky wrote this book in 1923-24 at the time of Lenin’s death and later while the struggle for succession by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev was in full swing. While Trotsky did not recognize it until later (nor did others, for that matter) this period represented the closing of the rising tide of the revolution. Hereafter, the people who ruled the Soviet Union, the purposes for which they ruled and the manner in which they ruled changed dramatically. In short, Thermidor in the classical French revolutionary expression was victorious. Given his political position why the hell was he writing a book on literary trends in post-revolutionary society at that time.

LEON TROTSKY DEFENDS HIS REVOLUTIONARY HONOR- THE STALIN SCHOOL OF FALSIFICATION,

BOOK REVIEW
THE STALINSCHOOL OF FALSIFICATION, Leon Trotsky, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1971

Today in 2006, at first glance it is not obvious why militant leftists should read about Leon Trotsky’s fight in the 1920’s not only to save and extend the gains of the Russian Revolution but to vindicate his revolutionary honor against the attempts by Stalin and others to diminish his role in it. Fair enough. However, aside from the need to set the historical record straight as a matter of elementary political hygiene (which is a worthy endeavor in itself) a close reading of this work will demonstrate to militants leftists the need to fight for their own politics despite attempts by forces inside and outside the ostensibly socialist movement to call those politics into question. Although the last serious ideological fight against the bogie of “Trotskyism” occurred in the 1960’s and 70’s ( granted a long time ago) when various international Maoist and guerilla warfare tendencies went to the stockpile that does not eliminate a resurgence of such falsification if revolutionary socialist struggle comes back on the agenda. This writer notes that every time ostensibly socialist tendencies want to denigrate currents to their left they take their arguments from the stockpile of falsifications that Trotsky fought to correct here.

The attempts to discredit the revolutionary role and political leadership of Trotsky went through various stages depending on the various alignments in the Russian Communist Party in the 1920’s (and by extension in the Communist International as well when it became an adjunct to Soviet foreign policy rather than a vehicle for international revolutionary strategy). The issues, however, remained fairly constant; Trotsky’s alleged Menshevism (he stood outside of the Bolshevik Party until 1917); his ‘underestimation of the peasantry’ (a particularly charged issue in a peasant-dominated country like Russia); his theory of permanent revolution which put the socialist revolution on the immediate agenda both for Russian and later, by extension, internationally; his flair for administrative solutions to Soviet economic problems, for example, on the militarization of labor during the late stages of war communism and his later dispute with Lenin on the role of trade unions in the Soviet state; and, not unimportantly, his willingness to step on some very big toes to get tasks done i.e. his ardent , if prickly, personality.

These issues mingled together in the various disputes first as Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev (known as the triumvirate) tried to keep Trotsky from leadership after Lenin’s death by attempting to drive an unbridgeable chasm between Lenin’s policies and his. Then as Zinoviev and Kamenev went into opposition (and for a time joining Trotsky) Stalin and Bukharin did the same. Later, the victorious Stalinist faction put all these previous factional lineups in the shade by their rewriting of the history of the revolution to exclude Trotsky. The final efforts culminated in the charges against Trotsky (in absentia) during the frame-up Moscow Trials of the late 1930’s. Underlying all these efforts was the attempt to eliminate Trotsky’s role as leader of the October Revolution and the Red Army and ultimately to build up Stalin’s slight role in them. And when it counted, in the 1920’s, these efforts were successful.

Trotsky, as an individual revolutionary trying to defend his revolutionary honor, faced the same problem then as the various left oppositions which he led in the Russian Bolshevik Party faced. That is the ability of the Stalin-dominated bureaucracy to set the terms and tone of the debate in the struggle for power by the weight of sheer numbers and by control of the state media and propaganda apparatus. Given the vast disproportion of forces Trotsky, in the end, was not able to fully vindicate himself before the party and Russian public opinion. But, as this book demonstrates, he did leave those who want to learn a record. Unfortunately, before the demise of the Soviet Unionin 1990-91 Trotsky was still not vindicated before history. The best the latter day Stalinists under Gorbachev could come up with is that he was a dangerous“ultra-left” visionary- a global class warrior. Trotsky may still wait his vindication before history. He is, however, in no need of a certificate of revolutionary good conduct by his political opponents, this writer or the reader.

Today we expect political memoir writers to take part in a game of show and tell about the most intimate details of their private personal lives on their road to celebrity. Refreshingly, you will find no such tantalizing details in Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky's memoir written in 1930 just after Stalin had exiled him to Turkey. Instead you will find a thoughtful political self-examination by a man trying to draw the lessons of his fall from power in order to set his future political agenda. This task is in accord with his explicitly stated, and many times repeated, conception of his role as that of an individual agent at service of the historical struggle toward a socialist future. Thus, underlying Trotsky’s selection of events highlighted in the memoir such as the rise of the revolutionary waves in Russia in 1905 and 1917, the devastation to the traditional socialist program caused by the capitulation of European social democracy to their individual national capitalist classes at the start of World War I and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, especially in the aftermath of the failure of the German Revolution of 1923 and Lenin’s untimely death is a sense of urgency about the need for continued struggle for a socialist future. The book also provides Trotsky, as always, a platform for polemics against those foes and former supporters who have either abandoned or betrayed that struggle.

That said, Trotsky really comes into his own as a revolutionary leader in the Revolution of 1905 not only as a publicist but as the central leader of the Soviets (workers councils) which made their first appearance at that time. In a sense it is because he was a freelancer that he was able to lead the Petrograd Soviet during its short existence and etch upon the working class of Russia (and in a more limited way, internationally) the need for its own organizations to seize state power. All revolutionaries honor this experience, as we do the Paris Commune, as the harbingers of October, 1917. As Lenin and Trotsky both confirm, it was truly a ‘dress rehearsal’ for that event. It is in 1905 that Trotsky first wins his stars by directing the struggle against the Czar at close quarters, in the streets and working class meeting halls. And later in his eloquent and ‘hard’ defense of the experiment after it was crushed by the Czarism reaction. I believe that it was here in the heat of the struggle in 1905 where the contradiction between Trotsky’s ‘soft’position in 1903 and his future ‘hard’ Bolshevik position of 1917 and thereafter is resolved. Here was a professional revolutionary who one could depend on when the deal went down.

No discussion of this period of Trotsky’s life is complete without mentioning his very real contribution to Marxist theory- that is, the theory of Permanent Revolution. Although the theory is over one hundred years old it still retains its validity today in those countries that still have not had their bourgeois revolutions. This rather simple straightforward theory about the direction of the Russian revolution (and which Trotsky later in the 1920’s, after the debacle of the Chinese Revolution, made applicable to what today are called“third world” countries) has been covered with so many falsehoods, epithets, and misconceptions that it deserves further explanation. Why? Militants today must address the ramifications of the question what kind of revolution is necessary as a matter of international revolutionary strategy. Trotsky, taking the specific historical development and the peculiarities of Russian economic development as part of the international capitalist order as a starting point argued that there was no ‘Chinese wall’ between the bourgeois revolution Russian was in desperate need of and the tasks of the socialist revolution. In short, in the 20^th century ( and by extension, now) the traditional leadership role of the bourgeois in the bourgeois revolution in a economically backward country, due to its subservience to the international capitalist powers and fear of its own working class and plebian masses, falls to the proletariat. The Russian Revolution of 1905 sharply demonstrated the outline of that tendency especially on the perfidious role of the Russian bourgeoisie. The unfolding of revolutionary events in 1917 graphically confirmed this. The history of revolutionary struggles since then, and not only in ‘third world’countries, gives added, if negative, confirmation of that analysis.

World War I was a watershed for modern history in many ways. For the purposes of this review two points are important. First, the failure of the bulk of the European social democracy- representing the masses of their respective working classes-to not only not oppose their own ruling classes’ plunges into war, which would be a minimal practical expectation, but to go over and directly support their own respective ruling classes in that war. This position was most famously demonstrated when the entire parliamentary fraction of the German Social Democratic party voted for the war credits for the Kaiser on August 4, 1914. This initially left the anti-war elements of international social democracy, including Lenin and Trotsky, almost totally isolated. As the carnage of that war mounted in endless and senseless slaughter on both sides it became clear that a new political alignment in the labor movement was necessary. The old, basically useless Second International, which in its time held some promise of bringing in the new socialist order, needed to give way to a new revolutionary International. That eventually occurred in 1919 with the foundation of the Communist International (also known as the Third International). Horror of horrors, particularly for reformists of all stripes, this meant that the international labor movement, one way or another, had to split into its reformist and revolutionary components. It is during the war that Trotsky and Lenin, not without some lingering differences, drew closer and begins the process of several years, only ended by Lenin’s death, of close political collaboration.

Secondly, World War I marks the definite (at least for Europe) end of the progressive role of international capitalist development. The outlines of imperialist aggression previously noted had definitely taken center stage. This theory of imperialism was most closely associated with Lenin in his master work Imperialism-The Highest Stage of Capitalism but one should note that Trotsky in all his later work up until his death fully subscribed to the theory. Although Lenin’s work is in need of some updating to account for various technological changes and the extensions of globalization since that time holds up for political purposes. This analysis meant that a fundamental shift in the relationship of the working class to the ruling class was necessary. A reformist perspective for social change, although not specific reforms, was no longer tenable. Politically, as a general proposition, socialist revolution was on the immediate agenda. This is when Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution meets the Leninist conception of revolutionary organization. It proved to be a successful formula in Russia in October, 1917. Unfortunately, those lessons were not learned (or at least learned in time) by those who followed and the events of October, 1917 stand today as the only ‘pure’ working class revolution in history.

An argument can, and has, been made that the October Revolution could only have occurred under the specific condition of decimated, devastated war-weary Russia of 1917. This argument is generally made by those who were not well-wishers of revolution in Russia (or anywhere else, for that matter). It is rather a truism, indulged in by Marxists as well as by others, that war is the mother of revolution. That said, the October revolution was made then and there but only because of the convergence of enough revolutionary forces led by the Bolsheviks and additionally the forces closest to the Bolsheviks (including Trotsky’s Inter-District Organization) who had prepared for these events by the entire pre-history of the revolution. This is the subjective factor in history. No, not substitutionalism, that was the program of the Social Revolutionary terrorists and the like, but if you like, revolutionary opportunism. I would be much more impressed by an argument that stated that the revolution would not have occurred without the presence of Lenin and Trotsky. That would be a subjective argument, par excellent. But, they were there.

Again Trotsky in 1917, like in 1905, is in his element speaking seemingly everywhere, writing, organizing (when it counts, by the way). If not the brains of the revolution (that role is honorably conceded to Lenin) certainly the face of the Revolution. Here is a revolutionary moment in every great revolution when the fate of the revolution turned on a dime (the subjective factor). The dime turned. (See review dated April 18, 2006 for a review of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution).

Oneof the great lessons that militants can learn from all previous modern revolutions is that once the revolutionary forces seize power from the old regime an inevitable counterrevolutionary onslaught by elements of the old order (aided by some banished moderate but previously revolutionary elements, as a rule). The Russian revolution proved no exception. If anything the old regime, aided and abetted by numerous foreign powers and armies, was even more bloodthirsty. It fell to Trotsky to organize the defense of the revolution. Now, you might ask- What is a nice Jewish boy like Trotsky doing playing with guns? Fair enough. Well, Jewish or Gentile if you play the revolution game you better the hell be prepared to defend the revolution (and yourself). Here, again Trotsky organized, essentially from scratch, a Red Army from a defeated, demoralized former peasant army under the Czar. The ensuing civil war was to leave the country devastated but the Red Army defeated the Whites. Why? In the final analysis it was not only the heroism of the working class defending its own but the peasant wanting to hold on to the newly acquired land he just got and was in jeopardy of losing if the Whites won. But these masses needed to be organized. Trotsky was the man for the task.

Both Lenin’s and Trotsky’s calculation for the success of socialist revolution in Russia (and ultimately its fate) was its, more or less, immediate extension to the capitalist heartland of Europe, particularly Germany. While in 1917 that was probably not the controlling single factor for going forward in Russiait did have to come into play at some point. The founding of the Communist International makes no sense otherwise. Unfortunately, for many historical, national and leadership-related reasons no Bolshevik-styled socialist revolutions followed then, or ever. If the premise for socialism is for plenty, and ultimately as a result of plenty to take the struggle for existence off the agenda and put other more creative pursues on the agenda, then Russia in the early 1920’s was not the land of plenty. Neither Lenin, Trotsky nor Stalin, for that matter, could wish that fact away. The ideological underpinnings of that fight centered on the Stalinist concept of ‘socialism in one country’, that is Russia going it alone versus the Trostskyist position of the absolutely necessary extension of the international revolution. In short, this is the fight that historically happens in great revolutions- the fight against Thermidor (from the overthrow of Robespierre in 1794 by more moderate Jacobins). What counts, in the final analysis, are their respective responses to the crisis of the isolation of the revolution. The word isolation is the key. Do you turn the revolution inward or push forward? We all know the result, and it wasn’t pretty, then or now. That is the substance of the fight that Trotsky, if initially belatedly and hesitantly, led from about 1923 on under various conditions until the end of his life by assassination of a Stalinist agent in 1940.

Although there were earlier signs that the Russiarevolution was going off course the long illness and death of Lenin in 1924, at the time the only truly authoritative leader the Bolshevik party, set off a power struggle in the leadership of the party. This fight had Trotsky and the‘pretty boy’ intellectuals of the party on one side and Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev (the so-called triumvirate).backed by the ‘gray boys’ of the emerging bureaucracy on the other. This struggle occurred against the backdrop of the failed revolution in Germanyin 1923 and which thereafter heralded the continued isolation, imperialist blockade and economic backwardness of the Soviet Unionfor the foreseeable future.

While the disputes in the Russian party eventually had international ramifications in the Communist International, they were at this time fought out almost solely with the Russian Party. Trotsky was slow, very slow to take up the battle for power that had become obvious to many elements in the party. He made many mistakes and granted too many concessions to the triumvirate. But he did fight. Although later (in 1935) Trotsky recognized that the 1923 fight represented a fight against the Russian Thermidor and thus a decisive turning point for the revolution that was not clear to him (or anyone else on either side) then. Whatever the appropriate analogy might have been Leon Trotsky was in fact fighting a last ditch effort to retard the further degeneration of the revolution. After that defeat, the way the Soviet Union was ruled, who ruled it and for what purposes all changed. And not for the better.

In a sense if the fight in 1923-24 is the decisive fight to save the Russian revolution (and ultimately a perspective of international revolution) then the 1926-27 fight which was a bloc between Trotsky’s forces and the just defeated forces of Zinoviev and Kamenev, Stalin’s previous allies was the last rearguard action to save that perspective. That it failed does not deny the importance of the fight. Yes, it was a political bloc with some serious differences especially over China and the Anglo-Russian Committee. But two things are important here One- did a perspective of a new party, which some elements were clamoring for, make sense at the time of the clear waning of the revolutionary ebbing the country. No. Besides the place to look was at the most politically conscious elements, granted against heavy odds, in the party where whatever was left of the class-conscious elements of the working class were. As I have noted elsewhere in discussing the 1923 fight-that “Lenin levy” of raw recruits, careerists and just plain thugs which enhanced the growing power of the Stalinist bureaucracy was the key element in any defeat. Still the fight was necessary. Hey, that is why we talk about it now. That was a fight to the finish. After that the left opposition or elements of it were forever more outside the party- either in exile, prison or dead. As we know Trotsky went from expulsion from the party in 1927 to internal exile in Alma Ata in 1928 to external exile to Turkey in 1929. From there he underwent further exiles in France,Norway, and Mexicowhen he was finally felled by a Stalinist assassin. But no matter when he went he continued to struggle for his perspective. Not bad for a Jewish farmer’s son from the Ukraine.

The last period of Trotsky’s life spent in harrowing exiles and under constant threat from Stalinist and White Guard threats- in short, on the planet without a visa -was dedicated to the continued fight for the Leninist heritage. It was an unequal fight, to be sure but he waged it and was able to cohere a core of revolutionaries to form a new international, the Fourth International. That that effort was essentially militarily defeat by fascist or Stalinist forces during World War II does not take away from the grandeur of the attempt. He himself stated that he felt this was the most important work of his life- and who would challenge that assertion.

But one could understand the frustrations, first the failure of his correct analysis of the German debacle then in Franceand Spain. Hell a lesser man would have given up. In fact, more than one biographer has argued that he should have retired from the political arena to, I assume , a comfortable country cottage to write I do not know what. But, please reader, have you been paying attention? Does this seem even remotely like the Trotsky career I have attempted to highlight here? Hell, no.

Many of the events such as the disputes within the Russian revolutionary movement, the attempts by the Western Powers to overthrow the Bolsheviks in the Civil War after their seizure of power and the struggle of the various tendencies inside the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International discussed in the book may not be familiar to today's audience. Nevertheless one can still learn something from the strength of Trotsky's commitment to his cause and the fight to preserve his personal and political integrity against overwhelming odds. As the organizer of the October Revolution, creator of the Red Army in the Civil War, orator, writer and fighter Trotsky he was one of the most feared men of the early 20^th century to friend and foe alike. Nevertheless, I do not believe that he took his personal fall from power as a world historic tragedy. Moreover, he does not gloss over his political mistakes. Nor does Trotsky generally do personal injustice to his various political opponents although I would not want to have been subject to his rapier wit and pen. Politicians, revolutionary or otherwise, in our times should take note.

REVISED JULY 25, 2006

***Out In The 1920s Baseball Night- Ring Lardner’s You Know Me, Al

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Book Review

The Ring Lardner Reader, including You Know Me Al, Ring Lardner

The first paragraph of this review was written for the series of stories in Ring Lardner’s You Know Me, Al that is contained in the present book under review as well. In addition to You Know Me, Al there some other classic baseball stories here, particularly Alibi Ike (about a ball player, of course, who can’t seem to do anything except blush and well alibi when he is not perfect, even when he is not perfect with a little blush romance thrown in which throws the whole team into fits) and My Roomy (naturally about the screwball characters, and they were, if the stories about them are half-true) that can be covered by the comments in the first paragraph. The other, non-baseball, stories in this book are reviewed in the second paragraph.

At one time early in the first part of the 20^th century there was no question that baseball was the American pastime. Now eclipsed by, ah, texting or some such thing, okay, maybe football. That was a time when the name Ring Lardner was well known in sports writing and literary circles. The sports writing part was easy because that was his beat. The literary part is much harder to recognize but clearly the character of Jack Keefe in You Know Me, Al has become an American classic. Does one need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this work? Hell, no. We all know, in sports or otherwise, this Keefe guy, right?

You know the guy with some talent who has no problem, no problem at all, blaming the other guy, or happenstance, for mistakes while he (or she) is pure as the driven snow. That is the concept that drives these stories told in the form of letters to Al, his buddy back home. Back home in the heartland, the place of certain quintessential American values honored, perhaps, more in the breech than the observance. The language, the malapropisms and the schemes all evoke an earlier more innocent time in sport and society. I do not believe that you could create such a character based on today’s sport’s ethic. The athletes would have a spokesperson ‘spinning’ their take on the matters of the day for their respective clients. The only one that might come close is Nuke LaRouche in the movie Bull Durhambut as that movie progressed Nuke was getting ‘wise’. Read these stories, read them more than once on those hot stove winter nights between seasons.

There is no question that aside from a deft ear as a sportswriter that Ring Lardner also had an ear for the foibles and frustrations of the newly rising middle class of the post- World War I Midwestern heartland. This is not the land of Fitzgerald’s or Hemingway’s “Lost Generation” scripted in such works as The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and The Damned, and The Sun Also Rises but of those left behind trying to scratch out an existence anyway they could in the first edition of go-go consumer America. However, rather than beat up on the ‘yokels’ straight up Lardner pokes and prods at their pretensions in a fairly harmless way, at least on the surface, but on re-reading these stories recently I found myself saying ‘ouch’ to the literary stabs in the backs that he thrust at his victims in stories like Gullible’s Travels (a title which aptly sums up my comment) and The Big Town where the small city ethos is smothered by the big one . Read on.

Out In The Be-Bop Night- With Nelson Algren’s Walk On The Wild Side In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Hoke Stover (Hoke his real first name, his Christian name if he was a Christian, and if a Christian he had been baptized, a cause of some dispute since no church records showed such an event, in fact no civil records showed he had been born in the county that he had grown in all his youth pestered life) had no kin to speak of so leaving home, leaving Ardmore out in the Appalachia hill country, the hills and hollows of mountain legend, would no cause for tears or frets. Hoke had no kin so it was told, or rather, better, he had some very attenuated kinship relationships. His mother, well his mother as far as he knew, was a whore, who let any man at her whether he had the price or not, she was so addled- brained she let them have at her on credit and forget who owed her what come settling time, usually Friday, mine pay day, or if she “took at shine to a man,” she might give just as freely and so a whore, a whore in deep fundamentalist Protestant mountain talk, although she was long gone to Philadelphia and some two bit whorehouse, or something like that.

His father, Zeke, was unclear, or better uncaring about her fate, and therefore didn’t want to talk about it or bother about it at all when Hoke was young and full of such mother questions (although Zeke had been one of her “take a shining too” free loves, that part was known far and wide when mountain shaming time came). Zeke had in any case taken up with another woman (it was not clear as well whether Zeke had married his mother or they had just cohabitated for a time not a fine distinction in hill and hollow country where some such relationships might come under some kinship legal ban), Ella, who had a brood of her own, and in his turn Zeke had taken off with yet another woman leaving Hoke behind at her house to fend for himself. So, yes, Hoke had no kin to speak of as he set off one day to seek his fame and fortune in the world. All he knew for certain, all his father knew for certain when he passed on the information, was that the Stover clan had originally come to these American shores around 1800 after being kicked out of England for pig-stealing or some such stealing and had been just one step ahead of the law in any case so being kicked out would have occurred sooner or later. His mother’s people, some off-center Irish mix, maybe Anglo-Irish Catholic had been forced out of Ireland starving or close to it during the Great Famine of the 1840s and once off the famine ships in New York had drifted west with the land hungry and wound up in Appalachia, Not having the sense or wherewithal to move further west when the land turned sour they had settled in the human sink until his mother’s whorish generation. And she headed east.

So one bright sunny morning Hoke headed to center of Ardmore, hopped on the local ramshackle bus that would take him to Louisville and then from there take a big old Greyhound bus to Memphis, the Memphis of his dream fame and fortune. His father having been there once when on leave during the war (World War II for anybody who was asking) and had never gotten over it and passed on that dream scene to his son .Of course Zeke had been there merely on a three day pass and so had no thought of trying to make his fame or fortune there (or anywhere else as it turned out since he was nothing but a rolling stone) and so left no wisdom to his son about how to go about such a task. In fact Hoke was singularly ill-prepared for almost any dream search since no one had bothered to tell to go to school and learn something, learn a trade or craft and so all he knew was how to scavenge, scavenge for soda bottles, cooper bits, silver this and that, lost pennies and moving odd lots of moonshine when he was old enough (fourteen) to handle a car on those back roads. Nevertheless unread and unlearned he was off to the bright lights of the city and he, like all youth, at least all youth that had been subject to some dream quest, figured he would be able to wing it. He would have to.

Hoke did have one thing going for him, going strong if things got tough. He was good-looking, girl swooning good-looking, country girls anyway, and while he might not be smart or learned he never lacked for female company when he wanted it (or better when he had money since country girls were not difference from their city brethren when it came to their wanting habits). He figured if he was the son of a whore (he knew from Zeke whores were bad but in his moral universe only bad because they had left guys like Zeke and Hoke to fend for themselves when the next best thing came along) then the worst thing that could happen was that he would work, ah, servicing woman ( be a gigolo but he did not know the word, where would a simple country boy come across such an word, or the concept, all he knew was that he could make money at it or be put up by some woman if things got tough).

Things did get tough since nobody was hiring illiterates, white illiterates anyway, in the dead air 1960s night and so he found himself sliding down to Memphis’ skid row as his money ran out, his prospects went dead and even his one feeble attempt to scavenge went awry when he found out you had to be “connected” to run even such a nondescript operation as that in the big city, hell, even soda bottles. And so as night follows day he wound up on Beale Street, first trying to pimp himself off to the passing clientele, to the ladies, but since he did not have the “front,” he was all soiled jeans and sweaty stained shirt, maybe hadn’t showered in a while and needed a shave, they passed him by. Although the queer boys, the homos, the sissy boys, seemingly every one, every “different” boy from good homes or bad, in the South who could make it to Memphis (from Tupelo, Selma, Greenwood, Clarksville and points south, took a run at him), No sale, no dice, he was not that way. No sale for a while.

But one night, one desperate night, only change in his pocket, Christ,dimes, room rent due in a day or too he was almost ready to face that indignation, to let a sissy boy have at him, when he met Mister Jonathan Tucker, Mister Jonathan Tucker, a sissy boy scion of the famous Memphis Tucker family who after trying to proposition him without success (although that was a close thing) took him under his wing. And that wing included an undisclosed Tucker family interest in, among other things, Fanny Mae’s high-end whorehouse over on Beale and Main. Hoke, suitably dressed and given a little polish by Mister Jonathan Tucker was to be a “protector” for the girls who worked there. And Hoke took to the job like a magnet although he felt since he was a protector he shouldn’t have had to pay for an evening with one of the girls when he got frisky. Still after hanging around the ladies, a couple who had taken to him as an older brother, in that establishment for a while he found he had a little more respect for his mother, thought a little less unkindly when the word whore was spouted forth by some walking daddy with big eyes, greenbacks and quirky habits. Maybe he would start a stable of his own, a couple anyway, maybe Mister Jonathan Tucker would stake him to some flash dough. Yes, he, Hoke Stover, was on his way to fame and fortune, no question…

International protests on Bradley Manning’s 1000th day jailed without trial. Photos, videos, reports.

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A video of Feb. 23rd events prepared by supporters in Berlin (@freebradde on Twitter)

It was a historic week. Leading up to last week’s pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, supporters staged over 70 events internationally in support of Bradley Manning on his 1000th day in prison without trial. The actions were an enormous success raising awareness of the government’s persecution of Bradley Manning, while at the same time waking up the media prior to one of the most important pre-trial hearings thus far. And while Judge Lind ruled against the defense motion to dismiss the charges due to the lack of a speedy trial, Bradley Manning issued a powerful statement denying most of the government charges against him, while accepting responsibility for having released documents to WikiLeaks as an act of conscience. News coverage of this historic event was significantly improved thanks to the phenomenal grass roots support demonstrated internationally.

Supporters did incredible work disseminating information face to face, holding signs, organizing music and theatre events, street performances, and by taking action online. Beyond waking up the media, thousands of people became aware of Bradley Manning at the demonstrations through these direct actions of supporters.
Events took place globally:
North America
Tucson, AZ, Tempe, AZ, Guerneville, CA, Cahuenga (L.A.), CA, Los Angeles, CA, Long Beach (L.A.), CA, Montrose (L.A.), CA, Studio City (L.A.), CA, San Francisco, CA, San Diego, CA, Denver, CO, Washington, DC, Washington, DC, Daytona, FL, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Pensacola, FL, St. Petersburg, FL, Tallahassee, FL, Hilo, HI , Honolulu, HI, Chicago, IL, Ft. Leavenworth, KS, New Orleans, LA, Boston, MA, Augusta, ME, Portland, ME, Detroit, MI, Kalamazoo, MI, Minneapolis, MN, Wilmington, NC, Eatentown, NJ, Highland Park, NJ, Albuquerque, NM, Santa Fe, NM, New York, NY, Rochester, NY, Toledo, OH, Corvallis, OR, Philadelphia, PA, Newport, RI, Austin, TX, Houston, TX, Norfolk, VA, Bristol, VT, Bellingham, WA, Seattle, WA
International
Brisbane, Australia, Melbourne, Australia, Sydney, Australia, Brussels, Belgium ,Vancouver, Canada, Paris, France, Berlin, Germany, Kaiserslautern, Germany, Rome, Italy, The Hague, Netherlands, Oslo, Norway, Oporto, Portugal, Seoul, South Korea, Kampala, Uganda, Dublin, Ireland, Birmingham, UK, Edinburgh, Scotland, London, UK, Peterborough, UK, Yorkshire, UK, Fairford, UK, Bangor, Wales, Cardiff, Wales, Newport, Wales, Wrexham, Wales, Wales/Ireland/Scotland/England
Public support has, and continues to play a critical role in this trial. In light of Bradley Manning’s statement taking responsibility, the government’s decision to prosecute the greater charges, particularly “aiding the enemy,” is ridiculous, irresponsible and wrong. We must pressure the government to do the right thing: drop the charges against Bradley Manning. On June 1st, days before Bradley Manning’s court martial, the Bradley Manning Support Network is calling for an international day of action. Please keep up the fight. Join us June 1st for a day of action at Fort Meade, and worldwide.

From supporters in Holland.

Video from the NYC protest

Videos from the events:

VTV – Free Bradley Manning!

2/23/13 FREE BRADLEY MANNING RALLY NYC – VETERANS FOR PEACE.

BRADLEY MANNING RALLY – DRUM MONTAGE – NEW YORK CITY 2/23/2013

Denver’s Free Bradley Manning Protest (2/23/13)

Bradley Manning 1000 Days Bridge Protest San Diego
Larken Rose - Protest for Bradley Manning’s 1000th Day in Prison
Bradley Manning 1000 Days Candlelight Vigil Rally San Diego

Bradley Manning Protest in Long Beach, CA

Free Bradley Manning Protest, Chalking is illegal in California

Bradley Manning 1000 Days March (Eastbound) San Diego

February 23. 2013 worldwide protests for Bradley Manning #freebrad

Bradley Manning Rally SF 21030223

the bradley manning protest

Rainey Reitman at Bradley Manning rally in San Francisco, Feb 23, 2013

I am Bradley Manning: from the San Francisco rally Feb 23, 2013

Bradley Manning 1,000 in jail without trial Portland ME rally

FREE BRAD MANNING – Seattle Solidarity 2/23/13 Ethos Speech

Free Bradley Manning Vigil San Diego – 1000 Days of No Justice

FREE BRADLEY MANNING (part 2) – 2013 NYC – STREET THEATER feat BRENDAN HUNT

Free Bradley Manning- Park Street Station, Boston

Catching YOU UP and What's ahead to HELP FREE Vanunu

• Posted to Free Mordechai Vanunu by Eileen Fleming
• Mar 31

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"I am calling to US media to report, to interview, for my human rights, freedom, and for telling the truth about NWs in Israel. 

-Mordechai Vanunu
In 2005, when I met Vanunu I was writing an historical novel. I became a reporter after we began a series of interviews-which began because THE MEDIA was NOT reporting on Vanunu!

This April 21st marks the end of the 9th year since Vanunu was 'freed' from 18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell but denied the right to fade into the world instead of continuing to make headlines.

The Second Annual Global Day of Action to HELP FREE Vanunuis April 21 -LEARN MORE HERE

I will be at the LA TIMES FESTIVAL of BOOKS in support of Vanunu's RIGHTS, as well as on a few other missions-among them is the launching of my 4th book.

On 22 April I will send out my final note from this Cause and resign as Administrator.
I IMAGINE that if even 1% of the 10,848 Members of this Cause were to DO the 3 Purposes of this Cause

BEFORE April 21, it could really HELP FREE VANUNU:
1. Learn and Disseminate information
2. CALL your political reps to help FREE Vanunu

3. Request your Media report and report accurately!
They can LEARN ALOT here:
IMAGINE: Vanunu's WAIT for LIBERTY...and My Life as a Candidate of CONSCIENCE for US House 2012

May Day rally info (Original Message)

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***Out In The 1950s Rockabilly Night- With Sonny Burgess’ Red-Headed Woman In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

As he tossed and turned on a Saturday night, no, early Sunday morning bed, alone, he thought that if he had played it just a little bit differently, just a little more smoothly he might not now be lying there alone, alone with his troubled tosses and turns. Yah, if he had just played it differently. So naturally you know, as anyone who has not played just right knows, or even if you played it right once and know what a close thing that was, that it had to be about a woman, a red-headed woman to be exact, that had Sonny Smith all aflame, and all tossing and turning sleepless. And fretful to hell and back that he had not played it right. As the dawn approached he also knew, knew as sure as he was born, that she had played it her way, her own quirky way, and knew, knew just as sure as she was born, that the way she played it would have Sonny sleepless that night.

Of course if it was a woman, it also, of course, had to be a woman he met at a bar, his only place in those days after his divorce, and lately what with the extra run on the truck to keep up with the alimony and child support payments, that he could meet women. It wasn’t exactly that Sonny was head over heels looking for a woman but if he had a choice between, say. drinking with the boys, drinking shots, whiskey shots and beer chasers, and playing a little “shoot pools” over at Lester’s or heading out to the Lazy Flamingo on a Saturday he didn’t have to think twice about it. He would put on his best shirt and pants, shine up the shoes, maybe throw a little aftershave on and head out, head out alone for he had long ago, long before he had met his ex-wife, not gone with the herd when he was seeking female companionship.

Then he would drive over to the Lazy Flamingo early in order to set up his kingdom on a corner stool at the bar and see what played out, if anything, as the night wore on. This sitting at the bar thing was also calculated, calculated just so, in case nothing came along,, or sensing nothing for the evening he could just leave Timmy the bartender his tip and slip out without any hassles. The Lazy Flamingo, for those who want to know, was strictly a pick-up bar and so certain strategies like his were useful to give a good impression to the thick clot of regulars who populated the place, especially on Saturday night, who had their own pecking order of “winners” and “losers.” And then she came in.

Yah, she, Tanya Fields by name, came in all satin and silky, a long tall, thin woman, small-breasted, maybe just a little too athletic in her build like she might have been a gymnast in high school, something like that, for his tastes but still something to grab onto, grab onto and hold onto if he was any judge. While she wasn’t beautiful, not magazine beautiful cover (just as he wasn’t handsome just sort of good-looking, a good roll in the hay his ex-wife and others as well would say) she had this massive flow of red hair all hither and yon that enflamed something in him right away. Strangely he had never had a red-headed woman before (and maybe he thought later that might have played a part in how things turned out, maybe you had to work the angles with them differently), running, like with his ex-wife to blondes and an occasional brunette.

She sat down, he was not sure whether consciously or not, a couple of seats away from him at the bar and ordered a scotch, straight up, from Timmy giving him a familiar wave as she did so. So she had been here before, maybe a regular although he did not recognize her from before and he surely would have if he had seen her in the joint before. After ordering she turned in his direction and gave him some kind of quizzical smile that he was not sure was meant for him to come hither or that she was just acknowledging a fellow bar-stool habitué. And that smile, and its meaning, kept him frozen through at least two more drinks (he was drinking whiskey, high-shelf whiskey, no chasers since he was “on the prowl”) while he planned his strategy.
As it turned out whatever strategies he had planned were quickly shelved when some guy came over to Tanya, some guy she knew anyway and he figured that was that, when they moved to the dance floor and started dancing to the latest rockabilly song out of Memphis, Warren Jones’ Good-Time Rockin.’ And those same strategies proved unnecessary when she came back to her stool alone and gave Sonny another less quizzical smile. That smile signaled his time to move, and he did so, doing the standard intro thing, including the inevitable asking if the seat was taken and offering of a drink. She okayed both, and she also made it plain because she said so that she was not looking for a man’s company that evening, was not going home except alone but was looking for some interesting talk and maybe a couple of dances. Sonny bit, bit further inflamed by that soft voice and by that close–up view of her massive red-hair. It acted on him like a red cape must act on a bull, by instinct. And so he sat down as he had too.

Tanya proved to be very good company, sipping her drinks slowly, asking and answering questions with abandon, and occasionally going to the dance floor where she proved to be a very good rockabilly dancer with some nice moves (maybe picked up from that athletic past, she had been a gymnast in high school as he surmised) and as the evening wore on (and the whiskies started to kick in) he got a little bolder, and a little more hopeful that she would change her mind and go home with him. Tanya, in turn, seemed to loosen up, seemed to get a bit more coquettish, and one time on the dance floor during slow one had come very close, so close that he could feel the steam off her dress. As Timmy called “last call” Sonny decided to take a stab at it. He asked her home, she in turn, answered, answered gently but firmly that she had told him that she was going home alone that night. But just as Sonny, alone now, was finishing up his drink and putting on his coat at the bar and as she was heading toward the door she mentioned that maybe some other night she might see him at the bar. And she gave him that same quizzical smile that had lured him in earlier. Redheads!...

***Out In The 1950s Film Night- Burt Lancaster’s The Sweet Smell Of Success

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

The Sweet Smell Of Success, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis,

Apparently screenwriters, Hollywood screen-writers anyway, a bandit breed themselves taking perfectly good material like War and Peace and turning it into soap suds and cleavage, when characterizing Broadway theater critics (uh, the legitimate theater in the old time parlance) refuse to touch them with anything less than a cattle prod. Maybe a rather long cattle prod at that. At least that has been my recent film review experience after watching Bette Davis’ All About Eve and its totally cynical critic Addison played superbly by George Saunders. Here we are confronted with the weasel Broadway critic and man about town J.J played by Burt Lancaster ably assisted by press flak Sydney Falco played to a groveling tee by Tony Curtis. The story line is a little thin, mainly concerning J.J.’s overweening concern that his very much younger sister does not wind up with some ne’er- do- well.

In the red scare cold war 1950s that winding up included some weirdo ultra-communist parlor pink with a smooth line (party line of course) and fast hands. Or worse some dope-addled beatnik opium den jazz musician reeking of some Norman Mailer white negro madness (or worse, much worst some miscegenation real negro madness, Jesus, J.J. would definitely flip on that). Also, by the way, with fast hands. So brother/father scribe for the public prints moves heaven and earth to protect Sis and tears up half the great white way in the process, that and he ever present need to humiliate whoever and whatever he can along the way. Except, of course, maybe some chorine that he has his eyes on and can plug in his rag column.

The tricks, manipulations, and downright skullduggery, hardly invented by J.J., although he has made his bid for the heel hall of fame here, has a long pedigree and might seem all too real to a modern audience who know that fame is fleeting and one better grab it by the neck, fast. This tricks played in this film set in 1950’s Broadway, however, seem almost like kid’s stuff compared to the vicious action today, on any given day in Hollywood, Wall Street or Washington (the D.C. one). That, my friends, was something of a ‘golden age’ of gentile skullduggery by comparison.

A note on Tony Curtis who on the face of it seems in cinematic history to have been something of a ‘pretty’boy, a draw for the ladies and not much more. But then you think about the performance here as the groveling and morally confused Mister Falco and in Spartacus and in Some Like It Hot and one, including this reviewer, is compelled to start changing one’s opinion of the depth of Mr. Curtis’s talent. Change it upward and fast.