Poet's Corner- Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"- The Film- A Guest Review

Click below to link to a Boston Sunday Globe article, dated September 26, 2010, concerning a review of Howl, a film adaptation of Allen Ginsberg's famous poem.

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2010/09/26/howl_marches_to_the_beat_of_ginsbergs_drummer/

Markin comment:

Needless to say this little cinematic effort to put the sense of Allen Ginsberg’s seminal modernist poem, Howl, on the screen is more than welcome in this space. As I have repeatedly emphasized on previous occasions any poem that starts of like this one is going to get my attention and keep it every time:

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn, looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night . . .’’

I have also of late made note of the influence of the “beats” in my own youthful political and social development. A prima facie case can be made by me, and has recently in this space, that Ginsberg’s Howl is his search for the blue-pink great American West night that animated my youth and that I have been ranting on about.

Back In Good Ole Boy (And Girl) Television Days- “The Ozark Jubilee”

A YouTube's film clip of Sonny James performing his 1957 classic "Young Love". Who said technology isn't great.

DVD Review

Hillbillies On TV: The Ozark Jubilee, various artists including host Red Foley, Brenda Lee and “Young Love” by Sonny James, Stamper Records, 1957

Okay, okay laugh at me. What is a certified urban-dwelling boy who gets nervous when he cannot see the bright lights of the city nearby, or the road is not macadam, doing reviewing some Podunk black and white television show featuring Red Foley, Brenda Lee and Rex Allen? That bill of fare is not exactly The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Doors and a host of other musicians that I have reviewed in this space.

Well let me say this first for all you “effete” snobs. Many years ago I used to listen to a radio program on Saturday mornings called Hillbilly At Harvard (a program still on the air as far as I know). That program featured many of the artists like Norman Blake, June Carter, Townes Van Zandt and a host of iconic figures in mountain music, outlaw country music, folk and other genres that are “hip” today. So to paraphrase an old cliché what is good enough for Harvard is good enough for this reviewer. Got it?

Seriously, though, I picked up this DVD as part of the continuing string of reviews that I have been doing highlighting the mountain music traditions that are part of my heritage that I had previously scorned. However, like many things, not all “mountain” music and musicians are created equal. That, sadly, is the case here as the performances and chitchat of this country variety show format, for the most part, set my teeth on edge. There are two exceptions, one is the performance of a rapid fire traditional banjo player whose name I do not remember and the other is hearing Sonny James doing his 1950s teen hit classic Young Love. Should you get this thing? NO, except the old time commercials for Beechnut gum and Clorets for you breathe seemed really quaint against today’ s high-powered subliminally sex and power -driven attempts to interest you in some product. When I am mentioning the virtues of the commercials I think that tells the tale on this one.

Note: I usually, particularly for the old black and white productions whose graininess and almost amateur production values by today’s standards are part of the visual charm for me, do not comment on the technical quality of a film. However, on this one the lack of quality definitely interfered with the flow of the work.

"Young Love"-Sonny James

They say for every boy and girl there's just one love in this old world
And I know I've found mine
The heavenly touch of your embrace tells me no one can take your place
Ever in my heart
Young love first love filled with true devotion
Young love our love we share with deep emotion

[ guitar ]

Just one kiss from your sweet lips will tell me that your love is real
And I can feel that it's true
We will vow to one another there will never be another
Love for you or for me
Young love first love...

In The Time Of "The Good Old Boys" (And Gals) - Hillbilly Heaven-Ozark Style

A YouTube's film clip of the trailer for "Homemade Hillbilly Jam".

DVD Review

Homemade Hillbilly Jam, various professional and amateur musicians playing old time and modern instruments, First Run Productions, 2005

Well, this traveling American “roots” music caravan that I have been running via the Internet, in this and other “hot” cyberspace spots, has been all over this country. I have been down in the Delta with the country blues artists like Robert Johnson, Skip James and Son House. I have been in those dust-blown Oklahoma hills with Woody Guthrie. I have been out West with the cowboy balladeers. I have been down in the swamps of Louisiana with the Cajun boys and girls, black and white. I’ve have been up in those Kentucky mountains with Roscoe Holcomb. Hell, I have even spent time, an inordinate amount of time, discussing roots music as it filtered through the 1960s folk revival in those rural meccas of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. You will agree I have been around. On this stop we go to the hills again this time to the Ozarks to “discover”….hillbillies and their musical traditions.

Now I know that it is hardly news that the term “hillbilly” has, over the last few decades, carried some pretty negative connotations. Hard-nosed 'wild men' truckers and car aficionados , honky tonks and honky-tonk women, “know-nothing” politics, in short, good old boys and girls fully enjoying the benefits of the 19th century in the outback. The truth or falsehood of those characterizations is not at issue here though. What concerns me is the addition of this “hillbilly” flavor to the “roots’ music bandwagon. This is done here, by following the doings, comings, goings and whatnot of three modern “hillbilly” (or at least hillbilly-descended families) musical families out in Ozark country.

Some of this music, the motels, honky-tonks and barns where it is played, and the instruments used to play it are very familiar from other regions like those Kentucky hills mentioned before. This, moreover, makes sense because there are some common Scotch-Irish Child Ballad-like traditions that unite these various strands as the forebears drove relentlessly westward. This region, isolated back in the older times, did develop its own variations but I sense that, good old boys and girls or not, we are on some very familiar ground.

And here is the kicker for this reviewer, personally, when it comes to knowledge of this music. Oh sure, as I have mentioned in other reviews, it was in the background in our house from my Kentucky-born father back in my youth. It’s in the genes. But let me tell where I really started to get a better sense of this mountain music. Many years ago I used to listen to a Saturday morning local radio show from the wilds of Cambridge. The name of the show-“Hillbilly At Harvard.” Which as far as I know is still on the airlwaves. What do you think about that, my friends?

Pretty Saro

When I first come to this country in eighteen and forty nine
I saw many fair lovers, but I never saw mine
I viewéd all around me, I found I was quite alone
And me a poor stranger and a long way from home

My true love she won't have me and this I understand
She wants a freeholder and I've got no land
But I could maintain her on silver and gold
And as many of the fine things as my love's house could hold

Fare you well to old father. Fare you well to mother too.
I'm going for to ramble this wide world all through
And when I get weary, I'll sit down and cry
And I'll think of Pretty Saro, my darling, my dear.

Well I wish I was a poet, could write some fine hand
I would write my love a letter that she might understand.
I'd send it by the waters where the islands overflow
And I'd think of my darling wherever she'd go.

Way down in some lonesome valley. Way down in some lonesome grove
Where the small birds does whistle, their notes to increase
My love she is slender, both proper and neat
And I wouldn't have no better pastimes than to be with my sweet.

Well I wish I was a turtle dove, had wings and could fly
Just now to my love's lodging tonight I'd draw nigh
And in her lily-white arms I'd lie there all night
And I'd watch the little windows for the dawning of day.

Well I strolled through the mountains, I strolled through the vale
I strolled to forget her, but it was all in vain.
On the banks of Ocoee, on the mount of said brow
Where I once loved her dearly and I don't hate her now.

***From Out In The Be-Bop Blues Night-Singing The Blues For His Lord- The Reverend Gary Davis Is On Stage

A YouTube film clip of the Reverend Gary Davis playing Children Of Zion on Pete Seeger's 1960 television show Rainbow Quest.

CD Review

Twelve Gates To The City: Reverend Gary Davis: In Concert 1962-1966, Shanachie Records, 2000
I have mentioned many of the old time black male country blues singers in this space, for example, Son House, Bukka White and Skip James. I have also mentioned the close connection between this rural music, the routine of life on the farm (mainly the Mississippi Delta plantations or sharecropping) and simple religious expression in their works. The blues singer under review meets all of those criteria and more. The Reverend Gary Davis, although not as well known in the country blues pantheon, has had many of his songs covered by the denizens of the folk revival of the 1960's and some rock groups, like The Grateful Dead, looking for a connection with their roots. Thus, by one of the ironies of fate his tradition lives on in popular music. I would also mention here that his work was prominently displayed in one of the Masters Of The Blues documentaries that I have reviewed in this space. That placement is insurance that that the Reverend's musical virtuosity is of the highest order. As an instrumentalist he steals the show in that film. Enough said.

Stick out songs here are the much-covered Samson and Delilah (most famously, I think, by Dave Van Ronk), Cocaine Blues (from when it was legal, of course), Twelve Keys To The City and the gospelly Blow Gabriel and Who Shall Deliver Poor Me.

Some Biographical Information From the Back Cover Of This Album
Durham, North Carolina in the 1930's was a moderate sized town whose economy was driven by tobacco farming. The tobacco crop acted somewhat as a buffer against the worst ravages of the Depression. During the fall harvest, with its attendant tobacco auctions, there was a bit more money around, and that, naturally, attracted musicians. Performers would drift in from the countryside and frequently took up residence and stayed on. Two master musicians who made Durham their home, whose careers extended decades until they become literally world famous, were Reverend Gary Davis and Sonny Terry.

REV. GARY DAVIS
Reverend Gary Davis was one of the greatest traditional guitarists of the century. He could play fluently in all major keys and improvise continually without repetition. His finger picking style was remarkably free, executing a rapid treble run with his thumb as easily as with his index finger and he had great command of many different styles, representing most aspects of black music he heard as a young man at he beginning of the century. Beyond his blues-gospel guitar, Davis was equally adept at ragtime, marches, breakdowns, vaudeville songs, and much more. Born in Lawrence County, South Carolina in 1895, Davis was raised by his grandmother, who made his first guitar for him. Learning from relatives and itinerant musicians, he also took up banjo and harmonica. His blindness was probably due to a congenital condition. By the time he was a young man he was considered among the elite musicians in his area of South Carolina where, as in most Southern coastal states, clean and fancy finger picking with emphasis on the melody was the favored style. Sometime in the early 1950's, Davis started a ministry and repudiated blues. In 1935, he recorded twelve gospel songs that rank among the masterpieces of the genre. In 1944, he moved to New York where he continued his church work, and sometimes did some street singing in Harlem. By the early 1960's, with the re-emergence of interest in traditional black music, Davis finally received the recognition and prominences he so richly deserved.

Federal Judge Sentences Lynne Stewart to Death

by Stephen Lendman

On August 9, The New York Times headlined "Dying Lawyer's Request for Release From Prison Is Turned Down," saying:

"A federal judge in Manhattan declined on Friday to order the release of Lynne F. Stewart, an outspoken former defense lawyer who is dying from cancer in a federal prison in Texas."

Lynne's a longtime heroic human rights defender. She's one of America's best. She's one of thousands of wrongfully incarcerated political prisoners.

She languishes unjustly in America's gulag. It's the world's largest. It's one of the worst. Official US policy spurns justice.

Lynne's dying. She has Stage Four cancer. It's worsening. She's denied effective treatment. She petitioned for compassionate release.

FMC Carswell warden Jody Upton recommended it. She did so based on Lynne's condition. According to former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Lynne "meets every legal, rational and humane criterion for" it.

Denial exceeds cruel and unusual punishment. It's a death sentence. FMC Carswell's a death camp. Terminally ill political prisoners languish there to die.

Doing so reflects gross injustice. It's ruthless. It's premeditated murder. It's the American way.

Obama wants her dead. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials denied her. So did federal Judge John G. Koeltl. On Friday, he sentenced her to death. He did so disgracefully.

He's part of America's prison industrial complex. It's a ruthless police state apparatus. It's a killing machine. It exposes the nation's dark side.

Jill Shellow represents Lynne. "While we are disappointed," she said, "this is hardly the end of this fight."

"Lynne is going to continue to actively pursue a compassionate release through the BOP, and we expect to be back in court, and hope it will be sooner rather than later."

BOP declined comment. So did Manhattan's US attorney's office. Obama's Justice Department maintains silence. They're enforcers. They're part of America's police state apparatus.

Activist Ralph Schoenman circulated urgent news on what happened. He called denying Lynne "worthy of Kafka."

Koeltl's ruling, he said, "ignored the falsification of the medical record documented in the recommendation of Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart made months before by the Warden of Carswell Federal Prison."

He "ignored the Defense Brief. He chose not to address its citation of the falsification of the medical evidence contained in the Denial of Compassionate Release by Charles E. Samuels, Jr. Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons."

"He did not reference the Defense documentation of the violation of the Separation of Powers and habeas corpus rights fundamental to the US Constitution."

He "ignored Defense documentation in its Brief of the testimony before Congress of Michael Horowitz, Inspector General of the Federal Bureau of Prisons on the refusal of the Bureau of Prisons to recommend release for prisoners facing catastrophic disease in order to allow medical care that would enable them to survive."

"He ignored the evidence documented by Human Rights Watch that the Bureau of prisons - had arrogated to itself the authority to refuse Compassionate Release unless a prisoner is on the verge of death - thus releasing them not for medical care that could save their lives, but solely to be placed in a coffin."

In his book "Race to Incarcerate," Marc Mauer focuses on America's obsession with imprisonment, punishment, and commodifying prisoners.

It's done to fill beds. It targets society's most vulnerable. It does so against people of color.

It's against activists supporting human and civil rights, ethnic justice, racial emancipation, and political, economic and social equality across gender and color lines.

Democracy exists in name only. Rule of law principles don't matter. Justice is a four-letter word. It's systematically denied.

Thousands of innocent victims face long prison terms. They languish under cruel and inhumane conditions.

Some die in prison. Others endure years of solitary confinement, poor medical care, other forms of abuse, and perfunctory parole hearings rigged to refuse.

Incarceration's a system of social control. Wrongful imprisonment killed Marilyn Buck. She served 25 years of an 80 year sentence.

She did so for opposing US imperialism and racial injustice. On July 15, 2010, she was released. Three weeks later she was dead.

Months earlier, she was diagnosed with uterine sarcoma. It's a rare aggressive cancer.

She was denied proper treatment. She was kept imprisoned until it was too late to save her. Political Washington wanted her dead.

She called prisons warehouses to "disappear the unacceptable." They "deprive their captives of their liberties (and) human agency."

They "punish." They "stigmatize prisoners through moralistic denunciations and indictment based on bad genes."

They consider the wrong beliefs, race, and/or ethnicity "a crime."

Millions of Americans are vulnerable. They're targeted. They're scapegoated. They're demonized. They're criminalized unjustly.

They're not incarcerated "because they are 'criminal,' but because they've been accused of breaking (a law) designed to exert tighter social control and State repression."

They're locked in cages longterm. It's for being the wrong race, ethnicity or social class. It's for championing right over wrong. It's for advocating peace, not war. It's for defending freedom.

It's for thinking rule of law principles matter. It's for believing activism and dissent are the highest forms of patriotism.

It's for resisting injustice. It's for defending human and civil rights. It's for doing the right thing. It's for doing it morally, ethically, and honorably. It's for doing it no matter what.

America's rage to incarcerate reflects a crime against humanity. It shows human life and welfare don't matter. It proves justice is a four-letter word.

It's a figure of speech. It's always been that way. It's worse than ever now. Gulag justice is official US policy.

Lynne's one of thousands of victims. She devoted her life to helping others. She deserves that much and more in return. She needs release now to save her. Imprisonment condemns her to death.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star- Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

As a member in good standing of the generation of ‘68 I have spent much cyber-ink talking about this and that “seeking a newer world” experiment we tried, with the emphasis on “tried”, back in the day, back in the 1960s day under the sign of the 18^th century English poet William Wordworth’s response to the early stirrings of the French Revolution- “to be young was very heaven.” And while, in the end, we were defeated by the monsters of the prevailing mores of American society we tried to rock the boat. And politics aside nowhere was this culturally more exploited by us that in our music, our second-wave rock music (Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Buddy and Jerry Lee being the first wave back in the 1950s).

Some argued, argued strenuously in the heat of 1960s chaos that “music was the revolution.” Somehow, they argued, we would either withdraw from mainstream society and search for the gates of Eden in our own way, maybe in some Utah of our minds, or the music would drive all good-thinking youth tribesmen (tribe’s people?) to overwhelm that dangerous mainstream and bring forth that “newer world” we were so desperately seeking. Well, no, no it wasn’t, music wasn’t the revolution, but who could blame anybody at the time for thinking that lofty thought. Nowhere was this sentiment, or parts of it, more pronounced that in the garages and family rooms of America, of suburban America when guys, and it was mainly guys then, tried to form their own rock and roll bands, especially in the wake of the “British invasion (the Beatles and The Stones, mainly)”. Formed rock and roll bands to become famous, and if not famous as was the fate of most bands that were formed then, to act as a magnet for, what else, girls.

And funny to think it could have just as easily been guys from Ames, Iowa or Winnemucca, Nevada trying for the brass ring amid the upheavals all around including the down-pressing pressing down hard on us war in Vietnam, the black liberation struggle south then north, the budding women’s and gay struggles, and our very publicly declared war, our own civil war, against parental authority. That sentiment moreover even seeped down in the crevices of society, down among my people, the working poor, as guys, corner boy guys with a little musical talent and big, big dreams saw that as a way to avoid the factory life signed, sealed and tattooed on their brains.

Naturally, Ames, Winnemucca or Hullsville, my growing up hometown, as always with garage, family room and back of the school gym bands, there were struggles around who was, and who was not, going to be “on the bus”, going to be in the band. And what level of commitment those members were willing to pursue to make it to the“bigs.” Other issues that came up as well were how much hard time in lonely low-down joints were the band members willing to do to “pay their dues” and the big question in the break-out sixties about whether to be a cover band or concentrate, like the Beatles and the Stones, on writing their own music and not depend of Tin Pan Alley stuff, drivel really when the deal went down.

Of course no 1960s coming-of-age reminiscence could avoid the generational conflicts as back-drop to muddy the cultural waters that a lot of us faced. You know-“what are you going to do with your life after this momentary “live free” obsession, son or daughter”-what do you mean you are dropping out of school after I have just paid X tuition”- what are you going to do about that damn draft notice”-what do you mean you’re going to just live with him, or her-well you get the drift. And as well the changing boy-girl thing in the post-pill world, the beginning of women striking out on their own guys be damned, drugs, more drugs, and of course more rock and roll. That is what it was like for a minute back then through as seen through the eyes of those who were pioneers, or just confused and “winging it” And sometimes making great, if unheralded, music as well. Yah, if you listen to some of that stuff then you might know what I meant when I said “to be young was very heaven.”

Recently I reviewed one of those 1960s memory mist film sagas, Not Fade Away, and I mentioned my nostalgic response to the film to my old friend, Peter Paul Markin, from up the road in North Adamsville, whom I met one summer night in 1965 I think, but it was summer and night for sure. The“for sure” part is due to the fact that I met him at the Surf Ballroom in my hometown while we were at a Friday night dance that featured the Rockin’Ramrods, a local group that did covers of many 1960s rock groups like the Stones, the Kingsmen, and others. And that band was a band very much like the band in Not Fade Away.

Well, those remarks I made to Peter Paul brought to his mind the fate of Billy Bradley, a guy from his growing up neighborhood in the Adamsville housing projects, a guy who had plenty of ability and talent to put together a rock band and maybe make the big time. He even started to pronounce himself, trade puff himself up as the “President of Rock ‘n’ Roll” for a time. Yeah, as Peter Paul also said maybe Billy could have broken out, him and his corner boys who travelled the small-time band circuit with him, if he could have broken from that occasional armed robbery he pulled to get funds for his various music projects. A career choice that eventually led him to some serious time in the state pen, and later a fate face down in some southern hick town after trying to rob a White Hen variety store. Jesus. So, no, not everybody, make it out, made it out into the rock and roll night, or lived to tell about it. Let Peter Paul tell you one episode of his bouts with one Billy Bradley out in the be-bop 1950s night:

I hate Elvis, I love Elvis,” I can still hear the echo of my old “the projects”boy, William James Bradley, also known as Billie, Billie from the hills, a mad demon of a kid and my best friend down in the elementary school. We grew apart after a while, and I will tell you why in a minute, but for a long time, a long kid time long, Billie, Billie of a hundred dreams, Billie of fifty (at least) screw-ups made me laugh and made my day when things were tough, like they almost always were, at my beat down broke down family house.

You know fifty some years later Billie was right. We hated Elvis, especially at that time when all the girls, the young girls got weak-kneed over him and he made the older girls (and women, some mothers even) sweat and left no room for ordinary mortal boys, “the projects boys” most of all, on their “dream” card. And most especially, hard as we tried, for brown-haired, tow-headed, blue-eyed ten, eleven and twelve year old boys who didn’t know how to dance, or sneer. We both got pissed off at my brother because, he looked very much like Elvis and although he had no manners, and no time for girls, they were all following him. Christ there really is no justice in this wicked old world.

And we loved Elvis for giving us, at least as far as we knew then, our own music, our own "jump' and our own jail-break from the tired old stuff we heard on the radio and television but did not ‘”speak” to us. And for the songs that he left behind. Not the goofy, Tin Pan Alley or somewhere like that, inspired“happy” music that went along with his mostly maligned, and rightly so, films but the stuff from the Sun Records days, the stuff from when he was from hunger. That, as we also from hunger, was like a siren call to break-out and then we caught his act on television and that was that. I probably walk“funny”, knees and hips out of whack, today from trying way back then to pour a third-rate imitation of his moves into my body to impress the girls.

But enough of Elvis’ place in the pre-teen and teen rock pantheon this is after all about Billie, and Elvis’ twisted spell on the poor boy. Now you know Billie, or you should, from another story, a story about Bo Diddley and how Billie wanted to, as a change of pace break from the Elvis rut create his own “style.” Well, in hard, hard post-World War II Northern white "the projects" racial animosity poor unknowing Billie got blasted away by one of the older, more knowing boys about wanted to emulate a n----r for his troubles.

That sent Billie, Billie from the hills, back to Elvis pronto. See, Billie was desperate to impress the girls way before I was aware of them, or their charms. Half, on some days, three-quarters of our conversations (I won’t say monologues because I did get a word in edgewise every once in a while when Billie got on one of his rants) revolved around doing this or that, something legal something not, to impress the girls. And that is where the “hate” part mentioned above comes in. Billie believed, and he might still believe it today if he was alive, that if only he could approximate Elvis’s looks, look, stance, and substance that all the girls would be flocking to him.

Needless to say, such an endeavor required, requires money, dough, kale, cash, moola whatever you want to call it. And what twelve year old project boys (that’s the age time of this story, about late 1957, early 1958) didn’t have, and didn’t have in abundance was any of that do-re-mi. And no way to get it from missing parents, messed up parents, or just flat out poor parents. Billie’s and mine were the later, poor as church mice. No that‘s not right because church mice (in the way that I am using it, and as we used it back then to signify the respectable poor who “touted” their Catholic pious poorness as a badge of honor in this weasely old world) would not do, would not think about, would not even breathe the same air of what we were about to embark on. A life of crime, kid stuff crime but I'll leave that to the readers judgment.

See, on one of Billie’s rants he got the idea in his head, and, maybe, it got planted there by something that he read about Elvis (Christ, he read more about that guy that he did about anybody else once he became an acolyte), that if he had a bunch of rings on all his fingers the girls would give him a tumble (a tumble in those days being a hard kiss on the lips for about twelve seconds or“copping” a little feel, and if I have to explain that last in more detail you had better just move on). But see, also Billie’s idea is that if he has all those rings, especially for a projects boy then it will make his story that has set to tell easier. And that story is none other than he wrote to Elvis (possible) and spoke man to man about his situation (improbable) and Elvis, Elvis the king, Elvis from nowhere Mississippi like we were from the nowhere projects, Elvis bleeding heart, had sent him these rings to give him a start in life (outrageously impossible.) Christ, I don’t believe old Billie came up with that story even now when I am a million years world-weary.

But first you need the rings and as the late honorable bank robber, Willie Sutton, said about robbing banks-that’s where the money is-old Billie, blessed, beatified Billie, figured out, and figured out all by himself, that if you want to be a ring stealer that you better go to the jewelry store because that is where the rings are. The reader, and rightly so, now, might ask where was his best buddy during this time and why was he not offering wise counsel about the pitfalls of crime and the virtues of honesty and incorruptibility. Well, when Billie got off on his rant you just waited to see what played out but the real reason was, hell, maybe I could get a ring for my ring-less fingers and be on my way to impress the girls too. I think they call it, or could call it, aiding and abetting.

But enough of that superficial moralizing. Let’s get to the jewelry store, the best one in the downtown of the working class town we were appendaged to (literally so because it was located on a one road in and out peninsula). We walked a couple of miles to get there, plotting all the way. Bingo the Acme Jewelry Store (or some name like that) jumped up at us. Billie’s was as nervous as a colt and I was not far behind, although on this caper I am just the “stooge”, if that. I’m to wait outside to see if John Law comes by. Okay, Billie, good luck. And strangely enough his luck is good that day, and many days after, although those days after were not ring days. That day though his haul was five rings. Five shaky rings, shaky hands Billie, as we walked, then started running, away from the down town area. When we got close to home we stopped near the beach where we lived to see up close what the rings looked like. Billie yelled, “Damn.” And why did he yell that word. Well, apparently in his terror (his word to me) at getting caught he just grabbed what was at hand. And what were at hand were five women’s rings. Now, how are you going to impress girls, ten, eleven or twelve year old girls, even if as naïve as us, and maybe more so, that Elvis is you bosom buddy and you are practically his only life-line adviser with five women’s rings? Damn, damn is right.

P.S. It took a few years and some sense getting knocked into me, and a funny trip to the local library where I squirreled up and started reading books to break from the Billie, Billie from the hills habit, and his habits. We drifted away mainly because he was “hot” and I was just getting into being “cool”, or thinking I was. You read above about his fate. Damn, damn is right.

***********

So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star?
-The Byrds

So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star?
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
Then take some time
and learn how to play
And with your hair swung right
And your pants too tight
It's gonna be all right

Then it's time to go downtown
Where the agent man won't let you down
Sell your soul to the company
Who are waiting there to sell plastic ware
And in a week or two
If you make the charts
The girls'll tear you apart

The price you paid for your riches and fame
Was it all a strange game?
You're a little insane
The money, the fame, the public acclaim
Don't forget what you are
You're a rock 'n' roll star!

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s High School Dance Night

 

 

 

A YouTube film clip of The Drifters performing their classic Save The Last Dance For Me. Please, pretty please.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago now, yes, it was just about two years ago, I spend tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” reviewing many aspects of 1950s American teenage culture that in my time I was waist deep in like every other breathing post-war, red scare, cold war, atomic bomb dread kid.  (And maybe those glad tidings spread to Europe too. Think about the Beatles and Rolling Stones and what they were listening to out in the English night, especially that Chess Record-driven Chicago blues with Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee and the gang.)  Blame it on Elvis, blame it on American Bandstand, blame it on that atomic bomb worry, hell, blame it on Bo Didderly for asking that rhetorical question- “Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll?”- but certain social aspects of the be-bop teen night needed to be observed. Central to that teen culture, to the throbs of that first wave of post –war (World War II for the forgetful) was the inevitable school dance that, which if for no other reason than to maintain one’s social standing, school social standing, it was necessary to attend.
 

With that school dance came its’ also inevitable last dance drama, trauma as a kind of rite of passage into sainted teen-hood. John and Mick had to ask too, remember. A last dance, by the way, that I have been at great pains to describe elsewhere as the last chance for glory for shy boys like me (or girls, for that matter, but they can speak for themselves if they have overcome their shyness). That seminal event also ritualistically involved setting off the wallflowers from the “in” crowd in the school social pecking order. And from there by some mysterious process that pecking order was set in stone through three or four long serf-like years of high school. Or, perhaps, for you and your crowd, your guy crowd, your corner boys if you were a corner boy like me and imbibed all the macho manly clichés of that existence, acted as a test to prove that you had that something, some moxie to ask that certain she for the last one.

Of course, the critical question, the world historic question, was whether the last dance was to be a slow one that meant that you had to dance close and pray to high heaven that you did not ruin your partner’s feet or shoes in the process. That those secret lessons to Benny Flynn’s just out of high school sister , paid out of some misbegotten allowance  or the sweat of one’s brow from doing arduous household chores, were good enough, were embedded deep enough, to make it through the two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of say  the slow classic Til.    

That concern however was only the beginning of the evening’s preparations check-list. Don’t forget the hair cream that had to keep your cowlick in place (Wildroot, “a little dab will do ya,” of course- you taken in by the wistfulness of the television ad to give it a try since nothing else had worked not that strong bay rum of your father’s, not that nameless grease you tried last time on Slick Jones’ say so). That using your Gillette steel-edged razor that you never really got the hang of despite older brother instruction hadn't caused terminal blood lost but only a tissue sop wound hopefully blended into the darkened dance floor night or explained as some heroic wound. That the deodorant that was supposed to get you through the night (hell it said all- day protection but that was for mere normal mortals not for hyper-hormonal teens) did not wear off although you seemed to be sweating, excuse me, perspiring through your tee-shirt. And, finally, that that surefire kiss mouthwash, Listerine, that tasted, well, tasted like mouthwash and seemingly paralyzed your mouth as you gargled held up as well.

Maybe, though that last one, depending on the dee-jay’s mood or whether he and his girlfriend had had a fight, would be, with hosanna relief, a fast one, that you could kind of fake that you knew how to dance to, but was not as bound up with the ending of your rising social status like those slow ones. A little shake here, a pivot there, hands in the air, just keep moving like Benny’s sister showed you after she, exasperated, had practically given up in horror on your two-left-foot-ness.  And best of all no worry about hold-your nose mouthwash, hair cream, shaving cream or Right Guard.

Ah memory, Chuck Berry’s Back In The U.S.A. (fast and great doo-woppy back singing parts so you could sing along while you are not paying attention to your partner just in case things didn't work out); Tommy Edwards’ It’s All In The Game (slow, swoony, ouch, I am thinking about that razor-induced neck wound); the legendary late Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love? (fast and sassy, sassy 'cause girls who liked Bo, well, they "did' it, didn't they, and you know what "did it" means, with all that Afro-Carib beat); and, the Flamingos I’ll Be Home (slow, and only if that certain she turned you down and you had to dance with your sister's best girlfriend, or something like that).

Ah memory too so you can get “nostalgic” for what did, or did not, transpire in the old days. That certain she that turned you down crushing all earthly hopes for happiness for eternity (or until the next sassy brunette came along your path). That song that became “your song,” you and her. That night after the last dance down at Breaker Beach. The possibilities were endless. Or forgetting nostalgia for a minute if you are now memory telling tall-tales to the younger set for them to giggle over, giggle over what their parents or grandparents got all heated up about and who are thanking somebody, thanking them ot high heaven even that they came along in the days of hip-hop nation and avoided all that. Whee!

 

From The Marxist Archives-Economic Planning and Workers Democracy

Workers Vanguard No. 917 4 July 2008 TROTSKY LENIN Economic Planning and Workers Democracy (Quote of the Week) While pointing to the great advances that working-class property forms brought to the Soviet Union, Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky emphasized that the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy that usurped political power from the Soviet proletariat acted as a brake on the development of that society’s productive forces. Writing in 1938, Trotsky underlined the need for workers political revolution in the USSR, and the return to workers democracy, as key to the defense and extension of the gains of the 1917 October Revolution. Amid hostile imperialist encirclement, decades of Stalinist misrule led to the final undoing of the Soviet degenerated workers state in 1991-92, a world-historic defeat for the international proletariat. Trotsky’s analysis and program applies today to the remaining deformed workers states of China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. In and of itself the preservation of state ownership of the means of production is of enormous progressive significance, inasmuch as with the aid of planned economy this permits of attaining a swift development of the productive forces. True, the economic statistics issued by the bureaucracy do not merit any confidence: they systematically exaggerate successes while concealing failures. It is nonetheless unthinkable to deny the fact that even today the Soviet Union’s productive forces are still developing at a tempo that was not and is not known in any other country in the world. Whoever refuses to see this side of the case, identifying the Soviet regime with fascism…throws out, as the Germans say, the baby with the dirty bath-water. The development of the productive forces is the fundamental factor of human culture. Without increasing man’s power over nature it is impossible even to think of destroying the rule of man over man. Socialism cannot be erected on backwardness and poverty. The technical premise of Socialism has taken an enormous forward step in the Soviet Union in the course of these twenty years. However, least of all is this the merit of the bureaucracy. On the contrary, the ruling caste has become transformed into the greatest brake upon the development of the productive forces. Socialist economy must by its very essence take as its guide the interests of the producers and the needs of the consumers. These interests and needs can find their expression only through the medium of a full-flowering democracy of producers and consumers. Democracy, in this particular case, is not some sort of abstract principle. It is the one and only conceivable mechanism for preparing the Socialist system of economy, and realizing it in life. —Leon Trotsky, “Does the Soviet Government Still Follow the Principles Adopted Twenty Years Ago?” (1938), as reprinted in Fourth International (March 1945) ******* Leon Trotsky Nationalized Industry and Workers’ Management Written: May or June 1938. Source: Fourth International [New York], Vol.7 No.8, August 1946,pp.239, 242. Translated: Duncan Ferguson. Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters. Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2004. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. In 1938, when the Cardenas government of Mexico expropriated the oil industry from the Anglo-American imperialists, such newspapers as the NY Daily News ascribed the act to the influence of Leon Trotsky then in exile in Mexico. This, of course, was untrue. Trotsky had made an agreement, which he scrupulously observed, that in return for asylum he would not intervene in Mexican politics. He was forced consequently to limit himself to stating his position in general on the expropriation. He supported the act, explaining his views in an article dated June 5, 1938, published in the Socialist Appeal (now The Militant) of June 25, 1938. It was not known that Trotsky had written more fully on another aspect of the expropriation: the placing by the Mexican government of the oil industry under the management of the workers. In April 1946, Joseph Hansen, former Secretary of Leon Trotsky, visited Natalia Trotsky. He also called on friends of Trotsky. Among them was one who had made a study of the expropriation. This friend told about talking with Trotsky for a whole afternoon on the uniqueness of workers’ management of an expropriated industry in a capitalist country. Trotsky promised to consider the subject more fully. Some three days later, Trotsky’s French secretary called on the telephone that Trotsky had written a short article. This remarkable article had never been printed anywhere. Comrade Hansen examined the manuscript. Typewritten in French, it was undated and unsigned but the interpolations and stylistic corrections in ink appeared to be Trotsky’s handwriting. The style, and, above all, the method of analysis and the revolutionary conclusions were Trotsky’s, beyond question. Comrade Hansen immediately had a copy typed and brought it to Natalia. She was convinced of the authenticity of the article. The probable date it was written can be fixed as May or June 1938. – Editors, Fourth International, New York In the industrially backward countries foreign capital plays a decisive role. Hence the relative weakness of the national bourgeoisie in relation to the national proletariat. This creates special conditions of state power. The government veers between foreign and domestic capital, between the weak national bourgeoisie and the relatively powerful proletariat. This gives the government a Bonapartist character of a distinctive character. It raises itself, so to speak, above classes. Actually, it can govern either by making itself the instrument of foreign capitalism and holding the proletariat in the chains of a police dictatorship, or by maneuvering with the proletariat and even going so far as to make concessions to it, thus gaining the possibility of a certain freedom from the foreign capitalists. The present policy [of the Mexican government – Translator] is in the second stage; its greatest conquests are the expropriations of the railroads and the oil industries. These measures are entirely within the domain of state capitalism. However, in a semicolonial country, state capitalism finds itself under the heavy pressure of private foreign capital and of its governments, and cannot maintain itself without the active support of the workers. That is why it tries, without letting the real power escape from its hands, to place on the workers’ organizations a considerable part of the responsibility for the march of production in the nationalized branches of industry. What should be the policy of the workers’ party in this case? It would of course be a disastrous error, an outright deception, to assert that the road to socialism passes, not through the proletarian revolution, but through nationalization by the bourgeois state of various branches of industry and their transfer into the hands of the workers’ organizations. But it is not a question of that. The bourgeois government has itself carried through the nationalization and has been compelled to ask participation of the workers in the management of the nationalized industry. One can of course evade the question by citing the fact that unless the proletariat takes possession of the power, participation by the trade unions in the management of the enterprises of state capitalism cannot give socialist results. However, such a negative policy from the revolutionary wing would not be understood by the masses and would strengthen the opportunist positions. For Marxists it is not a question of building socialism with the hands of the bourgeoisie, but of utilizing the situations that present themselves within state capitalism and advancing the revolutionary movement of the workers. Participation in bourgeois parliaments can no longer give important positive results; under certain conditions it even leads to the demoralization of the worker deputies. But this is not an argument for revolutionists in favor of antiparliamentarism. It would be inexact to identify the policy of workers’ participation in the management of nationalized industry with the participation of socialists in a bourgeois government (which we called ministerialism). All the members of the government are bound together by ties of solidarity. A party represented in the government is answerable for the entire policy of the government as a whole. Participation in the management of a certain branch of industry allows full opportunity for political opposition. In case the workers’ representatives are in a minority in the management, they have every opportunity to declare and publish their proposals, which were rejected by the majority, to bring them to the knowledge of the workers, etc. The participation of the trade unions in the management of nationalized industry may be compared to the participation of socialists in the municipal governments, where the socialists sometimes win a majority and are compelled to direct an important municipal economy, while the bourgeoisie still has domination in the state and bourgeois property laws continue. Reformists in the municipality adapt themselves passively to the bourgeois regime. Revolutionists in this field do all they can in the interests of the workers and at the same time teach the workers at every step that municipality policy is powerless without conquest of state power. The difference, to be sure, is that in the field of municipal government the workers win certain positions by means of democratic elections, whereas in the domain of nationalized industry the government itself invites them to take certain posts. But this difference has a purely formal character. In both cases the bourgeoisie is compelled to yield to the workers certain spheres of activity. The workers utilize these in their own interests. It would be lightminded to close one’s eye to the dangers that flow from a situation where the trade unions play a leading role in nationalized industry. The basis of the danger is the connection of the top trade union leaders with the apparatus of state capitalism, the transformation of mandated representatives of the proletariat into hostages of the bourgeois state. But however great this danger may be, it constitutes only a part of a general danger – more exactly, of a general sickness. That is to say, the bourgeois degeneration of the trade union apparatuses in the imperialist epoch, not only in the old metropolitan centers, but also in the colonial countries. The trade union leaders are, in an overwhelming majority of cases, political agents of the bourgeoisie and of its state. In nationalized industry they can become and already are becoming direct administrative agents. Against this there is no other course than the struggle for the independence of the workers’ movement in general, and in particular through the formation within the trade unions of firm revolutionary nuclei, which, while at the same time maintaining the unity of the trade union movement, are capable of struggling for a class policy and for a revolutionary composition of the leading bodies. A danger of another sort lies in the fact that the banks and other capitalist enterprises, upon which a given branch of nationalized industry depends in the economic sense, may and will use special methods of sabotage to put obstacles in the way of the workers’ management, to discredit it and push it to disaster. The reformist leaders will try to ward off this danger by servile adaptation to the demands of their capitalist providers, in particular the banks. The revolutionary leaders, on the contrary, will draw the conclusion, from the sabotage by the banks, that it is necessary to expropriate the banks and to establish a single national bank, which would be the accounting house of the whole economy. Of course this question must be indissolubly linked to the question of the conquest of power by the working class. The various capitalist enterprises, national and foreign, will inevitably enter into a conspiracy with the state institutions to put obstacles in the way of the workers’ management of nationalized industry. On the other hand, the workers’ organizations that are in the management of the various branches of nationalized industry must join together to exchange their experiences, must give each other economic support must act with their joint forces on the government on the conditions of credit, etc. Of course such a central bureau of the workers’ management of nationalized branches of industry must be in closest contact with the trade unions. To sum up, one can say that this new field of work includes within it both the greatest opportunities and the greatest dangers. The dangers consist in the fact that, through the intermediary of controlled trade unions, state capitalism can hold the workers in check, exploit them cruelly, and paralyze their resistance. The revolutionary possibilities consist of the fact that, basing themselves upon their positions in the exceptionally important branches of industry, the workers can lead the attack against all the forces of capital and against the bourgeois state. Which of these possibilities will win out? And in what period of time? It is naturally impossible to predict. That depends entirely on the struggle of the different tendencies within the working class, on the experience of the workers themselves, on the world situation. In any case, to use this new form of activity in the interests of the working class, and not of the labor aristocracy and bureaucracy, only one condition is needed: the existence of a revolutionary Marxist party that carefully studies every form of working class activity, criticizes every deviation, educates and organizes the workers, wins influence in the trade unions, and assures a revolutionary workers’ representation in nationalized industry. Leon Trotsky Nationalized Industry and Workers’ Management Written: May or June 1938. Source: Fourth International [New York], Vol.7 No.8, August 1946,pp.239, 242. Translated: Duncan Ferguson. Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters. Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2004. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. In 1938, when the Cardenas government of Mexico expropriated the oil industry from the Anglo-American imperialists, such newspapers as the NY Daily News ascribed the act to the influence of Leon Trotsky then in exile in Mexico. This, of course, was untrue. Trotsky had made an agreement, which he scrupulously observed, that in return for asylum he would not intervene in Mexican politics. He was forced consequently to limit himself to stating his position in general on the expropriation. He supported the act, explaining his views in an article dated June 5, 1938, published in the Socialist Appeal (now The Militant) of June 25, 1938. It was not known that Trotsky had written more fully on another aspect of the expropriation: the placing by the Mexican government of the oil industry under the management of the workers. In April 1946, Joseph Hansen, former Secretary of Leon Trotsky, visited Natalia Trotsky. He also called on friends of Trotsky. Among them was one who had made a study of the expropriation. This friend told about talking with Trotsky for a whole afternoon on the uniqueness of workers’ management of an expropriated industry in a capitalist country. Trotsky promised to consider the subject more fully. Some three days later, Trotsky’s French secretary called on the telephone that Trotsky had written a short article. This remarkable article had never been printed anywhere. Comrade Hansen examined the manuscript. Typewritten in French, it was undated and unsigned but the interpolations and stylistic corrections in ink appeared to be Trotsky’s handwriting. The style, and, above all, the method of analysis and the revolutionary conclusions were Trotsky’s, beyond question. Comrade Hansen immediately had a copy typed and brought it to Natalia. She was convinced of the authenticity of the article. The probable date it was written can be fixed as May or June 1938. – Editors, Fourth International, New York In the industrially backward countries foreign capital plays a decisive role. Hence the relative weakness of the national bourgeoisie in relation to the national proletariat. This creates special conditions of state power. The government veers between foreign and domestic capital, between the weak national bourgeoisie and the relatively powerful proletariat. This gives the government a Bonapartist character of a distinctive character. It raises itself, so to speak, above classes. Actually, it can govern either by making itself the instrument of foreign capitalism and holding the proletariat in the chains of a police dictatorship, or by maneuvering with the proletariat and even going so far as to make concessions to it, thus gaining the possibility of a certain freedom from the foreign capitalists. The present policy [of the Mexican government – Translator] is in the second stage; its greatest conquests are the expropriations of the railroads and the oil industries. These measures are entirely within the domain of state capitalism. However, in a semicolonial country, state capitalism finds itself under the heavy pressure of private foreign capital and of its governments, and cannot maintain itself without the active support of the workers. That is why it tries, without letting the real power escape from its hands, to place on the workers’ organizations a considerable part of the responsibility for the march of production in the nationalized branches of industry. What should be the policy of the workers’ party in this case? It would of course be a disastrous error, an outright deception, to assert that the road to socialism passes, not through the proletarian revolution, but through nationalization by the bourgeois state of various branches of industry and their transfer into the hands of the workers’ organizations. But it is not a question of that. The bourgeois government has itself carried through the nationalization and has been compelled to ask participation of the workers in the management of the nationalized industry. One can of course evade the question by citing the fact that unless the proletariat takes possession of the power, participation by the trade unions in the management of the enterprises of state capitalism cannot give socialist results. However, such a negative policy from the revolutionary wing would not be understood by the masses and would strengthen the opportunist positions. For Marxists it is not a question of building socialism with the hands of the bourgeoisie, but of utilizing the situations that present themselves within state capitalism and advancing the revolutionary movement of the workers. Participation in bourgeois parliaments can no longer give important positive results; under certain conditions it even leads to the demoralization of the worker deputies. But this is not an argument for revolutionists in favor of antiparliamentarism. It would be inexact to identify the policy of workers’ participation in the management of nationalized industry with the participation of socialists in a bourgeois government (which we called ministerialism). All the members of the government are bound together by ties of solidarity. A party represented in the government is answerable for the entire policy of the government as a whole. Participation in the management of a certain branch of industry allows full opportunity for political opposition. In case the workers’ representatives are in a minority in the management, they have every opportunity to declare and publish their proposals, which were rejected by the majority, to bring them to the knowledge of the workers, etc. The participation of the trade unions in the management of nationalized industry may be compared to the participation of socialists in the municipal governments, where the socialists sometimes win a majority and are compelled to direct an important municipal economy, while the bourgeoisie still has domination in the state and bourgeois property laws continue. Reformists in the municipality adapt themselves passively to the bourgeois regime. Revolutionists in this field do all they can in the interests of the workers and at the same time teach the workers at every step that municipality policy is powerless without conquest of state power. The difference, to be sure, is that in the field of municipal government the workers win certain positions by means of democratic elections, whereas in the domain of nationalized industry the government itself invites them to take certain posts. But this difference has a purely formal character. In both cases the bourgeoisie is compelled to yield to the workers certain spheres of activity. The workers utilize these in their own interests. It would be lightminded to close one’s eye to the dangers that flow from a situation where the trade unions play a leading role in nationalized industry. The basis of the danger is the connection of the top trade union leaders with the apparatus of state capitalism, the transformation of mandated representatives of the proletariat into hostages of the bourgeois state. But however great this danger may be, it constitutes only a part of a general danger – more exactly, of a general sickness. That is to say, the bourgeois degeneration of the trade union apparatuses in the imperialist epoch, not only in the old metropolitan centers, but also in the colonial countries. The trade union leaders are, in an overwhelming majority of cases, political agents of the bourgeoisie and of its state. In nationalized industry they can become and already are becoming direct administrative agents. Against this there is no other course than the struggle for the independence of the workers’ movement in general, and in particular through the formation within the trade unions of firm revolutionary nuclei, which, while at the same time maintaining the unity of the trade union movement, are capable of struggling for a class policy and for a revolutionary composition of the leading bodies. A danger of another sort lies in the fact that the banks and other capitalist enterprises, upon which a given branch of nationalized industry depends in the economic sense, may and will use special methods of sabotage to put obstacles in the way of the workers’ management, to discredit it and push it to disaster. The reformist leaders will try to ward off this danger by servile adaptation to the demands of their capitalist providers, in particular the banks. The revolutionary leaders, on the contrary, will draw the conclusion, from the sabotage by the banks, that it is necessary to expropriate the banks and to establish a single national bank, which would be the accounting house of the whole economy. Of course this question must be indissolubly linked to the question of the conquest of power by the working class. The various capitalist enterprises, national and foreign, will inevitably enter into a conspiracy with the state institutions to put obstacles in the way of the workers’ management of nationalized industry. On the other hand, the workers’ organizations that are in the management of the various branches of nationalized industry must join together to exchange their experiences, must give each other economic support must act with their joint forces on the government on the conditions of credit, etc. Of course such a central bureau of the workers’ management of nationalized branches of industry must be in closest contact with the trade unions. To sum up, one can say that this new field of work includes within it both the greatest opportunities and the greatest dangers. The dangers consist in the fact that, through the intermediary of controlled trade unions, state capitalism can hold the workers in check, exploit them cruelly, and paralyze their resistance. The revolutionary possibilities consist of the fact that, basing themselves upon their positions in the exceptionally important branches of industry, the workers can lead the attack against all the forces of capital and against the bourgeois state. Which of these possibilities will win out? And in what period of time? It is naturally impossible to predict. That depends entirely on the struggle of the different tendencies within the working class, on the experience of the workers themselves, on the world situation. In any case, to use this new form of activity in the interests of the working class, and not of the labor aristocracy and bureaucracy, only one condition is needed: the existence of a revolutionary Marxist party that carefully studies every form of working class activity, criticizes every deviation, educates and organizes the workers, wins influence in the trade unions, and assures a revolutionary workers’ representation in nationalized industry.

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits

Peter Paul Markin comment (2008):

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to1930s American Socialist Workers Party leader Felix Morrow.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

********

Markin comment

EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND, AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT.

Biography

The son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the founders of the SPD, Karl Liebknecht trained to be a lawyer and defended many Social Democrats in political trials. He was also a leading figure in the socialist youth movement and thus became a leading figure in the struggle against militarism.

As a deputy in the Reichstag he was one of the first SPD representatives to break party discipline and vote against war credits in December 1914. He became a figurehead for the struggle against the war. His opposition was so successful that his parliamentary immunity was removed and he was improsoned.

Freed by the November revolution he immediately threw himself into the struggle and became with Rosa Luxemburg one of the founders of the new Communist Party (KPD). Along with Luxemburg he was murdered by military officers with the tacit approval of the leaders of the SPD after the suppression of the so-called“Spartacist Uprising” in January 1919.