***Those Oldies But Goodies-Folk Branch-Tell Me Utah Phillips Have You Seen “Starlight On The Rails?”

A YouTube film clip of Rosalie Sorrels (a dear friend of Utah's) performing Starlight On The Rails.


STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS

(Bruce Phillips)


I can hear the whistle blowing

High and lonesome as can be

Outside the rain is softly falling

Tonight its falling just for me



Looking back along the road I've traveled

The miles can tell a million tales

Each year is like some rolling freight train

And cold as starlight on the rails



I think about a wife and family

My home and all the things it means

The black smoke trailing out behind me

Is like a string of broken dreams



A man who lives out on the highway

Is like a clock that can't tell time

A man who spends his life just rambling

Is like a song without a rhyme



Copyright Strike Music

@train @lonesome

**********

“Hey, Boston Blarney, lend me a dollar so I can go into Gallup and get some Bull Durham and, and, a little something for the head,” yelled out San Antonio Slim over the din of the seemingly endless line of Southern Pacific freight trains running by just then, no more than a hundred yards from the arroyo“jungle” camp that Boston Blarney had stumbled into coming off the hitchhike highway, the Interstate 40 hitchhike highway, a few days before. Pretending that he could not hear over the din Boston Blarney feigned ignorance of the request and went about washing up the last of the dishes, really just tin pans to pile the food on, metal soup cans for washing it down, and “stolen” plastic utensils to put that food to mouth, stolen for those enthralled by the lore of the road, from the local McDonald’s hamburger joint. Like that corporation was going to put out an all- points bulletin for the thieves, although maybe they would if they knew it was headed to the confines of the local hobo (bum, tramp, someone told him once of the hierarchical distinctions but they seemed to be distinctions without a difference when he heard them) jungle.



That washing up chore fell to Boston Blarney as the “new boy” in camp and before he had even gotten his bedroll off his sorely-tried back coming off that hard dust Interstate 40 hitchhike road, it was made abundantly clear by the lord of the manor, the mayor of the jungle, Juke Duke, that he was more than welcome to stay for a while, more than welcome to share a portion of the unnamable stew (unnamable, if for no other reason than there were so many unknown ingredients in the mix that to name it would require an act of congress, a regular hobo confab, to do so, so nameless it is), and more than welcome to spread his bedroll under the conforms of the jungle night sky but that he was now, officially, to hold the honorific; chief bottle washer, pearl-diver to the non-hobo brethren.



So Boston Blarney washes away, and stacks, haphazardly stacks as befits the ramshackle nature of the place, the makeshift dinnerware in a cardboard box to await the next meal as a now slightly perturbed Slim comes closer, along with his bindle buddy, Bender Ben, to repeat the request in that same loud voice, although the last Southern Pacific train is a mere echo in the distance darkening Western night and a regular voiced-request would have been enough, enough for Boston Blarney. This though is the minute that Boston Blarney has been dreading ever since he got into camp, the touch for dough minute. Now see Boston Blarney, hell, William Bradley, Billy Bradley to his friends, on the road, and off. That Boston Blarney thing was put on him by Joe-Boy Jim the first night in camp when Joe-Boy, who was from Maine, from Maine about a million years ago from the look of him, noticed Billy’s Boston accent and his map of Ireland looks and, as is the simple course of things in the jungle that name is now Billy’s forever moniker to the moniker-obsessed residents of the Gallup, New Mexico, yah, that's one of those square states out in the West, jungle, although don’t go looking for a postal code for it, the camp may not be there by the time you figure that out.



Now here are the Boston Blarney facts of life, jungled-up facts of life is that no way is he going to be able to beg off that requested dollar with some lame excuse about being broke, broke broke. (by the way I will use this Boston Blarney moniker throughout just in case anybody, anybody Billy does not want to know of his whereabouts, is looking for him. In any case that moniker is better, much better, than the Silly Willy nickname that he carried with him through most of his public school career put on his by some now nameless girl when rhyming simon nicknames were all the rage back in seventh grade.) See everybody knows that San Antonio Slim, who belies his moniker by being about five feet, six inches tall and by weighing in at about two hundred and sixty, maybe, two-seventy so he either must have gotten that name a long time ago, or there is some other story behind its origins, has no dough, no way to get dough, and no way to be holding out on anyone for dough for the simple reason that he has not left the camp in a month so he is a brother in need. Boston Blarney is another case though, even if he is just off the hitchhike highway road, his clothes still look kind of fresh, his looks look kind of fresh (being young and not having dipped deeply in the alcohol bins, for one thing) and so no one, not Slim anyway, is going to buy a broke, broke story.

The problem, the problem Boston Blarney already knows is going to be a problem is that if he gives Slim the dollar straight up every other ‘bo, bum, tramp, and maybe even some self-respecting citizens are going to put the touch on him. He learned, learned the hard way that it does not take long to be broke, broke on the road by freely giving dough to every roadster Tom, Dick, and Harry you run into. “Here, all I have is fifty cents, until my ship comes in,” says Boston Blarney and Slim, along with his “enforcer”, Bender Ben, seem pleased to get that, like that is how much they probably figured they could get anyway. Blarney also knows that he was not the first stop in the touch game otherwise old hard-hand veteran Slim would have bitten harder.



Well, that’s over, for now Blarney says to himself softly out loud, a habit of the single file hitchhike road time when one begins to talk, softly or loudly, to oneself to while away the long side of the road hours when you are stuck between exits in places like Omaha or Davenport on the long trek west. And just as softly to himself he starts to recount where his has been, where he hasn’t been, and the whys of each situation as he unrolls his bedroll to face another night out in the brisk, brisk even for a New England hearty and hale regular brisk boy, great west star-less October night. First things first though, no way would he have hit the road this time, this time after a couple of years off the road, if THAT man, that evil man, that devil deal-making man, one Richard Milhous Nixon, common criminal, had not just vacated, a couple of months back, the Presidency of the United States and had still been in office. After that event, after that hell-raising many months of hubris though, it seemed safe, safe as anything could be in these weird times, to get on with your life. Still, every once in a while, when he was in a city or town, big or small, large enough to have sidewalk newspaper vending machines he would check, no, double check to see if the monster had, perhaps, “risen” again. But Blarney’ luck had held since he took off from Boston in late August on his latest trip west in search of ...



Suddenly, he yelled out, no cried out, “Joyel.” Who was he kidding. Sure getting rid of “Tricky Dick” was part of it, but the pure truth was “woman trouble” like he didn’t know that from the minute he stepped on to the truck depot at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike in Cambridge and hailed down his first truck. And you knew it too, if you knew Billy Bradley. And if it wasn’t woman trouble, it could have been, would have been, should have been, use the imperative is always woman trouble, unless it was just Billy hubris. Nah, it was woman trouble, chapter and verse. Chapter twenty-seven, verse one, always verse one. And that verse one for Joyel, lately, had been when are we going to settle down from this nomadic existence. And that Joyel drumbeat was getting more insistent since things like the end of the intense American involvement in Vietnam, the demise of one common criminal Richard Milhous Nixon, and the ebbing, yes, face it, the ebbing of the energy for that newer world everybody around them was starting to feel and had decided to scurry back to graduate school, to parents’ home, or to marriage just like in the old days, parent old days.



Blarney needed to think it through, or if not think it through then to at least see if he still had the hitchhike road in him. The plan was to get west (always west, always west, America west) to the Pacific Ocean and see if that old magic wanderlust still held him in its thrall. So with old time hitchhike bedroll washed, basics wrapped within, some dollars (fewer that old Slim would have suspected, if he had suspected much) in his pocket, some longing for Joyel in his heart, honestly, and some longing that he could not speak of, not right that minute anyway, he wandered to that Cambridge destiny point. His plan with the late start, late hitchhike start anyway, was to head to Chicago (a many times run, almost a no thought post-rookie run at one point) then head south fast from there to avoid the erratic rockymountainhigh early winter blast and white-out blocked-in problems. Once south he wanted to pick up Interstate 40 somewhere in Texas or New Mexico and then, basically because it mostly parallels that route “ride the rails,” the Southern Pacific rails into Los Angeles from wherever he could pick up a freight. Although he never previously had much luck with this blessed, folkloric, mystical, old-timey, Wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World, IWW) method of travel a couple of guys, gypsy davey kind of guys, not Wobblie guys, told him about it and that drove part of his manic west desire this time.



As he eased himself down inside his homemade bedroll ready for the night, ready in case tomorrow is the day west, the day west that every jungle camp grapevine keeps yakking about until you get tired of hearing about it and are just happy to wait in non-knowledge, but ready, he started thinking things out like he always did before the sleep of the just knocked him out. Yes sir, chuckling, just waiting for the ride the rails west day that he had been waiting for the past several days and which the jungle denizens, with their years of arcane intricate knowledge, useful travel knowledge said “could be any day now,” caught him reminiscing about the past few weeks and, truth to tell, started to see, see a little where Joyel was coming from, the point that she was incessantly trying to make about there now being a sea-change in the way they (meaning him and her, as well as humanity in general) had to look at things if they were to survive. But, see if she had only, only not screamed about it in those twenty-seven different ways she had of analyzing everything, he might have listened, listened a little. Because whatever else she might have, or have not been, sweet old Joyel, was a lightning rod for every trend, every social and political trend that had come down the left-wing path over the past decade or so.



Having grown up in New York City she had imbibed the folk protest music movement early in the Village, had been out front in the civil rights and anti-war struggle early, very early (long before Billy had). She had gone“street” left when others were still willing to go half-way (or more) with LBJ, or later, all the way with Bobby Kennedy (as Billy had). So if she was sounding some kind of retreat then it was not just that she was tired (although that might be part of it) but that she “sensed” an “evil” wind of hard times and apathy were ahead. She was signaling, and this is where they had their screaming matches, that the retreat was the prelude to recognition that we had been defeated, no mauled, as she put in one such match.



So, as Billy got drowsier from having taken too many rays in the long hard sun day and was now fading nicely under the cooling western night he started connecting the dots, or at least some dots, as he thought about the hitchhike road of the past several weeks. He, worse, started to see omens where before he just took them as the luck of the road, the tough hitchhike roads. Like how hard it was to get that first ride out of Boston, Cambridge really, at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike down by the Charles River where many trucks, many cross-country traveling trucks begin their journey from a huge depot after being loaded up from some railroad siding. A couple of years ago all you had to do was ask where the trucker was heading, whether he wanted company, and if yes you were off. Otherwise on to the next truck, and success. Now, on his very first speak to, the trucker told him, told him in no uncertain terms, that while he could sure use the “hippie” boy‘s company (made him think of his own son he said) on the road to Chicago the company (and, as Billy found out later, really the insurance company) had made it plain, adamantly plain that no “passengers” were allowed in the vehicle under penalty of immediate firing. And with that hefty mortgage, two kids in college, and a wife who liked to spent money that settled the issue. He left it at, “But good luck hippie boy, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”



He finally got his ride, to Cleveland, but from there to Chicago it was nothing but short, suspicious rides by odd-ball guys, including one whose intent was sexual and who when rebuffed left Billy off in Podunk, Indiana, late at night and with no prospects of being seen by truck or car traffic until daybreak. Oh yah, and one guy, one serious guy, wanted to know if anybody had told him, told sweet-souled Billy Bradley, that he looked a lot like Charles Manson (and in fact there was a little resemblance as he himself noticed later after taking a well-deserved, and needed, bath, although about half the guys in America, and who knows maybe the world in those days, looked a little like Charles Manson, except for those eyes, those evil eyes of Manson’s that spoke of some singularity of purpose, not good).



And thinking about that guy’s comment, a good guy actually, who knew a lot about the old time “beats” (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and had met mad man saint Gregory Corso in New York City), and for old times’ sake had picked Billy up got Billy thinking about a strange event back in Cambridge about a year before. Although he and Joyel had lived together, off and on, for several years there were periods, one of those chapter twenty-seven, verse one periods when they needed to get away from each other for one reason or another. That had been one of those times. So, as was the usual routine, he looked in the Real Paper for some kind of opening in a communal setting (in short, cheap rent, divided chores, and plenty of partying, or whatever, especially that whatever part). One ad he noticed, one Cambridge-based ad looked very interesting. He called the number, spoke to one person who handed him off to the woman who was handling the roommate situation and after a description of the situation, of the house, and of the people then residing there was told, told nonchalantly, to send his resume for their inspection. Resume, Cambridge, a commune, a resume. Christ! He went crazy at first, but then realized that it was after all Cambridge and you never know about some of those types. He quickly found a very convivial communal situation, a non-resume-seeking communal situation thank you, in down and out Brighton just across the river from hallowed Cambridge but at more than one of those whatever parties that came with this commune he never failed to tell this story, and get gales of laughter in response.



But that was then. And here is where connecting the dots and omens came together. On the road, as in politics, you make a lot of quick friends who give you numbers, telephones numbers, address numbers, whatever numbers, in case you are stuck, or need something, etc. A smart hitchhiker will keep those numbers safely and securely on him for an emergency, or just for a lark. One night Billy got stuck, stuck bad in Moline and called up a number, a number for a commune, he had been given, given just a few weeks before by a road friend, a young guy who gave his name as Injun Joe whom he had traveled with for a couple of days. He called the number, told of his plight and received the following answer-“What’s Injun Joe’s last name, where did you meet him, where do know him from?”Not thinking anything of it Billy said he didn’t know Injun Joe’s last name and described the circumstances that he met Injun Joe under. No sale, no soap, no-go came the reply. Apparently, according to the voice over the telephone, they knew Injun Joe, liked him, but the commune had been “ripped” off recently by “guests” and so unless you had been vetted by the FBI, or some other governmental agency, no dice. That voice did tell Billy to try the Salvation Army or Traveler’s Aid. Thanks, brother. Yah, so Joyel was not totally off the wall, not totally at all.



And then in that micro-second before sound sleep set in Billy went on the counter-offensive. What about those few good days in Austin when a girl he met, an ordinary cheer-leader, two fingers raised Longhorn Texas girl, who was looking to break-out of that debutante Texas thing, let him crash on her floor (that is the way Billy wants that little story told anyway). Or when that Volkswagen bus, that blessed Volkswagen bus stopped for him just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in, as Thomas Wolfe called them, one of the square western states that he now still finds himself imprisoned in, and it was like old times until they got to Red Rock where they wanted to camp for a while (hell, they were probably still there but he needed to move on, move on ocean west).



But Red Rock was more than some old time hippie community, including passing the dope freely. Red Rock was where he met Running Bear Smith, who claimed to be a full Apache but who knows(and where did the Smith part come in).Now Running Bear was full of mystery, full of old-time stories about the pride of the dog soldiers, about his ancestors, about the fight against the ravages and greed of the white man. And about the shamanic ceremonial that he learned from his grandfather (his father had been killed, killed in some undisclosed manner when he was very young, about three), about dancing with the spirits of by-gone days, and dancing he added, or Billy added, under the influence of communion wafer peyote buttons. Several days ago, or rather nights, just a few days before he encamped in this broken down jungle Running Bear and he had “walked with the ‘Thunder Gods,’” as Running Bear described it. Billy described it somewhat differently, after the buttons took effect, and Running Bear stoked the camp fire with additional wood to make a great blazing flame that jumped off the wall of the cavern adjacent to where they were camping out. The shadows of the flames made “pictures” on the cavern walls, pictures that told a story, told Billy a story that one man could fight off many demons, could count later on many friends coming to his aid, and that the demons could be vanquished. Was that the flame story or the buttons, or Billy’s retort to Joyel? All he knew was that Running Bear’s “magic” was too strong for him and he began “smelling”the ocean some several hundred miles away. Time to leave, time to get to Gallup down the road, and the hobo jungle wait for the ride on the rails.



Just then, just as he was closing accounts on the past several weeks by remembering his reactions on entering this ill-disposed jungle that was in no way like the friendly, brotherly, sisterly Volkswagen encampment at Red Rock, old-time stew ball “Wyoming Coyote” yelled, yelled almost in his ear, although Billy knew that he was not yelling at him personally, but that the Southern Pacific was coming through at 4:00AM. The Southern Pacific going clear through to Los Angeles. Billy’s heart pounded. Here he was on the last leg of his journey west, he would be in L.A. by tomorrow night, or early the next morning at the latest. But the heart-pounding was also caused by fear, fear of that run to catch that moving freight train boxcar just right or else maybe fall by the wayside.



This was no abstract fear, some childhood mother-said-no fear, but real enough. On the way down from Chicago, after being enthralled by the gypsy davies talk of “riding the rails” he had decide that he needed to try it out first in order to make sure that he could do it, do it right when a train was moving. Sure he had caught a few trains before but that was always in the yards, with the trains stationary, and anyway as a child of the automobile age, unlike most of the denizens of the jungle he was more comfortable on the hitchhike road than the railroad. So, as practice, he had tried to catch an Illinois Central out of Decatur about a half-mile out just as the train started to pick up steam but before it got under full steam and was not catchable. He ran for it, almost didn’t make it, and cursed, cursed like hell those coffin nails that he smoked, and swore to give them up. So he was afraid, righteously afraid, as he fell asleep.



At 3:30AM someone jolted Billy out of his sleep. He woke with a start fearing someone was trying to rob him, or worst, much worst in a grimy jungle camp trying to sexually assault him, some toothless, piss-panted old drunken geezer caught up in some memory fog. Damn, it was only San Antonio Slim shaking him to wake him up for the Southern Pacific coming, just in case it came a little early, although according to the jungle lore it came on time, with maybe a minute or so off either way. Billy asked for a cigarette and Slim rolled him a choice Bull Durham so smartly that Billy blinked before he realized what Slim had produced. He lit up, inhaled the harsh cigarette smoke deeply, and started to put his gear quickly in order, and give himself a little toilet as well. Suddenly Slim yelled out get ready, apparently he could hear the trains coming down the tracks from several miles away. Nice skill.



The few men (maybe seven or eight) who were heading west that night (not, by the way, Slim he was waiting on a Phoenix local, or something like that maybe, thought Billy, a Valhalla local) started jogging toward the tracks, the tracks no more than one hundred yards from the jungle. The moon, hidden for most of the night under cloud cover, made an appearance as the sound of the trains clicking on the steel track got louder. Billy stopped for a second, pulled something from his back pocket, a small weather-beaten picture of Joyel and him taken in Malibu a few years before in sunnier days, and pressed it into his left hand. He could now see the long-lined train silhouetted against the moonlit desert sands. He started running a little more quickly as the train approached and as he looked for an open boxcar. He found one, grabbed on to its side for all he was worth with one hand then with the other and yanked himself onto the floor rolling over a couple of times as he did so. Once he settled in he again unclasped his left hand and looked, looked intensely and at length, at the now crumbled and weather-beaten picture focusing on Joyel’s image. And had Joyel thoughts, hard-headed Joyel thoughts in his head “riding the rails” on the way to the city of angels.

***A Master Of The American Historical Novel- Gore Vidal's 1876 (Hail To The Thief)

BOOK REVIEW

Hail To The Thief

1876: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1976

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible.

That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the late old bourgeois historical novelist and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics were somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period (I don’t think he ever got over being related to Jacqueline Kennedy) he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

After the events of the recent past it may not be inappropriate to look back to an earlier time when another presidential election was seriously in dispute. No, not the hanging chads of Florida in 2000 but the granddaddy of bourgeois electoral boondoggles with the Electoral College victory (but not popular vote) of Ohio Governor Rutherfraud B. Hayes over Governor Samuel Tilden of New York in 1876. Vidal, as is his style, combines fictional characters with the makings and doings of real characters who brought the American experience to the brink of another 'civil war' just shortly after the end of the truly bloody one that preserved the union and abolished slavery in 1865. He does this by using a literary man, a long time American expatriate journalist (who else, right?) the fictional Charles Schuyler to narrate the scenes (and who also narrated Vidal's novel Burrback in the early part of the 19^th century). To add motive to his literary efforts and carry the story line along, dear Charles, is desperate for Governor Tilden to win the presidency so that he can return to Europe in some style as an American ambassador to France under a Tilden administration.

Along the way brother Schuyler (and his noble, but penniless, widowed daughter Emma) brings into focus the beginnings of the dominance of the “robber barons”, up close and personal, that we have heard about from our high school history tests, during the last part of the 19th century. Interestingly, this novel is populated with plenty of characters who came of political age during the immediate Civil War period and who populated the Lincoln administration or the various Union military commands of the Civil War period. Gone are those political figures like Seward, Chase and obviously Lincoln who actually led that political fight. This is the age of the upstart General Grant, for better or worst.

This is, moreover, a period that had more than its fair share of political graft and boondoggles. Seemingly half the book is spend explaining why some politician be he a Grant Administration official, Roscoe Conkling, James Blaine or some other ‘angel of mercy’ should not be behind bars. Today’s politicians seem tame compared to these giants of out-front, in-your-face corruption. In the end, one is not really surprised when the America presidency goes on sale to the highest bidder- it’s just another day of politics. All of this with the American Centennial celebration as a backdrop. Fortunately Vidal tells this tale with some wit and some kind of hope that all will work out for the best- in short this American Republic the “last, best hope of mankind” will muddle through. Remember the 2000 presidential election though as a sobering thought about how far we have not come. That undemocratic but decisive Electoral College is still there, for starters. More on Vidal’s works later.

***Out Of The Be-Bop Retro-Jazz Age 2000s Night- Woody Allen’s “Midnight In Paris”

DVD Review

Midnight In Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Rachael McAdams, written and directed by Woody Allen, Sony Picture Classics, 2011
Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda (no last name needed for Jazz Age aficionados, right?), Cole Porter, T.S. Eliot, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, hell even Djuana Barnes are names from the Jazz Age and the American post- World War I expatriate night that get bandied about in Woody Allen’s 2011 comedic effort, Midnight In Paris. There were plenty of other names dropped as well but the above popped out in memory’s eye and serve my point. This film is a paean to that by-gone age just far enough back for Woody (and me) to not have been splashed by the Jazz Age karma but wishing, wishing like crazy, we could have lived at that time –in that city, Paris, and been washed by the spectacular antics and struggles that went on there to create a modern literary and cultural world. And in the end that is Woody’s point, as he has one of his throw-back jazz Age characters pine for an even earlier time- the last quarter of the 19th century-La Belle Epogue. Nice spin, Woody.

But to the plot that brings this whole thing together in a magic realistic way and without being too ham-handed on the “moral”. Woody (oops) Gil (played with some Woody-like physical and expressive mannerism by Owen Wilson) is a thoroughly modern frustrated Hollywood screenwriter who yearns to write the great American novel, or at least something other than the drivel that passes for language in most of his screenwriting. He and his fiancée, Inez (played by Rachael McAdams), are in Paris on a lark before getting married. Gil loves Paris, his version of Paris, the Paris of the American ex –pat 1920s Jazz Age when the great creative spirits of the early 20th century held forth and lit up the cultural post-war wasteland night. Inez is a little, no, a lot more bourgeois, and just wants Gil to keep making the kale so they can afford that high-end La-La land lifestyle. This will not be a match made in heaven, no question.

Gil though through cinematic magical realism finds his way back to the Paris of the 1920s around midnight each night and from there is able to find his true self, or what he thinks is his true self. Naturally a women (Pablo Picasso’s, mistress, or one of them) is there to goad him along but also to pose the question about what craving for earlier unattainable times mean. In the end Gil is “liberated” from Inez (she was two-timing him anyway with some pedantic prof) and can walk the rainy 2010s streets of Paris and really make his literary breakthrough. This is one of Woody’s better recent efforts. Proof. A person whom I respect very much as a cinematic aficionado said this is the first Woody Allen film that she could sit through to the end and wish that it didn’t end. High praise indeed.

On The Anniversary Of The Bolshevik Revolution- The Great 20^th Century Revolutionary Leon Trotsky 

 

Markin comment:

Below this general introduction is another addition to the work of creating a new international working class organization-a revolutionary one fit of the the slogan in the headline.

Markin comment (repost from September 2010):

Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
**********
The Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist Movement by the Editors of Fourth International-New York, November 16-19, 1944
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Written: November 16, 1944.
First Published:November, 1944
Source:Fourth International, New York, December 1944, Vol. 5, No. 12, pages 356-60
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido and David Walters, December, 2005
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskism On-Line, 2006. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the address of this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.

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With clenched fists upraised and defiant voices confidently singing the International , 400 delegates and visitors closed the four day convention of the Socialist Workers Party held November 16-19 in New York City. This was the Eleventh Convention in the sixteen-year history of the American Trotskyist movement. A number of unique features make this national gathering outstanding.

This was the second convention since Leon Trotsky, founder and inspirer of the world Trotskyist movement, was murdered by one of Stalin’s hired assassins. It was the second convention since we were deprived of the genius of Trotsky’s Marxist appraisal and analysis of world events, his wise counsel, his inspiring leadership. In addition, we were deprived at this convention of the guidance and participation of the outstanding leaders of the American Trotskyist movement. As a consequence of a conspiracy hatched by Roosevelt and Tobin in the summer of 1941, they were put behind prison bars on the eve of U. S. entry into the war.

The convention was, therefore, expressive of a double test the party has undergone: the testing of the party’s temper under conditions of capitalist persecution; the testing of the party cadres, their ability to carry forward the work of the party in the absence of the imprisoned leadership and to supply the necessary ideological and organizational guidance to the vanguard movement for the Socialist liberation of mankind.

How the party met this test was summarized in the Organization Report to the convention by Comrade Stein, Acting National Secretary, as follows:

“The imprisonment of our 18 comrades confronted the party with its most serious test. Included among the prisoners were the outstanding leaders of the party—its National Secretary, Labor Secretary, Chairman of the National Committee, editors of the press, New York organizer, Minneapolis organizer, and others—all comrades with many years of experience in the revolutionary movement behind them. Comrades who occupied key posts in the party organization and in its leadership. By striking this blow at us the conspirators in Washington hoped to paralyze our will and our ability to struggle. They calculated that this imprisonment would not merely decapitate the party, but also terrorize it.

“But they failed to accomplish their purpose, by our tenacity and hard work we frustrated the aims of Roosevelt, Tobin and Co. We turned the blow of the imprisonment into a party victory. The Minneapolis case—the imprisonment of the 18—symbolized our party banner. We raised it high as the banner of uncompromising Trotskyist struggle against capitalism, against imperialist war, and for a socialist society. This was no banner for faint-hearts and cowards to flock to. But many revolutionary militants did rally to this banner and joined our party. Our recruitment has been greater since the imprisonment than in any comparative previous period.

“How and why was this possible?

“Because we’ve always been entirely free of illusions about capitalism and what it has in store for us. The imprisonment did not come as an unexpected blow. What has capitalism to offer a revolutionist except frame up and persecution? We knew this when we first came into the revolutionary movement. We knew this when we joined it to be participants in a life-and-death struggle. But we also knew that this fight is the only fight worth the sacrifice of one’s freedom and even one’s life.

“Our party was not caught unawares. Through years of preparatory work we steeled a cadre capable of assuming the responsible tasks of the imprisoned comrades and carrying on the work of the party with devotion and confidence. The substitute leadership did not come out of nowhere. They are no apparatus appointees. They are all comrades who have distinguished themselves by their work in the revolutionary movement for many years. They were not imposed upon the party but came into their positions naturally, as a matter of course. And this is how the party accepted them, placing full confidence in the substitute leadership and displaying a magnificent spirit of cooperation. Not for a moment was there the least sign of jitteriness or panic in the party ranks following the imprisonment. The party as a whole remained steadfast throughout and confident of its own strength and ability to carry on.

“The substitute leadership was assembled from various parts of the country. A number of the comrades in the substitute leadership hardly knew each other except that they had met at national party gatherings every now and then. Very few of us had had the opportunity of working together for any period of time. But we were united by a common program, which is the firmest of all bonds. We were united in the determination to demonstrate to the whole world the vitality of our party. We were united by the common training we had received in the same school of Bolshevism. That is why we could work so harmoniously, not only when there was unanimity on questions, but also whenever differences arose over policy or tactics.

“We were always mindful of our responsibility to the party and to the world Trotskyist movement, a responsibility which demanded that differences be resolved in a democratic way by majority vote rather than by the method of factional struggle, personal recriminations, etc. In a word, we functioned in the true spirit of a collective leadership where the collectivity gives greater strength and greater wisdom to each individual. This is, after all, the true meaning of the Bolshevik party. It is only through the party that a worker finds strength and capacity to struggle, that he finds the wisdom with which to carry on his struggle most ably and most successfully.”

Temper of Convention

The temper of the convention, evident from the first session, was likewise reflected in the attendance figures. While the regular delegates representing the branches throughout the country numbered only 56, with 24 alternate delegates, in addition to the New York visitors some 250 comrades came, on their own slender resources and despite transportation difficulties, from states as distant as California, Washington, Minnesota, etc., thus demonstrating their devotion to the party.

Conventions are the truest expression, in a concentrated form, of the party’s actual condition. This is certainly true of the Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist movement which was, in this sense, a demonstration of a young, vigorous, serious party whose enthusiastic membership is rooted in the country’s basic mass production industries.

The party activists gathered to draw a balance sheet of the work done during the two years that had elapsed since the previous convention; hard work which produced some not inconsiderable achievements. They had worked with might and main to rouse the labor movement against the threat of the Smith “Gag” Act and in behalf of the 18 who were the first to be railroaded to the penitentiary under this infamous law. As a result some 400 trade unions, Negro organizations and other labor and fraternal bodies representing approximately 4,000,000 workers came to the support of the Civil Rights Defense Committee in its struggle to free the 18 and to revoke the Smith “Gag” Law.

Through the unflagging efforts of the party membership, The Militant was enlarged from four to six pages, and circulated among ever broader layers of worker-readers and subscribers. Equally widespread was the literature relating to the Minneapolis trial of the Trotskyist: Socialism on Trial , by James P. Cannon, a pamphlet containing his testimony at the trial; In Defense of Socialism , a pamphlet with Goldman’s speech for the defense; and Why We Are in Prison , with the farewell speeches of the defendants. These three excellent pamphlets, together with the CRDC pamphlet on the biographies of the 18, presented not only the record of this historic trial but the most timely type of literature for revolutionary Socialism that could be offered to militant workers. Through them tens of thousands of American proletarians have become familiarized with the case and the basic issues involved: Marxist opposition to imperialist war, the advocacy of revolutionary Socialism and the struggle for the establishment of the Workers and Farmers Government in the United States. These and other important achievements were recorded by the delegates to the Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist movement.

The convention met under the inspiration of achievement; armed with confidence and imbued with the awareness of great opportunities ahead. These opportunities are both explicit and implicit in the altered objective situation, this long-awaited change which is coming after the long, hard years of isolation amid triumphant reaction. It was during these years that the Trotskyist had prepared, persevered and girded themselves for action. The hour is now approaching when the viability and power of Trotskyism will be demonstrated under conditions working not against but in favor of the revolution. It was in this spirit that the convention proceeded to its first and main job, that of hammering out the political line for the period ahead.

International Standpoint

For Marxists this line is never nationalist but invariably internationalist in character. Marxists arrive at their political line on the basis of the closest, all-sided examination of the interplay of class forces on the world arena and in the light of the inner logic of the development of these forces. In the last analysis this is what determines the political tasks they set themselves, the slogans they raise, the immediate tactic they undertake, and so on. This, we repeat, was the point of departure for the convention. It started with an examination of the world situation.

Our confidence in the correctness of our program had never for a moment faltered. Our program had been vindicated time and again, but, unfortunately, hitherto only in the negative. That is to say, the workers led by the traditional parties of the Second and Third Internationals were made to suffer defeat upon catastrophic defeat in one country after another. Each time the workers paid a terrible price for the successive defeats because their treacherous leaders departed from the program of revolutionary Marxism, trampling underfoot their false pledges to lead the fight for Socialism. Thanks to Social Democratic and Stalinist misleader-ship and sellouts, capitalism was given another breathing spell and was enabled to temporarily reestablish its equilibrium in society.

But so decrepit, so thoroughly rotten is this system that it could do nothing with this new lease on life, this borrowed time, but to plunge the peoples of the world into another holocaust. No sooner had the internal convulsions of capitalism been overcome through fascist barbarism (as in Germany and 1taly) or by means of “People’s Front” treachery (as in France) or through a combination of both (as in Spain); no sooner was this accomplished than the inter-imperialist conflicts of the most violent nature commenced. And today, while these inter-imperialist conflicts have far from subsided, a new wave of internal convulsions is sweeping over the European continent; and on the morrow it will extend to the Orient, to England and the United States and throughout the whole world.

Shallow observers and would-be Marxists had predicted a new organic era of capitalist stabilization and development, and a new flowering of bourgeois democracy. In fact, this was precisely the avowed goal of the “People’s Fronts” in the prewar period. The war, and the events flowing from it, have shattered these opportunist illusions. Whence do these illusions arise? At the root of opportunism and all opportunist deviations is to be found, on the one hand, an overestimation of the strength and viability of the bourgeoisie in general, and of bourgeois democracy in particular; and on the other, the underestimation of the power, the creative ability, the initiative and fighting capacity of the working class.

All the countries which in the past year have been occupied by Allied troops in the wake of the defeated and retreating Nazi armies are now in the throes of a colossal revolutionary crisis.

Far from resolving the crisis of capitalism, the war has aggravated this crisis many times over. To the prewar reign of exploitation, misery, unemployment and slow death has been added sudden death by the millions and the terrible devastation of war. What can the peoples of the world look, forward to under a continued rule of capitalism? Only to horror without end, as Lenin put it.

That is why it is universally acknowledged even by the capitalist press that the European masses desire a decisive change and are groping for such a change; they are seeking the revolutionary way out of the bloody blind-alley of capitalism. Only that party which is able to offer them a bold and realizable program for the revolutionary transformation of society, and lead them to the broad highway toward Socialism will in the end gain the confidence of the masses and conquer the leadership of the movement. This is the motivation of the international resolution submitted to and adopted by the 1944 Convention of the Socialist Workers Party by a vote of 51 to 5. The text of this resolution: European Revolution and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Party appears in this issue of Fourth International.

Convention Minority

The convention minority which took issue with this resolution had its origin at the party plenum of October 1943, where a dispute arose over the plenum resolution (for the full text of the latter, see December 1943 Fourth International ). Comrade Morrow’s article, likewise published in this issue, was written in criticism of the plenum resolution. Contained in it are three main flaws:

1) The contention that American imperialism is less predatory in character than German imperialism; that “this difference between the two great imperialisms aspiring to subjugate Europe is based on the difference in the economic resources of the two”; and that therefore “it is quite false” to refer to them as “equally predatory.”

2) From this appreciation of the “less predatory” character of American imperialism Morrow proceeds to construct his theory that the European masses will in the period ahead fall prey to illusions centering around the character and role of US imperialism. He contends that these illusions will persist because:

Unlike Nazi occupation, American occupation will be followed by improvement in food supplies and in the economic situation generally. Where the Nazis removed factory machinery and transportation equipment, the Americans will bring them in. These economic contrasts... cannot fail for a time to have political consequences.

On this double foundation of a “short-time” improvement in European living standards and the consequent reinforcement of bourgeois-democratic illusions, Morrow greatly exaggerates the role of bourgeois democracy in Europe.

3) The contention that “the main danger within the Fourth International” lies “in the direction of ultra-leftism.”

The convention rejected as false from the standpoint of both theory and fact the contention relating to the “less predatory” role of American imperialism. This is false from an analysis of the relative roles of American and German capitalism, their motive force, their respective programs, aims, etc., as well as from the factual standpoint: Anglo-American occupation of Europe has brought a worsening and not an improvement in the conditions of the European masses. As the adopted resolution points out:

Today, the Allies under the hegemony of the Wall Street plutocracy, enter Europe as the new imperialist overlords. For their part, they aim not to unify Europe; but to keep it Balkanized. The Allied imperialists do not desire the revival of European economy to a competitive level. On the contrary, the program of the Allies calls for the dismemberment of the continent to render impossible the revival of an economically strong Europe. Their program of dismemberment, despoliation and political oppression can only deepen Europe’s ruination. Allied occupation, as already demonstrated in Italy, spells not the mitigation of Europe’s catastrophic crisis, but its aggravation.

False Contentions

The convention rejected Morrow’s contention concerning the prospects of bourgeois democracy in Europe. Developments since the downfall of Mussolini have reinforced the party’s prognosis that the program of Anglo-American imperialism is so reactionary that the initial illusions of the masses concerning the intentions and plans of the Allied occupying authorities are swiftly dispelled by their own experiences. In other words, the crisis in Europe is so catastrophic in nature that bourgeois democratic illusions can find no fertile soil. This is further attested to by the recent events in France, Italy, Belgium and Greece. Viewing the process dialectically, the resolution states:

Bourgeois democracy, which flowered with the rise and expansion of capitalism and with the moderation of class conflicts that furnished a basis for collaboration between the classes in the advanced capitalist countries, is outlived in Europe today. European capitalism, in death agony, is torn by irreconcilable and sanguinary class struggles.

Implicit in Morrow’s criticism and in the position of the convention minority is an exaggerated appraisal of the role of bourgeois democracy, its potentialities, etc., in the next period. The party resolution gives the following correct estimate:

Bourgeois democratic governments can appear in Europe only as interim regimes, intended to stave off the conquest of power by the proletariat. When the sweep of the revolution threatens to wipe out capitalist rule, the imperialists and their native accomplices may attempt, as a last resort to push forward their Social Democratic and Stalinist agents and set up a democratic regime for the purpose of disarming and strangling the workers’ revolution. Such regimes, however, can only be very unstable, short-lived and transitional in character. They will constitute a brief episode in the unfolding of the revolutionary struggle. Inevitably, they will be displaced either by the dictatorship of the proletariat emerging out of the triumphant workers’ revolution or the savage dictatorship of the capitalists consequent upon the victory of the counter-revolution.

The convention rejected the contention that ultra-leftism is the main danger within the international Trotskyist movement. Such a prognosis is borne out neither by the history of the proletarian revolutionary movement, nor by an analysis of the causes underlying either ultra-leftist or opportunist deviations in the revolutionary movement, nor by a concrete examination of the various sections of the Fourth International.

Comrade Logan’s criticisms of the draft resolution, which were likewise rejected by the convention, are in essence an elaboration of Morrow’s views. (Comrade Logan’s article will appear in our next issue.) Logan fails to take cognizance of Morrow’s estimate of the role of American imperialism; he does not say whether he accepts or rejects it, but goes on instead to repeat and even multiply all the other errors of the Morrow position. Whereas Morrow at least made an effort to supply an economic foundation (false though it is) for his exaggerated estimation of the role of bourgeois democracy in Europe, Logan simply ignored this decisive aspect of the problem, as if it had no bearing at all on a Marxist prognosis and the tasks ahead.

Nothing could be more false than to attempt, as do Morrow and Logan, to characterize the convention resolution as “ritualistic” or “over-optimistic.” The resolution clearly states:

We cannot anticipate how long the revolutionary process will take. That will be decided only in the struggle. The European revolution is not to be viewed as one gigantic apocalyptic event, which will with one smashing blow finish with capitalism. The European revolution will probably be a more or less drawn out process with initial setbacks, retreats and possibly even defeats. The might of the Anglo-American imperialists and the Kremlin oligarchy, and their joint plans of counter-revolution represent only one side of the European situation. Far more decisive is the other side: the continued disintegration of capitalism, the inexhaustible resources of the European proletariat and the power of the European revolution. There is absolutely no foundation for pessimistic conclusions.

That is, the resolution declares:

There are no blueprints on how to make a revolution. We do have, however, the program, the strategy and tactics which brought victory to the Russian Revolution. These need to be mastered and correctly applied. What is necessary now is to organize the party and plunge into battle!

This isn’t “ritualism” nor “over-optimism; this is revolutionary realism.

The Morrow-Logan criticisms as a whole along with the proposed Logan amendments were overwhelmingly rejected by the convention.

The Soviet Union

The convention reviewed the Trotskyist position on the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state, and its defense against all imperialist attacks. The convention adopted a shift in emphasis in the slogans to be advanced in the next period. The altered relationship of forces in which the Soviet Union now finds itself, thanks to the victories of the Red Army, and the shift in objective conditions have brought sharply to the fore the problems and tasks of the European revolution which today take precedence over all others and make it mandatory for the party to place full emphasis on the slogan: Defend The European Revolution Against All Its Enemies! In the words of the resolution:

Throughout the period when the Nazi military machine threatened the destruction of the Soviet Union, we pushed to the fore the slogan: Unconditional Defense of the Soviet Union against Imperialist Attack . Today the fight for the defense of the Soviet Union against the military forces of Nazi Germany has essentially been won. Hitler’s “New Order in Europe” has already collapsed. The present reality is the beginning of the European revolution, the military occupation of the continent by the Anglo-American and Red Army troops, and the conspiracy of the imperialists and the Kremlin bureaucracy to strangle the revolution. We therefore push to the fore and emphasize today that section of our program embodied in the slogan: Defense Of The European Revolution Against All Its Enemies! The defense of the European revolution coincides with the genuine revolutionary defense of the USSR.

The Soviet Union is today more than ever confronted with the sharp alternative: Forward to Socialism or Backward to Capitalism . The present transition period cannot long endure. We, mindful of the counter-revolutionary role of the Kremlin bureaucracy both inside and outside of the Soviet Union, remain ever vigilant to all developments in the Soviet Union. Our policy of unconditional defense of the Soviet Union against imperialist attack retains all its validity, however, while the nationalized property relations remain. The struggle for the preservation of the fist workers’ state remains an essential task of the world proletariat. We fulfill this task by working to develop and heighten the European revolution and to secure its victory.

In adopting the line of the resolution, and, conversely by rejecting the line implicit in the Morrow-Logan criticisms, the convention assured the party that compass without which it is impossible to chart a revolutionary course in the period ahead. Today, more than ever before, mankind is confronted pointblank with the choice of two historic paths: Either regression into barbarism, or advancement through Socialism. There is only one way forward. That leads through the establishment of the Socialist United States of Europe as a stage toward the formation of the World Socialist Federation.

The convention, after thoroughly discussing the resolution as well as the minority criticisms, placed its seal of approval upon the resolution by an overwhelming vote. The discussion, which culminated in the convention, was extremely broad in scope. For more than two months, in keeping with the traditions of fullest democracy within the party, especially during pre-convention periods, the party membership carried on a concentrated discussion of all the issues involved; the various points of view were presented in articles published in eleven internal bulletins, as well as orally at local, branch, and general membership meetings. The party thus arrived at its definitive judgment after a full and thorough debate, closing the issues in dispute.

By unanimous vote the convention passed the following motion:

“ l) The Political (International) Resolution of the National Committee having been adopted by the Convention by a vote of 51 to 5, after a free, democratic discussion in the party ranks, the press and all public activities of the Party must strictly conform to the convention decisions.

“2) The discussion may at the discretion of the National Committee be continued in the internal bulletin.”

In these pages we begin publication of the main documents of the convention on the European questions in order to familiarize our readers at home and abroad with the disputed questions and the convention discussions. The next issue of Fourth International will carry additional material.

After settling the line of the party on the international field, the convention next took up the problems of the American scene. The resolution on United States and The Second World War , supplemented by a report on the Negro question and the discussion revolving around them, occupied the entire sessions during the second day of the convention. This resolution and the report on the Negro question were unanimously adopted. Exigencies of space prevent the publication of the American resolution in this issue. Its text will appear in the January 1945 issue of Fourth International .

The Party Expansion Program

The revolutionary struggles in Europe and their inevitable reverberations, the increasing discontent and restlessness of the American workers, provoked by the capitalist masters and their war, expressed most recently by the struggle to rescind the no-strike pledge and by the rising sentiments in favor of an independent labor party—eloquent harbingers of the coming radicalization and politicization of the American masses—motivated the convention’s adoption of a rounded program for an expansion of SWP activities.

The convention proposed that The Militant be enlarged to eight pages as soon as practicable; and increase its circulation to 50,000, through a series of subscription campaigns. Furthermore, the subscription price of The Militant is to be reduced to $1 a year. Concurrently, the convention decided to expand the organizing activities of the party. Likewise to be increased is the party’s publishing activity, the issuance of books by Trotsky along with a series of popular pamphlets on timely topics, and similar material.

The convention took cognizance of the need of a systematized educational program in view of the party’s growth, the influx of recruits without previous political affiliation and the new and greater tasks ahead. To this end, it was decided to establish a new system of education of the party membership—the Trotsky School System—which as Comrade Stein reported: “would take care of the Marxist educational requirements of the new recruits, promising candidates for leadership and all the categories in between.” The National Educational Department has been established. With its aid the educational work of the branches will be guided and coordinated. As part of the educational program a National Training School will be organized next summer.

In its miseducation and deception capitalism has at its command the best brains money can buy. It is helped in addition by the petty-bourgeois confusionists of all schools including the self-styled “Marxists” of reformist and centrist varieties. The revolutionary party must carry on an increasing and unceasing ideological struggle for its program, for its policies, for its philosophy. The membership as well as the leadership must be trained as revolutionary Marxists who know how to fight in the class struggle, to fight not only with physical courage and power, but also with the sharpest ideological weapons.

To finance the program of expansion the convention authorized the raising of an $18,000 Party Expansion Fund. This sum was set because it is realizable and, moreover, because it symbolizes the imprisonment of our 18 comrades and the party’s reply to this attempt by Roosevelt and Co., to “behead our movement. This expansion program and the $18,000 Party Expansion Fund will be the best possible welcome home for our comrades when they are released.

* * *

The Eleventh National Convention of the American Trotskyist is a great milestone in the growth and development of our movement. It marks the long distance traveled by the movement since its emergence from the American Communist Party in 1928 as a small, isolated and persecuted handful of pioneers. These pioneer Trotskyist began their work under conditions of capitalist reaction and at a time when the Second and Third Internationals held sway, with the Comintern, in particular, appearing in the eyes of workers as a revolutionary force. Thus both the objective and subjective conditions seemed to raise an impenetrable barrier between the revolutionary vanguard of the vanguard and the toiling masses.

This barrier is now breached. Both of these internationals have since collapsed under the impact of war. The “socialists” and Stalinists act as the avowed agencies of capitalism and the counter-revolution. The parties of the Fourth International are emerging from the war, unswervingly true to their revolutionary program. They stand out today as the only revolutionary parties in the world, the only parties fighting irreconcilably and audaciously for the Communist future of mankind. Under this banner of Trotskyism the SWP convention met, deliberated and adopted its great decisions. Under this banner the Socialist Workers Party continues its march forward.

 

 

The Great Divide-The Class Struggle in America, Part I- The Studs Terkel Interview Series

Book Review

The Great Divide: Second Thoughts On The American Dream, Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of The Great Divide serves a dual purpose because not only is the book a rather remarkable work of oral history but also serves as political prognosis about the emergence of a trend in the American working class in the late 1980's toward downward mobility and the abandonment of the "American Dream" as a harbinger of things that have come to pass today, twenty years on. In short, with the exception of the then already decimated family farmer who is, sadly, not a factor today and the then rampant deindustrialization of Middle America that continues unabated, many of the interviews could have been done today, twenty years later.

Once again Studs Terkel is the master interviewer but I am still put off by the fact, as I was in "The Good War", of his rather bland and inadequate old New Deal political perspective, as much as a working class partisan as he might have been. Notwithstanding that shortcoming his reportage is, as usual, centered on ordinary working people, or those who came from that milieu. These are my kind of people. This is where I come from. These are people I want to know about, especially the Midwesterners and Chicagoans who dominate this book. Being from the East, although some of their life stories, to use the current favored term, "resonate" with me other values like ardent heartland-derived patriotism, admiration for the late President Ronald Reagan, strong religious values and inordinate respect for law and order do not. Terkel, to his credit, heard the particular musical cadence of their lives and wrote with some verve on the subject, especially that old Chicago melody he has embraced that I also noticed from my reading of "The Good War" (Musically, Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home, Chicago" fits the bill here, right?).

One thing that became apparent to me immediately after reading this book, and as is also true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. But, so be it.

What were Stud's preoccupations in this book? He clearly wanted to contrast the old Midwestern industrial blue collar values with the then emergence Yuppie values that were eroding that old sense of neighborly social solidarity. Moreover, he wanted to contrast various approaches to, let us call it, the need for spirituality as various religious experiments started to flourish (mainly, but not exclusively, varieties of Protestant fundamentalism) from the mega-mall churches to the lonely vigils of the Central American Sanctuary movement. Terkel gives full expression to the ambiguities of the Reagan years from the lassiz faire governmental deregulation (that we are now forced to cope with) to the various foreign policy initiatives, especially in Central America and against the Soviet Union. Also full expression to the failures of the 1960's to bring about dramatic progressive social change (a problem we still have to live down) leaving many participants bewitched and bewildered.


And what stories are being told here? Well, certainly this book is filled with interviews of the lives, struggles and fate of the rank and file blue collar workers displaced by "globalization" and the deindustrialization of America. A few stories of conflict between pro-union and anti-union forces (most dramatically in a husband and wife interview where they were on opposite sides of the class line in a long labor dispute, the husband being a "scab"). Several stories concern the quest for religious fulfillment in a world that has left more than its fair share of people isolated and bewildered by the rapid advances of technology without a commensurate sense of ownership. Many stories tell of the hard, hard life of the city, especially in "the projects", black and white. A few of the same kind of problems in the countryside, especially concerning the fate of the 'hillbillies', the people that I come from (on my father's side). All in all most stories will not seem alien to those who are struggling today to make sense of a world that they, after a quick look at their assets, surely do not own. Once again kudos to Studs for hitting the mother lode. Thanks, Brother Terkel.

Update about 'Petition to Free Lynne Stewart: Save Her Life - Release Her Now!' on Change.org

---

5,600 and counting! Individuals are reaching out to their friends, family and colleagues. Organizations are reaching out to their members. People throughout the world are joining together in the effort to free Lynne Stewart.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent this Cri de Coeur: “It is devastating, totally unbelievable. Is this in a democracy, the only superpower? I am sad. I will sign. Praying God’s blessings on yr efforts.”
+Desmond Tutu

Pete Seeger declared: “Lynn Stewart should be outa jail!” on a postcard signed “old Pete Seeger” accompanied by a drawing of his banjo.

Your outpouring of support has lifted Lynne’s spirits as she undergoes the ravaging effects of chemotherapy. On March 20, she sent this message to each and every one of you from her seven-person cell in the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas:

“I want you, individually, to know how gratifying and happy it makes me to have your support. It is uplifting, to say the least, and after a lifetime of organizing it proves once again that the People can rise.

“The acknowledgement of the life-political, and solutions brought about by group unity and support, is important to all of us. Equally, so is the courage to sign on to a demand for a person whom the Government has branded with the ‘T’ word — Terrorist. Understanding that the attack on me is a subterfuge for an attack on all lawyers who advocate without fear of Government displeasure, with intellectual honesty guided by their knowledge and their client’s desire for his or her case, I hope our effort can be a crack in the American bastion. Thank you.” — Lynne

Lynne Stewart devoted over 30 years of her life to helping others as a criminal defense lawyer. She defended the poor, the disadvantaged and those targeted by the police and the State. Such had been her reputation as a fearless lawyer, ready to challenge those in power, that judges assigned her routinely to act for defendants whom no attorney was willing to represent.

Now Lynne Stewart needs our urgent help or she may die in prison. Our determination can compel the Bureau of Prisons to file the motion for compassionate release that will free Lynne Stewart.

Check out the Justice for Lynne Stewart website www.lynnestewart.org to view the signatories (up to 03/31/13), the postcard from Pete Seeger, Archbishop Tutu’s message as well as Lynne Stewart’s letter back to him, and much more.

Remind your friends to sign the petition and to disseminate it to others. Ask each person to get five people to sign, and each of those five to ask five people of their own. In five stages, you will have reached another 3,000 people!

Ralph Poynter

This message was sent by Ralph Poynter using the Change.org system. You received this email because you signed a petition started by Ralph Poynter on Change.org: "Petition to Free Lynne Stewart: Save Her Life - Release Her Now!." Change.org does not endorse contents of this message.
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***Ancient dreams, dreamed-Valentines Can’t Buy Her, Can They- Magical Realism 101

Who knows when the endless walks started. Peter Paul’s endless walks. Maybe it was something as simple as not having, really his parents not having, a car, a reliable car in the 1950s golden age of automobile, American automobile fin-tail night. All such Markin vehicles, when there was motor transportation around, and in the early days he had memory-think of his father traipsing out of the house, lunch bucket in hand, to catch, although usually to wait to catch, the first morning public bus more often than not, always looked like some Joad- mobile breaking down on some Route 66 (really Route 6 but Route 66 spoke of great American West night adventures) dust blow-out road waiting on some stranger’s kindnesses to sent Tom into some godforsaken Western plains town for water , battery, or some spare part. Yes, now that he thought about it Peter thought it was just like the Joad’s except no family heirlooms hanging from the rafters.

Names like Studebaker, Nash Rambler, and Plymouth (not the new, sexy tail-fin ones but some box thing that grinded along sputtering to high heavens and smelling of oils, grease and always, always some foul unnamed smell that only went away when the car was properly fixed). And see too Peter had no driving mother, no car-driving mother when there was a car around. No Mom to take him here and there, or just for some new view of the world. All such new views depended on the clunker, and his father’s ability to keep it on the road while a carping wife and three screaming boys in the backseat tried his patience more than any Daytona 500 driver ever had to face.

So mishmash memories of endless waits for early morning, not as early as his father but early, because there was no midday transport, and late afternoon public buses filled his heart with terror. Terror that he would always be stuck in “the projects” waiting on some late-arriving or just barely arriving Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway bus (always called just the bus, except when he wanted to curse, or what he later learned was a curse and paid in penance for the knowledge, when yet again it arrived too late for him to easily do whatever mission he was intent on doing). At times like that Peter Paul always thought about the time when he (and his brother, John James) were to make their first communion at five and six years old (Roman Catholic- style in case there are differences in the way it is done in other kinds of heathen churches, heathen then anyway) and clad in all white, Mom dressed as well as he ever remembered seeing her and Dad as well, although he always seemed ill at ease in fancy dress, had to wait an eternity for the bus and just barely, barely made it to the church. And then waited for an eternity for the bus to go have an out-of-the-house breakfast to celebrate this latest Christian victory. So he started walking, walking that endless walk.


Peter Paul established a certain fixed route to his walks not so much because he was enthralled by the idea of an established route, or because he had some idea even that it was fixed as much as “the projects”, which were located on an isolated old time farm land peninsula near the bay, had only one road out (one asphalt-covered road, rutted even then, although later he would “discover” shortcuts some of them Mother hair-raising, if she knew). And because he feared, feared to perdition, that if he varied his route he would get lost, the cops would have to bring him home and that would be the end of his endless walking since his walking was a motherless thing.

And see there was a certain practical necessity to Peter’s stealth as well because the mothers, even if just ragged projects mothers, had some kind of unexplained and unexpected league of mothers-“projects” divisions pledge, that they would raise a hue and cry if one of the kids seemed to be wandering too far from home. So the first part of the journey was always sneaking (usually) out the back door down the hill to the shoreline and around the bend about half a mile to reach that lonely road out. Along the way out he passed seemingly endless seawall-flanked sea streets, all granite slabs, leftovers from local granite quarries that gave the town its granite-etched, granite-sweated nickname. From there he could see shoreline-flashing rocks, wave broken shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat to the left as he slip-shot his way to the main road to the town center.

Most days, most trips, he didn’t care how long it took as long as he was back by lunch, or supper depending on the time of day of his getaway. Today though, this day that forms the basis of the story that he told me one summer night after it was long over, and he had “forgotten” the incident until something, actually someone, made him think about it this old route was making hard the way, the path, okay, to uptown drug stores. See added in was a little rain, the tide was up, and he was running a little late. But he had to get his uptown business (that’s what he called it, what he always called it with a little smirk) done because his tomorrow was an important day. Although when he told me the day I yawned and wondered why all of a sudden this year of our lord 1956 it was urgent business.

Now the layout of our town’s uptown, like a lot of towns, is a couple of streets of retail stores, a couple of places to eat, a few professional buildings, a movie theater (or two, depending on the town) some government buildings and so on. In short, boring. Except this day all Peter Paul’s focus was on the largest drugstore in town (and for a long time the only one), Rexall’s Drugstore. Why? Don’t laugh, or just a little. Peter Paul, sweating a little from his exertions even on this raw winter day, needed, desperately needed, to get some Valentine’s Day cards. Ya, I know I started to yawn again too.

See all of a sudden this winter Peter Paul started noticing girls in his fifth grade class, and started kind of find them interesting, kind of. Kind of except when they started giggling , collectively giggling, about nothing at all or started to tease him. Tease him not in a mean way like they did last year because he came from the projects, and he didn’t have a father car, and he walked everywhere but blush tease him be because well because, they found him kind of interesting, kind of. And that kind of interesting them and that kind of interesting him were on a collision course.


Like a lot of guys, young guys and old, when girls are in play, Peter Paul kind of went overboard. See, he “promised” about five of these used-to-be-giggling and mean girls, that they would be his valentine. Exclusively. He explained to me how it happened but I don’t want you to yawn any more than you have to so I will just skip it. Besides it sounded (and still sounds) goofy since some of the girls knew each other and some, I think, already had “boyfriends” or what passes for boy friends in fifth grade. Kid’s stuff, yes, kid’s stuff. So he had to hightail it up to Rexall’s with no money really and try to work his “magic”.

And he did. Sending (or presenting in person) each a Rexall’s Drug Store, heist-stolen valentine, ribbon and bow valentine night bushel load, signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, if only she, five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would only give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet. Jesus.

*** Another Look By Ernest Hemingway At The Spanish Civil War

Book Review

THE FIFTH COLUMN AND 49 OTHER STORIES, ERNEST HEMNGWAY, P.F. COLLIER&SON, NEW YORK, 1950
I have written reviews of many of Ernest Hemingway’s major novels elsewhere in this space. I have reviewed his major novel on the Spanish Civil War For Whom the Bells Toll, as well. Here I review a short play of his concerning that same event. This play is the main item of interest for me in an anthology that also includes his first 49 short stories. I will make a few minor comments on them at the end. However, here I wish to address the main issue that drives the play, The Fifth Column. I believe that this is fitting in the year of the 76th anniversary of the Barcelona May Days-the last chance to save the Spanish Revolution.

The main action here concerns the actions, manners, and love life of a seemingly irresolute character, Phillip, in reality is a committed communist who has found himself wrapped up intensely in the struggle to fight against Franco’s counter-revolution. His role is to ferret out the fifth columnists that have infiltrated into Madrid for intelligence/sabotage purposes on behalf of the Franco forces in the bloody civil war that was shaking Republican Spain. The term “fifth column” comes from the notion that not only the traditional four columns of the military are at work but a fifth column of sympathizers who are trying to destabilize the Republic. What to do about them is the central question of this, or any, civil war.

At the time there was some controversy that swirled around Hemingway for presenting the solution of summary executions of these agents as the correct way of dealing with this menace. I have questioned some of Hemingway’s political judgments on Spain elsewhere, particularly concerning the role of the International Brigades, but he is right on here. Needless to say, as almost always with Hemingway, a little love interest is thrown into the mix to spice things up. However, in the end, despite the criminal Stalinist takeover of the Spanish security apparatus and its counter-revolutionary role in gutting the revolutionary promise there this play presents a question all militants today need to be aware of.

49 short stories
I recently reviewed this same compilation of short stories in an edition that included the short play The Fifth Column that I was interested in discussing concerning the problem of spies and infiltrators from the Franco-led Nationalist side-and what to do about them- in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. This edition does not contain that play and therefore I can discuss the short stories on their own terms. Although Hemingway wrote many novels, most of which I have read at one time or another, I believe that his style and sparseness of language was more suitable to the short story. This compilation of his first forty-nine although somewhat uneven in quality, as is always the case with any writer, I think makes my point. In any case they contain not only some of his most famous short stories but also some of the best.

The range of subjects that interested Hemingway is reflected here, especially those that defined masculinity in his era. Included here are classics such as The Snows of Kilimanjaro about the big game hunt, The Killers- a short and pungent gangster tale that was made into a much longer movie much in the matter of his novel To Have Or Have Not, many of the youthful Nick Adams stories tracing his adventures from puberty to his time of service in World War I, stories on bullfighting- probably more than you will ever want to know about that subject but reflecting an aficionado’s appreciation of the art form, a few on the never-ending problems of love and its heartbreaks including a metaphorical one, reflecting the censorious nature of the times, on the impact of abortion on a couple’s relationship, and some sketches that were included in A Farewell to Arms. Well worth your time. As always Hemingway masterly wields his sparse and functional language to make his points. Again, as always read this man. This work is part of our world literary heritage. 

***OnThe Centenary Of His Birth- The King Of Post World War II Existentialism- Albert Camus’ Short Stories- “Exile And The Kingdom”

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the French existentialist novelist Albert Camus.

Book Review

Exile and the Kingdom, Albert Camus, Vintage Books, New York, 1957
When I was young and not partially wedded to any defined ideology or specific political perspective I was crazy to read, after Jack Kerouac’s be-bop beat books,* the books, especially the short stories of the existentialists and absurdists like Sartre and Camus. Especially, after a certain time, Camus with his dagger-point little bursts of recognizable absurdity about the situational ethics of living a “normal” life in the modern (now post-modern, maybe) world. The world for me after World War II when one the one hand we faced total extinction on any given day (and still do) and unprecedented opportunities to live ten, no, one hundred times better than previous generations.

That living better, if more dangerously, was at a cost though. The cost of being merged into some vast cauldron of moral indifference, moral vacuity, or worst, as Andre Gide was probe to harp on, immorality by putting on blinkers about the fates of the several billions other humans who inhabit the planet. That is the big picture though. What Camus excelled in with his relatively short novels, and here with the selection of short stories, was the dilemmas of confronting everyday life one person at a time- sometimes winning, sometimes losing and sometimes not being quite sure, that last being a fit category for much of modern existence.

In this little book we have describe for us unhappy wives, adulterous or not, mad men and men made mad under the Algerian desert sun , angry men who are lost in a world not of their making but also one in which they have very little say over, a man who tries to do right but in the end is overwhelmed by movements, historically important movements, who finds himself however on the wrong side of history through no fault of his own, an artist who knows fame and its fifteen minutes and non-fame and its eternity, and even a “happy” ending where a man does right in this wicked old world and does not get beat down for it. Although all of these stories took place and were written over one half century ago on my recent re-reading the dilemmas presented seemed very current, very current indeed. The king of the absurdist writers, Albert Camus, writes with verve all through this set. And you wonder why I was crazy to read his stories back in the day.

(*I was reading Jeanbon’s be-bop beat down, beat around, beatitude stuff partially out of affinity to our common mill town, his Lowell, mine Olde Saco, and French-Canadian heritage, if only to spite my mother, nee LeBlanc, who cursed his name every time she saw me bring one of his books into the family house. And if she had seen Sartre or Camus books she probably would have done the same to them although they were not mill town boys and not F-C.)

***Out In the 1930s Be-Bop Barrelhouse Blues Night- Memphis Minnie Is Front And Center-A CD Review

CD Review

Memphis Minnie, In My Girlish Days, 1991
One of the interesting facts about the development of the blues is that in the early days the recorded music and the bulk of the live performances were done by women, at least they were the most popular exponents of the genre. That time, the early 1920’s to the 1930’s was the classic age of women blues performers. Of course, when one thinks about that period the name that comes up is the legendary Bessie Smith. Beyond that, maybe some know Ethel Waters. And beyond that-a blank. Yet the blues singer under review, Memphis Minnie, probably had as a productive career as either of the above-mentioned names. And here is the kicker. If you were to ask today’s leading women blues singers like Bonnie Raitt or Maria Muldaur about influences they will, naturally, give the obligatory Bessie response, but perhaps more surprisingly will also praise Ms. Minnie to the skies.

This compilation, while not technically the best, will explain the why of the above paragraph. Minnie worked with many back-up players over the years, some good, some bad, but her style and her energy carried most of the production. She was the mistress of the double entendre so popular in old time blues- you know, or you better ask somebody, phrases like “put a little sugar in my bowl, ” and "bumble bee, bumble bee put your sting on me." The best of the bunch here are Bumble Bee, Down Home Girl and the classic In My Girlish Days. Listen on.