From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-On the Nature of Revolution-by Zheng Chaolin
 
BOOK REVIEW

PROBLEMS OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION, LEON TROTSKY, PATHFINDER PRESS, 1967

Recently I reviewed in this space Andre Malraux’s Man’s Fate, a novelistic treatment of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, that emphasized the problems at the base of Chinese society in its late phase after the popular front alliance with General Chiang Kai-Shek’s bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang broke down and Chiang began his extermination drive against the Chinese Communists. In Leon Trotsky’s book, under review here, we get a real time, real life analysis of the political questions that led to that catastrophe and what revolutionaries could learn from it.

I have noted elsewhere that the Communist International (hereafter Comintern) evolved in the mid-1920’s , under the impact of Stalinization, from a revolutionary organization that made political mistakes, sometimes grossly so, in pursuit of revolution to an organization that pursued anti-revolutionary aims as it turned primarily into an adjunct of Soviet foreign policy. Prima facie evidence for such a conclusion is the Soviet Communist Party /Commintern policy and its implementation toward the budding Chinese Revolution.

As much as policy toward the Chinese Revolution became a political football in the internal Russian Communist party fights between Stalin’s bloc and Trotsky’s bloc it is impossible to understand the strategy for the Chinese Revolution without an understanding of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. No Marxist, at least not openly and honestly, put forth any claim that in the West the national bourgeoisie could be a progressive force in any modern upheaval. Russia, in the early 20th century was, however, still a battleground over this question. This is where Trotsky formulated the advanced Marxist notion that in Russia the national bourgeoisie was too weak, too beholding to foreign capitalist interests and too dependent on the Czarist state and its hangers-on to fulfill the tasks associated with the classic bourgeois revolutions in the West. Thus, for Russia alone at that time Trotsky postulated that the working class had become the heirs of the revolutions in the West. The Revolution of 1905 gave a glimmer of understanding to that proposition and the Revolution of October 1917 cannot be understood except under that premise.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution the question of who would lead the revolutions of the countries even less developed that Russia, mainly colonial and semi-colonial regimes, formed one of the new political battlegrounds. And China was the first dramatic test that Trotsky’s originally Russia-only premise applied to underdeveloped ‘third world’ capitalist regimes, as well. However, unlike in Russia, this time Trotsky lost. The necessary independent organization of the working class and the political separation of the communist vanguard were not carried out and, to our regret, the Chinese Revolution was beheaded. As mentioned above this was a conscious Stalinist policy of kowtowing to Chiang by unequivocally ordering the Communist Party to make itself politically and militarily subservient to the Kuomintang as well as providing Comintern military advisers to Chiang.

Today, even a cursory look at countries of belated and uneven development emphasizes the fact that the various tasks associated with the Russian and Chinese Revolutions still need to be carried out. Thus, the political fights that wracked the international communist movement in the 1920’s which under ordinary circumstances would only be of historical interest today take on a more life and death meaning for many of the peoples of the world. That makes this book well worth the read.

I might add that there is a very interesting appendix at the end of this work detailing reports from the field filed by those Communist agents that carried out Comintern policy in China and who as a result of disillusionment with that policy had become oppositionists. These reports give added ammunition to Trotsky’s more theoretical arguments. They also give flesh and bones to the some of the points that Malraux was trying to bring out in Man’s Fate. Read on.

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

On the Nature of Revolution-by Zheng Chaolin 

From Revolutionary History, Vol.2 No.4, Spring 1990. Used by permission.

On the Nature of Revolution is an extract from an article published in the bulletin of the minority tendency of the Chinese Trotskyist movement, the Internationalist, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. The article was probably written by Zheng Chaolin who, together with Wang Fanxi, edited and wrote most of the articles for the bulletin. It began publication after the split from Peng Shuzi in the summer of 1941.

The split in the organisation was over their characterisation of the war of resistance against Japan and the revolutionaries’ attitude to Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership in the struggle. There were arguments over Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, the nature of the coming Third Chinese Revolution and its implications for the tasks of revolutionaries.

However, as the Chinese Trotskyist organisations at that time were mainly propagandist because of their size (approximately 400 in total), the disagreements were never tested in practice.

Zheng Chaolin (1901- ) joined the Chinese Communist Parts as early as 1922 while still in Paris, returning in 1924 to edit the party’s Hsiang-tao (Guide Weekly). During the Second Chinese Revolution he served on the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP. In 1929 he joined the Trotskyist movement, and represented the Proletarian Society at the unification of the Chinese Trotskyists in May 1931, where he was put in charge of propaganda, only to be arrested three weeks later by the Guomindang. He was not released until 1937. During the Sino-Japanese War he held the position that it was part of the coming world war, and that to support China against Japan would be tantamount to supporting American against Japanese imperialism. When the Chinese Trotskyists split in May 1941 he shared the publication work of the Internationalist group with Wang Fanxi. He was arrested by the Maoist secret police during the general round-up of the Trotskyists in 1952, and was kept in prison without trial until 1979. A gifted and brilliant translator, he was responsible for the appearance of many of the classic works of Marxism in the Chinese language.

The Trotskyist movement campaigned for years to secure the release of its martyrs in Chinese prisons. In 1974 Frank Glass and Peng Shuzi issued a pamphlet, Revolutionaries in Mao’s Prisons, and appeals for their release became increasingly frequent as the 1970s wore on (cf. InterContinental Press, 8 May 1972, 28 April 1975, 4 October 1976; Workers Vanguard, 28 February 1975; Chartist, December 1977). Particularly was this the case with Zheng, who might have been expected to have been treated more leniently after the utter discredit of Mao’s faction following his death (cf Gregor Benton, What Became of Cheng Chao-Lin? in Inprecor, new series no.18, December 1977, pp31-2, and in InterContinental Press, 28 November 1977). The survivors were finally released in 1979 (cf. Amnesty International Newsletter, Vol.ix, no.9, September 1979; Socialist Challenge, 23 August 1979; and Workers Vanguard, 12 October 1979), and fortunately Zheng Chaolin was among them (Gregor Benton, Trotskyist Leader Zheng Chaolin Released in China, in InterContinental Press, 1 October 1979).

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A tendency in the Chinese section of the Fourth International which holds the defencist (defence of China against Japanese occupation) position argued that, even though the leadership of the anti-Japanese war of resistance is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the struggle itself is a manifestation of the national liberation struggle, and, as the fight for national liberation is the main content of a bourgeois democratic revolution, it is a stage that cannot be skipped over on the road to a proletarian Socialist revolution. However, in order to distinguish themselves from the Stalinists’ position on the [forthcoming] Chinese revolution, they added that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois democratic revolution and the proletarian Socialist revolution.

We have discussed on many previous occasions, in concrete and factual terms rather than in theoretical terms, whether the anti-Japanese war of resistance can be considered as a struggle for national liberation. So we will not dwell on this question here. However, we need to examine another question, that is, whether the waging of a revolution for national liberation in China is a stage in a bourgeois democratic revolution. In other words, we need a broad discussion on the nature of revolutions.
Is a national revolution bourgeois democratic or proletarian Socialist? This question did not arise in the era of classic bourgeois democratic revolutions. The fact that this question is being posed points to the fact that we are talking about revolution in a backward country. Indeed, this question about the nature of national revolutions is being raised and discussed in many backward countries. Furthermore, we can observe a common feature in these revolutions – all reactionary policies are carried out with the excuse that ‘the national revolution is a bourgeois democratic revolution’.
We can begin with the Russian Revolution. From the outset, the Mensheviks had maintained that the Russian Revolution would be a bourgeois democratic revolution. They therefore supported the seizure of power by the party of the liberal bourgeoisie, the Cadets, whilst limiting themselves to being an opposition party and waiting for the right conditions for a Socialist revolution to develop in Russia. After the February Revolution, the ‘Old Bolsheviks’ also used the same excuse that the democratic tasks had not been fulfilled, and therefore the revolution must still be bourgeois democratic in nature. They opposed Lenin’s new line in the April Theses, and maintained their slogan of the ‘democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants’.
Let us turn to China. The Guomindang is not against all revolutions. It opposes only a proletarian Socialist revolution in China. Indeed, it massacred the worker and peasant masses in the name of ‘national revolution’ (that is a bourgeois democratic revolution in English). It was the Stalinist party that in 1927 suppressed the so-called ‘excesses’ of the peasants and workers, that refused to break with the Guomindang, that opposed the building of soviets, all based on the theory that ‘the Chinese revolution will be a bourgeois democratic revolution’. Ten years on, this party is still using this as a reason for following [Sun Yat-sen’s] ‘Three People’s Principles’ and accepting the leadership of the bourgeoisie.
At present, the defencists argue for support for the defence of the Chinese motherland [against the Japanese] on the basis that ‘the present stage of the Chinese revolution is bourgeois democratic’. The only thing that distinguishes them from the Stalinist party is that they believe that the coming third revolution will be a proletarian Socialist revolution, whereas the Stalinist party thinks that there must still be a bourgeois democratic stage that cannot be skipped over, and that we are at this stage now. The defencists and the Stalinist party both oppose any attempts to bring about a proletarian Socialist revolution in China at the moment.
Almost all the ills of a backward country can be blamed on the ‘bourgeois democratic revolution’!
Unfortunately, Lenin and Trotsky are quoted in defence of these positions. Just as the Old Bolsheviks quoted Lenin’s past writings to oppose the living Lenin, our defencists are now using dead and past writings of Lenin and Trotsky to oppose the living, present day revolution, to resist the path forced upon them by a living revolution. If Lenin had died earlier, or had stayed abroad unable to return to Russia to initiate the struggle, it would not be difficult to imagine the confusion there would have been in revolutionary Russia. We can see this by comparison with the confused state of revolutionary ideas in China at the moment.
This confusion is rooted in political theory, and we must first clarify it. Our method of clarification is the same method used by Lenin in April 1917.

Dry

The Old Bolsheviks, as represented by Kamenev, opposed the April Theses. ‘We cannot accept Comrade Lenin’s theses, because the starting point of these theses is to accept that the bourgeois democratic revolution has been completed, and that we must immediately turn this revolution into a Socialist revolution.’ Lenin’s reply was cut and dry: ‘State power in Russia has passed into the hands of a new class, namely, the bourgeoisie and landowners who had become bourgeois. To this extent, the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia has been completed.’ In these sentences, Lenin spelt out clearly that the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia belonged to the past, that there would be no more such revolutions in the future.

Was Lenin correct in saying this? Certainly. Did his few words change the minds of the Old Bolsheviks? No. The Old Bolsheviks pointed to the fact that land reform had not yet begun (even Lenin admitted this). Yet Lenin had always considered the land question in Russia as central to the bourgeois democratic revolution. Before February, Lenin believed that the bourgeois democratic revolution was the revolution that could resolve the land question. Even after the October Revolution, when writing in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky in 1918, he still maintained that the bourgeois democratic revolution was a revolution to resolve the land question. He wrote:

Yes, our revolution is a bourgeois revolution as long as we march with the peasants as a whole ... Things have turned out just as we said they would. The course taken by the revolution has confirmed the correctness of our reasoning. First, with the whole of the peasants against the monarchy, against the landowners, against medievalism (and to that extent the revolution remains bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic). Then, with the poor peasants, with the semi-proletarians, with all the exploited, against capitalism, including the rural rich, the kulaks, the profiteers, and to that extent the revolution becomes a Socialist one.

In other words, Lenin, both before and after 1917, characterised the revolution by the tasks to be fulfilled. However, during the revolution in 1917, he characterised the revolution according to which class had control of state power. The conclusions might be different, but that is because the criteria used to determine the character of the revolution were different, and there is no contradiction between the two positions.

For the purpose of general theoretical analysis, Lenin had always characterised a revolution by its tasks. He did so before the eruption and after the success of the [1917] revolution. Yet, during revolutionary struggle, when there was contention about the way forward, particularly when those arguing for the wrong direction based their position entirely on the formula ‘the bourgeois revolution is not yet completed’, general criteria for analysis were insufficient. At that moment, we must look to the mechanics of the revolution as the criteria. (‘Mechanics’ refers to the action and interaction between classes, and includes the revolution’s motive force, but is more than the revolutionary motive force. There has never been a suitable translation. Some people translate it as ‘structure’, but this is not very fitting – author’s note).
Why is a general definition not sufficient in this situation? Why is it not possible to determine the character of a revolution by its tasks? As Lenin had said, it was not certain at that time whether the peasants would follow the lead of the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. To solve the land question, the proletariat had to break with the petit-bourgeoisie and take the step towards the seizure of state power. It was only then that they could gain the trust of the peasants and resolve the land question once and for all. Because of this, they had to declare that ‘the slogan of the "democratic dictatorship of the peasants and workers’’ is obsolete, it is dead and cannot be resurrected’. For the same reason, they also had to proclaim that ‘the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia is over’.
This was Trotsky’s position as well as Lenin’s. The Old Bolshevik Preobrazhensky (though he later joined the Left Opposition) did not understand Lenin’s method. He wrote to Trotsky saying that ‘Your basic error lies in the fact that you determine the character of a revolution on the basis of who makes it, which class, i.e. by the effective subject, while you seem to assign secondary importance to the objective social content of the process’ (Leon Trotsky on China, p.278). Preobrazhensky represented the spirit of Kamenev in 1917, whilst Trotsky used Lenin’s method to counter his position.
Sociological definitions of a bourgeois democratic revolution cannot foretell which class will bring about this revolution. This problem was at the root of the differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks advocated a proletarian revolution, yet in the midst of revolutionary struggle they could not solve this problem, and still characterised the revolution as bourgeois democratic on the basis of its historical tasks. We can learn from this that anyone who dogmatically holds the position of a bourgeois democratic revolution, or that of a bourgeois democratic stage that cannot be skipped over, can be misled into criminal policies.
If we apply Lenin’s method to the Chinese revolution, the agrarian question in China has not been resolved, and the country has not been unified and gained independence. In sociological terms, that is, in terms of historical tasks, the Chinese revolution should be bourgeois democratic, and it could be said that at present we are in that bourgeois democratic stage. However, what are the implications of such a sociological definition? Does it clarify revolutionary theory and strategies? No, in fact it sows confusion, and is used by the Chinese Constitutional Democratic Party, the Chinese Mensheviks and the Chinese Old Bolsheviks to support their defencist position, and send the revolution to an early grave. We must therefore proclaim loudly, like Lenin, ‘State power in China is now in the hands of the bourgeoisie and the landlords who have become bourgeois, therefore the bourgeois democratic revolution in China has been completed’.
Even if we do not use Lenin’s method and characterise the revolution by its tasks rather than by the control of state power, it can still be argued that the revolution is not bourgeois democratic. It is open to question, whether or not a task which had historically been completed by a bourgeois democratic revolution can be completed by another class in a future revolution, or whether it can still be completed within the confines of a democratic revolution. Unless these points are clarified, it would merely cause more confusion just mouthing the formulation of ‘bourgeois democratic tasks’.

Liberation

What are these ‘bourgeois democratic tasks’? They all boil down to national liberation and land reform.

To view the question of national liberation in China as a bourgeois democratic task comparable to that of Holland, the United States, Italy, Norway and Belgium is to be concerned merely with form and not with content. The gaining of the national independence of these countries was undoubtedly a bourgeois democratic task, because they were seeking independence from what are generally capitalist or feudal ‘strong states’, but not from imperialist states, especially not from post World War imperialist states. It is possible to win independence from ‘strong states’ within the limits of a bourgeois democratic revolution. But to liberate China from the various imperialists is to strike a blow at the foundations of imperialism, and is characteristic of the proletarian revolution. This project cannot be carried out by the Chinese bourgeoisie. In historic terms, even the bourgeois democratic revolution (let alone a bourgeois democratic revolution led by the proletariat) cannot be completed. To complete this project, the revolution must rise above the limitations of bourgeois democracy. In doing so, it is necessary to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat.
What of land reform in China? Trotsky told us:

The peasants’ revolt in China, much more than it was in Russia, is a revolt against the bourgeoisie. A class of landlords as a separate class does not exist in China. The landowners and the bourgeoisie are one and the same. The gentry and the tuchens [large landlords], against whom the peasant movement is immediately directed, represent the lowest link to the bourgeoisie and to the imperialist exploiters as well. In Russia the October Revolution, in its first stage, counterposed all the peasants as a class against all the landlords as a class, and only after several months began to introduce the civil war within the peasantry. In China every peasant uprising is, from the start, a civil war of the poor against the rich peasants, that is, against the village bourgeoisie. (Leon Trotsky on China, p.482)

In other words, the Chinese revolution is at a different level from the Russian Revolution, it has even less bourgeois democratic content.

Even assuming that an agrarian revolution in China could be realised as it was in Russia, would we still consider land reform as a bourgeois democratic task? Yes, if we use a sociological definition. Both Lenin and Trotsky had always maintained this. However, we should cast off sociological viewpoints and examine historical facts. In historical terms the French Revolution was a bourgeois democratic revolution that resolved the agrarian question most fundamentally. However, how did the French Revolution solve the land question? Did it distribute land equitably to all peasants? No, the land was sold to peasants, and not only to peasants but to anyone with money. Peasants with no money still did not have land. The French Revolution commercialised land, to be freely bought and sold. This was the historic limit that could be achieved by a bourgeois agrarian revolution.
It would be correct to say, judging from theoretical analysis and sociological definitions rather than from looking at historical events, that confiscation and equitable redistribution of land by the state to the peasants was not beyond the limits of a bourgeois democratic revolution. Lenin, writing in 1912 (Democratism and Nationalism in China) criticised Sun Yat-sen’s land reform programme:

Is this land reform [nationalisation of the land] possible within capitalism? Not only is this possible, it will be the most perfect and most thorough-going ideal capitalism. Marx made this point in the Poverty of Philosophy, and demonstrated it in Capital Volume 3, and clearly expanded it especially in the debate with Rodbertus on the theory of surplus value.

Yet we have never seen this ‘most pure and most absolutely perfect ideal capitalism’ being realised in any capitalist country, and we will never see it. However, this [perfect] ‘capitalism’ was realised. Where? In Russia after the October Revolution, under the leadership of Lenin, when the revolution had gone beyond capitalism, and was no longer within the bounds of capitalism.

To see agrarian revolution in China as a reliable bourgeois democratic task is to want to resolve the Chinese land question as in the French Revolution – to ask the peasants to buy the land, to make land a commodity to be bought and sold. We do not need a new revolution for this. This is already happening in China.
The future agrarian revolution in China must take on the character of the October Revolution in Russia, an agrarian revolution that cannot in practice (and not in theory) be carried out by capitalism. To realise this revolution, we must go beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy and set up the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Chinese revolution cannot be bourgeois democratic, not only in terms of state power but also in terms of the two important tasks of national liberation and land reform.
Strictly speaking, these two important tasks cannot be seen as bourgeois democratic tasks, yet they will play vital roles in the Chinese revolution. Also, it would be incorrect to say that this is a stage that cannot be skipped over. Revolutionary struggle in China will develop along the lines of these two tasks. The proletariat will seize state power at the height of the struggles for national liberation and land reform. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that there can be another future – when the balance of forces in the world and in China can create a situation where the proletariat, as ordinary people, understand the need for a Socialist revolution and seizes state power. What we will have then is not just Chinese national independence, but a world or Asian soviet federation; not just equitable distribution of land to poor peasants, but a Socialist land system. This is a slim possibility, but it would be entirely wrong to deny that it could ever happen.

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Revolutionary History,Vol.2 No.4, Spring 1990

Editor: Al Richardson
Deputy Editors: Ted Crawford and Bob Archer
Reviews Editor: Keith Hassell
Business Manager: Barry Buitekant
Production and Design Manager: Paul Flewers
Editorial Board: John Archer, David Bruce, William Cazenave, George Leslie, Sam Levy, Jon Lewis, Charles Pottins, Jim Ring, Bruce Robinson, Ernest Rogers and Ken Tarbuck

ISSN 0953-2382

Copyright © 1990 Socialist Platform, BCM 7646, London WC1N 3XX
Typeset and printed by Upstream Ltd (TU), 1 Warwick Court, Choumert Road, London SE15 4SE Tel: 01-358 1344

 

 

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 ***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Bill Haley And The Comets-Rock Around The Clock 

  

 …she had been through it all before, six or seven times now at least,  been through the part about what happened to her when she heard the new music on the radio, some called it rhythm and blues, some called it rockabilly, some, more recently, had begun to call it rock and roll after some DJ from New York City called it that and it was starting to catch on as the way to describe the beat, the dancing, and the feeling of freedom just being around the scene. Her parents, her know-nothing parents, called it the “devil’s music” but what did they know, what could they know about what she felt, what she felt in certain private places when the beat got strong. How could they know never having been young, never having those feelings. She was not exactly sure why she felt that way, why she felt warm in what all the girls in the before school “lav” called their “sweet spot” whenever she heard the local radio station or the kids at Doc Drugstore on the juke-box endlessly playing Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle, and Roll or Warren Smith on Rock and Roll Ruby but she did. (Some of the rougher girls, the girls who smoked, drank and did “it,” so they said, called it other things which she did not find out until later, much later, guys called it too but she then still preferred the more modest “sweet spot.”) All she knew was that when the beat began to pick she would start swaying, maybe dancing by herself, maybe with a girlfriend and get that feeling like she was not in Olde Saco but New York City getting checked out by all the cute boys whose leers when she swayed told her they were interested in some of her.

Someone, Betty, she thought, a girl that she had grown up and gone to school with,  said it was just her coming into “her time,” although she did not know what to make of that idea since she had that same feeling before and after she came into her time. Got her “friend.”   Betty, or whoever it was who had said it said she did not mean that, that thing every girl had, but the time when everything was confused and when a teenager did, or did not, know which way to jump. Somebody on the news programs called it alienation but she was not sure what that meant. All she knew was that the old songs on the jukebox or radio, the ones that she loved to listen to the previous  year, Frank, Bing, Patti, Rosemary, did not make her feel that way anymore. Didn’t make her feel that she wanted to jump out of her skin.

Tommy from school might have had a better handle on it, have had a better sense of what turbulence was going on inside her when he told the whole class in Current Events that there were some new songs coming out of the radio, some stuff from down south, some negro sound from down in Memphis somewhere, some white hillbilly sound from around that same town, that he would listen to late at night on WJKA from Chicago when the air was just right. Sounds that made him want to jump right out of his skin. (She never dared to ask whether it made him feel warm in his “sweet spot” since she didn’t know much then about whether boys had sweet spots, or got warm).

When Tommy had said that, said it was about the music, she knew that she was not alone, not alone in feeling that a fresh breeze was coming over the land, although she, confused as she would not have articulated it that way (that would come later). And so she asked Tommy about it after class, asked him about what it felt like for him to jump out of his skin when he heard the beat beginning. He explained to her his feelings, feelings that she said she shared with him and he smiled. She agreed to let him walk her home after school and they had talked for a couple of hours on her front porch before he left. This went on for a while since neither one was assertive enough to ask for a date for a long time. Then both saw the announcement in the newspaper for the next dance around town and one night called each other to see if, ah, they might go together. And so they had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down in Olde Saco and listen to some guys, a band, play the new music. She wondered to herself as she prepared for that night (she could not speak of such things to Tommy) whether she would feel warm again in her sweet spot when they danced, she hoped so…         

 

 

Occupy Boston Announcement

Union rights and working conditions are under attack. We  need militant unions to push back against low pay and unsafe work! Please join the Boston IWW and USW Local 8751's Team Solidarity in a discussion of the fightback which is daily gaining momentum. This forum brings together activists, all battling against corporate greed and union-busting. The event will take place on Saturday, February 8, starting at 6 pm, at Encuentro 5, 9 Hamilton Place, Suite 2A, in Boston (steps from the Park St Red Line T stop & 2 blocks from Downtown Crossing). The Facebook event is here.

Panelists include:

Dreadsen (Chicago)- Dreadsen helped lead a strike against retaliatory firings that united service workers, Teamsters and locomotive engineers, shutting down work in multiple rail yards across Illinois and Wisconsin. Dreadsen and his co-workers at Mobile Rail Solutions (a truck company servicing locomotives), are struggling for justice under the banner of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The union has campaigned for basic safety equipment like proper gloves and respirators, as well as pressing for better pay.

Steve Kirschbaum and Fred Florial (Boston)- Steve, a founding member of United Steelworkers’ Local 8751, and Fred, Shop Steward and Organizer for Team Solidarity, will describe the union’s struggle against the Veolia Corporation. Despite agreeing to honor the union contract, since Veolia took over management of the Boston School Buses, the conglomerate has violated nearly every article regarding wages, benefits and working conditions and repudiated the established grievance and arbitration procedures. When bus drivers demanded a meeting with management to address the attempted shredding of their contract, Veolia locked the workers out, then accused them of conducting a wildcat strike. Veolia has since fired four leaders of the union including Steve. All have been out of work since November.

Jonathan Pena (Boston)- Jonathan is one of the Insomnia Cookies workers who launched a strike for union rights & recognition on Aug 21. Insomnia Cookies refused to provide a half-hour break for shifts longer than six hours. The company also failed to pay minimum wage. Bakers and cashiers at Insomnia Cookies were being paid $9 an hour, while drivers were paid just $6/hr. Workers at Insomnia Cookies joined the IWW, and have continued to struggle for better pay, union recognition and decent working conditions ever since. Terminated by Insomnia for his union activity, Jonathan continues to press for justice for himself and his fellow workers.

Tasia Edmonds (Boston)- Tasia's activism includes defending civil liberties, rape crisis center work and campaigning for environmental justice. She has gone public with her IWW affiliation and remains employed at Insomnia Cookies. Management has been more careful about paying minimum wage and allowing breaks since the union drive began, but bike delivery workers and bakers still struggle to make ends meet. Insomnia refuses to pay Workers' Comp. Employees report that when they get hurt making deliveries in traffic, the boss's response is to ask "Why are you late?" As an IWW member, Tasia advocates for improved conditions in her store, and is engaged in building the union.

Coolidge Corner, 5:30—Be there or be square!!

 

On Sunday, February 2, 2014 4:08 PM, Duncan Meisel - 350.org <350@350.org> wrote:

In the last 48 hours, people across the country have stepped up to go the extra mile to stop Keystone XL. 200 events have been planned from coast-to-coast for Monday evening, and more are being listed every hour.

Every one of those actions will be sending the same message: it’s time for President Obama to be a climate champion, not the pipeline president, and reject Keystone XL. Standing together, we can be heard.

President Obama clearly has all the evidence he needs to reject the pipeline -- but what will truly decide this fight is whether we can out-organize big oil, and Monday will be our next key test. There’s an action not far from you on Monday evening — can you be there to tell President Obama to stop the pipeline?

Click here to find the action nearest you: actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/kxl-fseis?referrer=350-org&zipcode=02135

The Environmental Impact Statement released by the State Department on Friday does not take a stand on whether President Obama should approve the pipeline. That’s good and bad: on the one hand, it’s better than the previous reports, which gave much more support for the pipe -- but on the other hand, it avoids the glaringly obvious fact that that a pipeline carrying 800,000 barrels per day of the world’s dirtiest oil would be a disaster for the climate, and the lives of Indigenous communities, farmers and homes along the route.

We’ve been in this place before. We may be here again. And what counts in moments like these are not the words in Washington’s reports, but rather the voices of people in the streets -- that’s what changes the equation for the President.

And that’s what Monday is all about. I hope you’ll be able to join me.

Duncan

---

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This spring, we will spread protest against the U.S. use of drones for targeted killing and surveillance. A call has gone out, which you can sign here. Plans are rapidly coming together for protest at drone manufacturing sites, military bases that deploy drones, and campuses where drone research and training are quickening. World Can't Wait will focus on reaching students especially, and in bringing out the voices of people who are targeted in the U.S. dirty wars. Join our planning discussion Thursday evening (details on the right) or email me with your thoughts and plans. An international call for Spring Days of Action – 2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to: End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers. The campaign will provide information on: 1. The suffering of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life. 2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming. In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60% of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership.  We will show, among other things, how this surge of "pivot" forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the US military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival.  In short, we will connect drones and militarization with "austerity" in America. 3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war. We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor US citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress. Read more and endorse this call to action. Cheers to Deb Vanpoolen for Calling General Petraeus a War Criminal! Debra Sweet & Deb Van Poolen, December 2013, wishing Chelsea Manning a Happy Birthday Friday, January 31, David Petraeus spoke in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Deb Van Poolen writes, in The Story of My Arrest at David Petraeus' Speaking Engagement: “As Petreaus was asked various questions by the moderator, he responded to each of them with simplistic statements.  For example, he said there is no debate in his mind about Snowden:  the damage he did was “colossal”.  He mentioned “cyber theft” and “Islamic extremism” as major concerns for the US government.  He also said the United States is best positioned to be the world leader in fracking because US mining companies have superior “technical expertise”.  As he discussed Israel, Iran and Syria with racist overtones, I resisted the intense cloud of brainwashing in preference to focus on my next steps.  His talk about fracking had triggered an idea:  I decided my action would be a humble effort to frack the thick fog of doublespeak overwhelming in the room.” Read more... Share this message: Thursday February 6 World Can't Wait Conversation New participants welcome.  We'll be talking, planning, questioning, digging into what's most important to work on in 2014. Nick Mottern of KnowDrones.com will be on, as well as others working on the April/May protests of drones. We will also discuss the Tuesday February 11 The Day We Fight Back, protesting NSA surveillance on the anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz. Register for dial-in info. TODAY February 3: Keystone Protest Action Vigils at 200 places in US. Click here to find out more and see if there's a protest near you. Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

 

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

February is Black History Month

Dream Boogie

Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?

Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a -

You think
It's a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a -

What did I say?

Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!

Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!

Y-e-a-h!

Langston Hughes

…he, Sam Walker, and just this moment, this Saturday night high-kicking moment being called by his moniker reflecting his Saturday night time, Sidewalk Slim (known as such ever since his corner boy days around 125^th Street when he was really slim and when he ruled, ruled for a moment in time, the sidewalk in front of Sadie Barker’s Pool Hall), was, as always on Saturday night, dressed to the nines, yes, the nines. Resplendent in his now well-worn, although serviceable,wide lapel dark brown suit that had seeable pants creases, and off-pink collared shirt to highlight the brown (also well- worn but like the suit serviceable, serviceable Saturday night especially after a few drinks, or some reefer madness kicks, dimmed the lights), a signature string tie reflecting a local hip trend, shoe-shine black shoes, ready to dance almost by themselves. And to top off that resplendent as he walked in the front door of the Red Fez (red to make one think of sunsets, of flaming heats, and fez to make one think back to Mother Africa times and some eternal birth mysteries) was his woman, his lady, Miss Molly, fully gowned, new, new and freely given by a, a, gentleman friend to show some appreciation for her kindnesses. Sidewalk Slim didn’t like the fact that it was new, that he had not purchased it, and that someone else had. They had argued about it for a bit but as usual Slim was at the losing end of a Molly argument when it came to her looks. Finished.

Moreover, this night, the Molly Red Fez night, Slim was eager to have Molly around as his arm piece because none other than the man, Be-Bop Benny and his quartet, Benny from his old corner boy days, who looked like he and his crew were ready to break out, break out big in the emerging swing bing bang bing jazz night, maybe like the Count or the Duke, were playing the housethat night and he needed to show he fit in, fit in nicely with the new be-bop, with the hip. So reefer loaded, feeling a little mellow as he sat down at the front table Benny had reserved for him, ordering some high-shelf liquor, a bottle, as befit the occasion Slim for once felt that old time corner boy king of the hill walking daddy feeling that he used to feel around 125^th Street. And the night, really the night and the next morning because he and Molly stayed after hours when Benny and other guys from around town after finishing their money gigs for the Mayfair swells and that crowd came by to really blast, worked out just that way. He was beat, beat to hell and back and slept most of the Sunday away.

Come Monday morning, early, in a different suit, the green khaki uniform, complete with his Sam Walker name in white label above the shirt pocket, of the Barclay Cleaning Company, taking the old A-train to work he thought about the day ahead, the long day ahead, and about how his supervisor, Harry, would probably yell to him for the millionth time “Did you clean that women’s toilet on the fifth floor?”or something like that. Jesus.

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Communist League of China

BOOK REVIEW

PROBLEMS OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION, LEON TROTSKY, PATHFINDER PRESS, 1967

Recently I reviewed in this space Andre Malraux’s Man’s Fate, a novelistic treatment of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, that emphasized the problems at the base of Chinese society in its late phase after the popular front alliance with General Chiang Kai-Shek’s bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang broke down and Chiang began his extermination drive against the Chinese Communists. In Leon Trotsky’s book, under review here, we get a real time, real life analysis of the political questions that led to that catastrophe and what revolutionaries could learn from it.

I have noted elsewhere that the Communist International (hereafter Comintern) evolved in the mid-1920’s , under the impact of Stalinization, from a revolutionary organization that made political mistakes, sometimes grossly so, in pursuit of revolution to an organization that pursued anti-revolutionary aims as it turned primarily into an adjunct of Soviet foreign policy. Prima facie evidence for such a conclusion is the Soviet Communist Party /Commintern policy and its implementation toward the budding Chinese Revolution.

As much as policy toward the Chinese Revolution became a political football in the internal Russian Communist party fights between Stalin’s bloc and Trotsky’s bloc it is impossible to understand the strategy for the Chinese Revolution without an understanding of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. No Marxist, at least not openly and honestly, put forth any claim that in the West the national bourgeoisie could be a progressive force in any modern upheaval. Russia, in the early 20th century was, however, still a battleground over this question. This is where Trotsky formulated the advanced Marxist notion that in Russia the national bourgeoisie was too weak, too beholding to foreign capitalist interests and too dependent on the Czarist state and its hangers-on to fulfill the tasks associated with the classic bourgeois revolutions in the West. Thus, for Russia alone at that time Trotsky postulated that the working class had become the heirs of the revolutions in the West. The Revolution of 1905 gave a glimmer of understanding to that proposition and the Revolution of October 1917 cannot be understood except under that premise.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution the question of who would lead the revolutions of the countries even less developed that Russia, mainly colonial and semi-colonial regimes, formed one of the new political battlegrounds. And China was the first dramatic test that Trotsky’s originally Russia-only premise applied to underdeveloped ‘third world’ capitalist regimes, as well. However,unlike in Russia, this time Trotsky lost. The necessary independent organization of the working class and the political separation of the communist vanguard were not carried out and, to our regret, the Chinese Revolution was beheaded. As mentioned above this was a conscious Stalinist policy of kowtowing to Chiang by unequivocably ordering the Communist Party to make itself politically and militarily subservient to the Kuomintang as well as providing Comintern military advisers to Chiang.

Today, even a cursory look at countries of belated and uneven development emphasizes the fact that the various tasks associated with the Russian and Chinese Revolutions still need to be carried out. Thus, the political fights that wracked the international communist movement in the 1920’s which under ordinary circumstances would only be of historical interest today take on a more life and death meaning for many of the peoples of the world. That makes this book well worth the read.

I might add that there is a very interesting appendix at the end of this work detailing reports from the field filed by those Communist agents that carried out Comintern policy in China and who as a result of disillusionment with that policy had become oppositionists. These reports give added ammunition to Trotsky’s more theoretical arguments. They also give flesh and bones to the some of the points that Malraux was trying to bring out in Man’s Fate. Read on.

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

Communist League of China

 

From Revolutionary History, Vol.2 No.4, Spring 1990. Used by permission.

The following account reproduces pages 9-20 of a report by Frank Glass that was found in the Trotsky Archive in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, where it bears the number T2.16872. Our thanks are due to that body for according us permission to publish and make it available to a wider reading public. It confirms the devotion of the Chinese Trotskyists to the struggle of the working class after the Chinese Stalinists had abandoned them in favour of peasant based guerrilla warfare. The Niel Sih mentioned in the report is the pseudonym of Liu Renjing, Frank Glass’ main ally inside the Trotskyist movement, who was broken by torture in 1937 and joined the Guomindang, subsequently making his peace with Mao in 1949. The text was written after consultation with Harold Isaacs towards the end of 1939, and according to the correspondence in the Houghton archive, was sent to Trotsky on 21 January.

Frank Glass will be well known to the readers of this magazine from the obituaries we published on the occasion of his death in 1988. See Revolutionary History, Vol.1 no.2, Summer 1988, pp.1-4. See also Baruch Hirson, Death of a Revolutionary: Frank Class/Li Fu-jen/John Liang 1890-1988, Searchlight South Africa, no.1, September 1988, pp.28-41. He is frequently referred to by Wang Fanxi in his autobiography, and in an obituary in International Viewpoint, 16 May 1988.

---

And now to our movement in China. My information is valid only up to 1 September when I left Shanghai. Again, all factual information concerning our organisation is at best approximate. Even our own comrades vary considerably concerning such factual information as the number of comrades, etc.

The Communist League of China was founded in 1931, about four years following the Shanghai coup d’etat of Chiang Kai-Shek in April 1927. Subsequent to the coup, revolutionaries who disassociated themselves from Stalinism formed several different groups. These groups were united and consolidated, thanks mainly to Comrade Graves [1] who arrived from South Africa, in 1931 when the League was formally founded.
The present strength of our party is approximately 500 members throughout the country, of whom approximately half are active. The distribution is approximately as follows: 100 members at Shanghai, 100 members at Foochow, a port half-way between Shanghai and the British Crown Colony at Hong Kong, 100 members at Hong Kong and Kowloon, which are adjacent, 100 members in the Chungshan district, which is in the Pearl River Delta in South China, and the balance scattered throughout China. Comrades differ in their estimation of our strength. Some put the figure at 500, others state that 200 is more accurate. The war has made it impossible to ascertain the correct picture.
The number of comrades does not give a precise indication of the influence of the movement. We have in China close sympathisers in many quarters, particularly in student and intellectual circles. This is reflected somewhat by references in various publications to the Communist League and to the Fourth International.
The leaders of our party are all veteran revolutionists, many of whom were in the movement in China since 1921. Save for one member, I believe all members of the Central Committee have been in Guomindang jails. Among outstanding active comrades one might mention Comrade Wang Ming-yuan, [2] who was a Left Oppositionist from the very beginning in Moscow, Comrade Peng Shuzi, a original member of the CC of the CP of China, Comrade Chen [3] another original member of the CC of the CP of China, Comrades Chen Chi-chang, Loh, and Han.
About 60 per cent of all comrades are workers; others are intellectuals or white-collar workers.
With minor exceptions, all the work of the party is illegal. Prior to August 1937, some 50 of our comrades, including Comrade Chen Duxiu, were in jail. All were released at various intervals up to the fall of Nanking in December 1937. Prior to the war, our comrades were arrested on sight; two Central Committees were arrested en masse. These arrests were all made by the Guomindang or with the cooperation of the British or French Police, as the case might be. In general, the Guomindang at present takes no active steps against our comrades unless they are participating in legal activity. The Guomindang threat against our comrades has for the time being abated.
In the two foreign areas of Shanghai, our comrades now have relative safety, but the British or French police will turn them over to the Japanese hangmen upon the demand of the latter without trial. Up to the time I left, none of our comrades had been arrested in Shanghai since the two preceding years.
The greatest danger in Shanghai, and elsewhere in China for that matter, at present lies in the GPU and Stalinists. Several of our comrades, including Comrades Peng and Graves, have been sent black-hand letters and warnings of one kind or another showing beyond any doubt a Stalinist or a GPU source. By linking the names in their press of our comrades with Japanese puppets, the Stalinists have in reality invited their assassination. Naturally in Shanghai our comrades take the greatest of precautions. Several, through fear of being recognized by Stalinists, live in complete hiding.
Recently the Stalinists in Shanghai published a leaflet in Chinese entitled The Crimes of the Trotskyists. These ‘crimes’ included the usual stock charges, which have been rather well discredited by our Party in bourgeois papers friendly to us. Unable to find any ‘crimes’, the Stalinists have resorted to personal slander and the pamphlet states, for example, that ‘almost all Trotskyites are homosexuals and hold orgies in bathhouses’. Another ‘crime’ is the accusation that Comrade Graves wrote a favourable review of Comrade Isaacs’ Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution.
These slanders appear from time to time in Stalinist papers as well. But the Stalinists have not been completely successful. In Chungking they stated that Comrade Chen Duxiu was working with the Japanese and was a ‘counter-revolutionary Trotskyite’. About 30 leading Chinese liberals, many of them very well-known public figures, wrote a vigorous denunciation of this statement. This denunciation, with the signatures of the writers, was widely published. Since then the Stalinists have said nothing publicly about Chen Duxiu. Chen also answered the accusation in a statement, widely printed, exposing with devastation the Stalinist accusation.
In Shanghai, our party through its sympathisers forced a Stalinist-controlled sheet to publish a retraction that Comrade Peng Shuzi was working with Japanese puppets. These two examples show that the Stalinists must tread carefully in their slander campaign against us in China.
In Hong Kong, up to the time that I left, the British government had given the Stalinists carte blanche to do whatsoever they wished. But not our comrades. Several of our comrades led a strike against work on a Japanese boat. They were arrested and spent several weeks in jail. The arrests, our comrades learned from the British police officers, came about as a result of betrayals of our comrades by Stalinists. Subsequently, and probably as a direct result, the Hong Kong Government passed laws providing for the arrest, imprisonment, or banishment without trial of any Chinese. Several of our comrades were forced to leave Hong Kong.
In areas under Guomindang control, work is likewise difficult. The death penalty has been decreed for strikes ‘or any other activities prejudicial to the interests of the state’. Early in 1938 two of our comrades, assisted by Neil Sih, [4] published a legal magazine entitled The Path of Struggle. This magazine was suppressed after the second issue. Comrade Chen Duxiu has written numerous articles on the war. The government has banned publication of at least half of them. One of these articles consisted of an appeal to Japanese troops. As far as is known, none of our comrades has been arrested in areas under Guomindang control since the start of the war. At least one of them, however – Comrade Lo Han, a veteran revolutionist – met his death in Chungking during a Japanese air raid.
Some time ago in Hankow students organised an anti-Japanese demonstration. Our comrades were active in this demonstration. The police, however, prohibited the demonstration while it was in progress. They succeeded in stopping the demonstration only by firing at the students, killing one of them. Enraged, the students attacked a guilty plainclothes man. Tearing his clothes away, the students found the man to be a member of the Blue Shirts, Chiang Kai-Shek’s terrorist gang. Not a word of this incident appeared in any papers in China, including the Stalinist press.

Partisan

In areas under Japanese control, there are but few of our comrades, with the exception of the Chungshan district in South China near Canton in the Pearl River Delta. Here some five to 12 of our comrades have been leading a guerrilla partisan band of some 100 to 200 fighters under the flag of the Fourth International since the fall of Canton in the Autumn of 1938. Reportedly our comrades have engaged in several skirmishes with the Japanese with success. These comrades are led by a veteran of the Hong Kong Strike. In the Japanese-controlled areas, the Japanese usually kill any Chinese found engaged in what is termed anti-Japanese work, under which charge comes anything from not having a cigarette for a Japanese soldier, incorrect bowing to sentries, and possession of a Guomindang newspaper. In these areas the Japanese terror is directed not only against revolutionists, but against the entire population. Countless villages thought by the Japanese to have been assisting guerrilla forces have been wiped out by fire, the Japanese machine-gunning fleeing inhabitants. These stories are by no means fanciful. They have been corroborated time and time again. The result of this terror has been that the peasants who attempted to return to their farms in Japanese-occupied areas have, for the most part, sought the safety of foreign areas, or of cities, or have gone to the interior. It is estimated that the war in China has produced no less than 60 million refugees.
The work of the party at the present stage is centred upon translations and publications, in strengthening the leadership, in building up the membership. There is relatively little agitational work at present, as such attempts as have been made have proved fruitless because of the passivity of the workers. Leaflets, however, are issued with frequency as special occasions arise, in both Chinese and Japanese.
Our party publishes two newspapers regularly. Doh Tseng (Struggle) is issued once or twice a month in 1000 copies, in tabloid format, of four to eight pages, with a circulation nationwide. Doh Tseng is published in Shanghai, and has appeared regularly since 1936, though it appeared irregularly some two years previously. Iskra has been published regularly in Hong Kong since 1937. It is issued once or twice a month, of four to eight pages, in tabloid size, in 1000 copies, with a circulation nationwide. These papers are printed on presses designed and built by our comrades, and the press work is done by our comrades. The presses are practically silent, and are very ingenious. Presses are also used for various pamphlets, leaflets, internal bulletins, etc. All our material in China is printed; workers will not look at a mimeographed page.
Our comrades stole most of the type from newspaper offices, printshops, etc. Originally our comrades had a sympathiser do the printing. This sympathiser gradually raised his prices. A crisis was reached. Finally, Comrade Graves and other comrades posed as foreign police officers and in a ‘raid’ seized the press and type. It was quite a task, but was successfully done. From then on, the organisation operated its own press.
The distribution of our papers presents numerous problems. But thanks to sympathisers in the Post Office, numerous copies go successfully through the mails. Others are distributed by our comrades and sympathisers in factories, among refugees, etc. Our comrades estimate that each copy of our paper has at least four readers.
With the disappearance of Guomindang influence in Shanghai in the past two years, our comrades have found it possible for the first time to publish legally, in the foreign areas of Shanghai, several Marxist and other books. In this the comrades have been greatly assisted by a sympathiser who is a publisher, and by a foreign comrade enjoying foreign protection who has set up a publishing concern, especially for this purpose. Our comrades now edit and publish a legal monthly (though not in the name of the party) which is the first legal publication of our party other than books. This monthly, called Tung Shan, or in English, The Living Age, had a first print of 1000 copies, almost all of which were sold. The only magazine in China to predict the Moscow-Berlin Pact, the magazine has gained great prestige and, provided it is not banned, may be of great importance ... Sympathisers edit and publish a daily legal newspaper for children, with a circulation of 3000 copies. Recently numerous books by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky have been published legally, in addition to numerous pamphlets. Other books include V Serge From Lenin to Stalin, Andre Gide’s Retour and Retouches, Malraux’ Les Conquerants, and Silone’s Fontamara. These translations mean a tremendous amount of work, the average requiring two comrades working from three to six months full time. At present our comrades are translating The Stalin School of Falsification and The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution. Since relatively few of our comrades know foreign languages well, translation work goes very slowly. These comrades must also support themselves by doing translations for bourgeois concerns.

Release

As far as is known, there have been no betrayals of any of our arrested or other comrades since the founding of our organisation. There have been about five defections, three prior to 1936. In March 1937, four months prior to his scheduled release from prison, Comrade Niel Sih (Liu Renjing) capitulated to the Guomindang, but did not betray. Niel Sih was expelled from the organisation, and claimed he was unfairly treated. For a time he was in close touch with some of our comrades, and assisted them with some legal work, but later joined the Publicity Section of the National Military Council of the Guomindang ... Comrade Sze, an exceptionally capable and brilliant comrade, was released from prison in December 1937. He is now mentally deranged, and has become a Buddhist Monk. He claims to have discovered a new theory, and insisted that I send to Comrade Trotsky several huge volumes of Buddhist literature – in Chinese – for Comrade Trotsky’s perusal.
Comrade Chen Duxiu was released from prison in August 1937. He went subsequently to Hankow, where he wrote for several legal publications. When denounced as a Trotskyist by Stalinists, Chen stated publicly that he wrote in his own name only and was not associated with any party or group. Later, a correspondent of the New York Times, who is a close sympathiser, interviewed Comrade Chen. Perhaps because of language difficulties, the interview was very unfortunate and Comrade Chen is said to have expressed the opinion that it would be best if Japan succeed in conquering China, because only this would give any perspective to the revolutionary movement. Fortunately, the correspondent mentioned this interview to no one save our comrades. Comrade Chen’s statement that he belonged to no group drew great fire from our younger comrades. Finally, a comrade was sent to visit Chen and reported as follows: Chen stands 100 per cent with the Fourth International, but publicly disavows any party allegiance. In essence, the comrades decide neither to avow nor disavow, publicly, Comrade Chen, as long as in the net balance he proved helpful to the movement as a whole. This is, I believe, the situation at present. At present Chen, who is in his seventies, is exceedingly ill. He is now living near Chungking, and is said to be too ill now even to write. Concerted attempts were made to persuade Comrade Chen to go to the United States. When, finally, he agreed, it was too late: permission to travel was refused by the Guomindang, and also, his health now makes travelling impossible. Both because of his relative inactivity and his tremendous prestige, I do not personally believe Comrade Chen is in any danger from the Guomindang or GPU. He does, however, take precautions.
Aside from the case of Chen Duxiu, there have been no serious factional disputes for the past three years. There have been some minor disputes. One, as to whether our comrades should play an active role in forming anti-Japanese organisations, disappeared with the onslaught of the war. The other, concerning Chen Duxiu, has been practically liquidated. Up to the time I left, there had been no differences whatsoever concerning ‘unconditional’ defence or ‘conditional’ defence of the Soviet Union. The party stood unanimously for unconditional defence. In general, one may say that the Chinese organisation is at present free from any serious factional disputes. It is a closely-knit, well-grounded organisation. There is an almost complete absence of petty jealousies and politics. From 1931 to 1937, there were indeed severe disputes and factional fights. These resulted mainly from carry-overs from Stalinism. In these years of dispute, the party was set on a firm basis, its leaders schooled, and its programme was made clear and firm.
Shanghai is a complex city, but consists, briefly, of two foreign areas surrounded by Chinese areas. These latter areas are now in the hands of the Japanese. At least half of the Chinese industries were situated in these Chinese districts. Both at Shanghai and throughout China where the Japanese have conquered, industry has been completely smashed and there has been no revival whatsoever. Industries are flourishing, however, within the foreign areas of Shanghai and at Hong Kong. The cost of living in the past two years has increased tremendously. Rents alone are 150 per cent up, while food is up at least 50 per cent. The depreciation of the Chinese currency has also severely lowered the standard of living. Wages have been raised about 15 per cent in big industries, but in actuality real wages are much less than before hostilities started. The average wage in a cotton mill, for example, is 15 Shanghai dollars a month for a 12-hour day with one holiday per month. In American currency, this would be about $1.15. These conditions, plus the oversupply of labour caused by the war, plus the complete passivity of the workers and peasants towards the war, have made it exceedingly difficult for our organisation to gain new members. Nevertheless, there are several new comrades, most of them being workers and students, especially the latter. For the first time, there are several women comrades. It is significant that in the single city under Guomindang control which has enjoyed ‘prosperity’, that is, in Foochow, the only remaining open coastal port, our strength has grown tremendously. The same is true to a lesser extent in such cities in the Southwest such as Kweilin, Yunnanfu, and other now important transport and industrial centres.

Notes

1. i.e. Frank Glass.

2. i.e. Wang Fanxi.

3. i.e. Zheng Chaolin.

4. i.e. Liu Renjing.

---

Revolutionary History,Vol.2 No.4, Spring 1990

Editor: Al Richardson
Deputy Editors: Ted Crawford and Bob Archer
Reviews Editor: Keith Hassell
Business Manager: Barry Buitekant
Production and Design Manager: Paul Flewers
Editorial Board: John Archer, David Bruce, William Cazenave, George Leslie, Sam Levy, Jon Lewis, Charles Pottins, Jim Ring, Bruce Robinson, Ernest Rogers and Ken Tarbuck

ISSN 0953-2382

Copyright © 1990 Socialist Platform, BCM 7646, London WC1N 3XX
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The Latest From The "Jobs With Justice Blog"-The Seemingly One-Sided Struggle Continues-It's High Time To Push Back-Push Back Hard-30 For 40 Is The Slogan Of The Day.

 

Click below to link to the Jobs With Justice Blog for the latest national and international labor news, and of the efforts to counteract the massively one-sided class struggle against the international working class movement.

http://www.jwjblog.org/

From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009

With Unemployment Too High, Way Too High - The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program
 

Click Below To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm

Guest Commentary

From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938- Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment,“structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

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