***When Norman Mailer Was A Lion-Cannibals and Christians- A Book Review

 

 

 

Book Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Cannibals and Christians, Norman Mailer, 1966

There was time in my youth back in the 1960s and early 1970s that I devoured everything I could get my hands on by the later American writer Norman Mailer. While that urgency is no longer true I nevertheless still find him an interesting political and philosophical opponent. What was the reason for that enthusiasm in my youth?  Simple, it was Mailer’s commitment to do novelistically and journalistically for the philosophy of existentialism what the French writers, especially, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, did for the philosophical argument itself. That philosophy, borne of terminal despair at the carnage, brutality and inhuman cruelties of World War II (and nicely written about in a first-hand way with his first novel, The Naked and the Dead), the seeming almost organic inability of the international working class to go beyond Stalinism and Social Democratic reformism in the quest for socialism and an acknowledgement that modern humankind had let technological developments outstrip its capacity to understand and control those forces, has nevertheless become threadbare with time. We live too existential lives to find much conform in such philosophy (to speak nothing of the aid of tech/text/eyes down-driven technology)

 

Let us face it; every political and social commentator is confronted with the need to find some basis to ground his or her analysis of the seemingly random events that demand our attentions and explanations. Over long experience I have found historical materialism a much more grounded philosophy for looking at the apparently random individual facts of existence. Although I have not read very recent Mailer all his works I have read lack this connection. So be it. We were after all in the end political opponents. Nevertheless, the man could turn some rather nice metaphors in his arguments. And he sure as hell could write. For this compilation of articles, reviews etc., written in the mid-1960’s and late I recommend his articles on the Republican National Convention, his stint as a man of the book review (especially that article about his then contemporaries like Styron, Jones, and Salinger), his polemic against the pretensions of the 1960’s New York liberal literary establishment (which in the end is where his real political fight was always aimed) centered on the famous Paris Review interview. There is a significant about of free verse poetry interspersed throughout the book although none of it would make any anthology of American poetry and is easily passed over. Read on. 

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Oskar Hippe (1900–1990)

*Our Flag Is Still Red -Markin comment:

This is a repost of 2008's (and the two previous years)commentary in honor of our international working class holiday. I would add that the comments made then still apply today. I would further add that these damn bourgeois presidential campaigns have taken most of the air out of the political atmosphere thus retarding our efforts. Notice the virtually total fade away of pro-immigration street demonstrations. To speak nothing of Iraq. What happens to these parliamentary reformists if they wake up on January 20th 2009 and one John McCain is getting ready to take the oath of office? Enough said-for now.

COMMENTARY

THIS YEAR(2010) MARKS THE 124TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MAY DAY HAYMARKET FRAMEUPS. HONOR THE MEMORY OF AUGUST SPIES, ALBERT PARSONS, ADOLPH FISCHER, GEORGE ENGEL, LOUIS LINGG, MICHAEL SCHWAB, SAMUEL FIELDEN, OSCAR NEEBE- CLASS WAR VICTIMS OF AN EARLIER TIME. ALSO REMEMBER LUCY PARSONS WHO CARRIED ON THE STRUGGLE FOR VINDICATION AFTER HER HUSBAND’S EXECUTION. LET US REDOUBLE OUR EFFORTS TO FREE TODAY’S CLASS WAR PRISONERS.

Politically, the writer of these lines is far distance from those of the Haymarket Martyrs. Their flag was the black flag of anarchism, the writer’s is the red flag of communism. Notwithstanding those political differences, militants must stand under the old labor slogan that should underscore all labor defense work now as then- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’. Unfortunately that principle has been honored far more in the breech than in the observance by working class organizations.

Additionally, in the case of the Haymarket Martyrs today’s militants must stand in solidarity and learn about the way those militants bravely conducted themselves before bourgeois society in the face of the witch hunt against them and their frame-up in the courts of so-called bourgeois ‘justice’. Not for the first time, and most probably not for the last, militants were railroaded by the capitalist state for holding unpopular and or/dangerous (to the capitalists) views. Moreover, it is no accident that most of the Haymarket Martyrs were foreigners (mainly Germans) not fully appreciative of the niceties of 19th century American ‘justice’. This same ‘justice’ system framed the heroic anarchist immigrant militants Sacco and Vanzetti in the early 20th century and countless other militants since then. As we struggle in the fight for full citizenship rights for immigrants today we should keep this in mind. Although, as we know, this American system of ‘justice’ will not forget the occasional uppity ‘native’ political dissenter either.

Most importantly, we must not forget that the Haymarket Martyrs at the time of their arrest were fighting for the establishment of a standardized eight hour work day. It is ironic that 120 years later this simple, rational, reasonable demand should, in effect, still be necessary to fight for by working people. All proportions taken into account since the 1880’s, a very high percentage of the working class still does not have this luxury- given the necessity of two wage-earner families, two job wage-earners, dramatic increases in commute time in order to gain employment, unpaid but mandatory work time (note especially the Walmartization of labor time) and a high rate of partially or fully unemployed able-bodied workers. To do justice to the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs this generation of militants should dust off another old labor slogan that used to be part of the transitional demands of the socialist movement- 30 hours work for 40 hours pay. TODAY THIS IS A REASONABLE DEMAND.

Obviously such a demand cannot be implemented in isolation. To even propose such a demand means we need to build a workers party to fight for it. Moreover, and let us not have illusions about this; this capitalist state does not want to and will not grant such a demand. Therefore, we must fight for a workers government. That would be a true monument to the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs.

 

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. 
******** 

Obituaries

Oskar Hippe (1900–1990)

Oskar Hippe, the veteran German Trotskyist, died on 13 March, a few days short of his ninetieth birthday.
Born on 1 April 1900, Hippe had joined the workers’ struggle by the time he was 16 years old.
In the years between the November Revolution in 1918 and the end of the revolutionary post-war crisis of 1923; between the outbreak of the world economic crisis of 1929 and the Prussian coup d’etat in July 1932, Oskar was involved in the militant upsurges in the German labour movement.
From the Free Trade Union Youth Movement and the Spartakus League through to the KPD; the Left Opposition in the KPD and the Lenin League under the leadership of Hugo Urbahns, and then in the leadership of the legal and illegal work of the Trotskyists, his life is a story of active participation.
He was imprisoned for two years by the National Socialists, from 1934 to 1936, and, in 1948, was sentenced to 25 years by the East German Stalinist regime (a term from which he was eventually released in 1956).
This brief extract, which covers some events of 1923, is taken from his autobiography ...and Red is the Colour of Our Flag: Memoirs of 60 years in the workers’ movement, English translation by Andrew Drummon, which will be published by Index Books in September 1990, price £8.95. (Index Books, 28 Charlotte Street, London W1P 1HJ. Tel: 071-636 3532.)
Bob Archer

---

In Central Germany and in the Ruhr district, the Proletarian Battalions had been built up on a cross-party basis and in great numbers, while there was scarcely anything else in the country apart from that. Now the construction of these groups was supposed to proceed with increased energy. In places where it was possible, these were to be built as organs of a United Front; where it was not possible, then as Communist Party organs attracting non-party people. Where the party now began to construct Workers’ Self-Defence Organs in other parts of the country, it was done quite hectically.
In Saxony and Thuringia, the Social Democratic organisations found themselves under strong pressure from their rank-and-file. The chairman of the KPD, Heinrich Brandler, who had travelled to Moscow in the decisive August days of 1923, returned at the beginning of September. None of the middle-ranking officials in our district knew what had been decided there, but everyone was clear that things were now on a razor’s edge. Everywhere in Germany, as in the central area, strikes took place. The workers demanded actions which went far beyond wage strikes. So the weeks passed. In the meantime, Heinrich Brandler travelled to Moscow again. When he returned on 8 October, not only the members of the party, but also the other workers were prepared to defend themselves against possible attacks by the Fascists, the army and the ‘Black National Army’. In Saxony and Thuringia, in quick succession, workers’ governments were formed by the SPD and KPD. On 12 October, Brandler, together with Paul Böttcher and Fritz Heckert, entered the Saxony government of the left Social Democrat, Zeigner.
At that time, a workers conference was convened in Chemnitz, to discuss the critical food supply situation. The KPD used one intervention at this conference to call for a general strike. Everyone knew that an act like what at that time would mean a general uprising. The conference rejected the call. So the KPD sent couriers from Chemnitz into the districts, advising them to stand down from their preparations for uprising. All the couriers reached their destinations, except the one for Hamburg. And so the Hamburg uprising took place. For three days, several hundred workers fought against a superior number of police.
For the members of the KPD, and even more for the workers who were sympathisers, the defeat was a great disappointment. Generally, people were of the opinion that we should investigate the reasons why the preparations for the general strike had been called off. Later, in the internal arguments in the party, through so-called Discussion Documents which had been made available to the membership, we learnt of a letter written by Stalin in the late summer of 1923 to the members of the Politbureau of the Russian Party, in which he warned against calling a general strike in Germany, because it might lead to an uprising. He claimed that the revolutionary situation had finished in Central Europe, and said that the German comrades had to be restrained. Amongst the party membership there was a general feeling that Heinrich Brandler, when he was in Moscow at the beginning of October, had agreed with Stalin’s evaluation.
The governments which had been formed in Saxony and Thuringia were completely legal. The Social Democrats and Communists had a parliamentary majority in those states. They demanded from the new Stresemann government some action against the reactionary forces in the south. In Saxony, Heinrich Brandler had managed to get the Proletarian Battalions legalised as a sort of auxiliary police force. The national government took this and the inclusion of some Communists in the state governments as an excuse to act with force against the governments of Saxony and Thuringia. The Social Democratic President, Ebert, gave the commander-in-chief of the German Army full powers for this ‘Imperial execution’. The army occupation claimed many victims again. The hunt for Communist Party officials now began in the whole of Central Germany. The party talked of eight to nine thousand arrests. While the large towns and industrial areas throughout Saxony and Thuringia were occupied, there was no occupation of the Geisel valley or of the Bitterfeld coalfield. The feeling in our group and the neighbouring party groups was that the October events could have led to a victorious revolution if only Heinrich Brandler had abandoned his opportunist policies. He had lost all credit in the party at that time.
The KPD was banned on 23 November. The Communist Youth League had planned a regional conference for the beginning of December. It took place despite the ban. The public house in which the conference was held lay at the edge of town, on the Dolau Heath. It went ahead as planned at the weekend, without interruption. The main points on the agenda were “The October Defeat” and “Our Future Tasks”. In the industrial area, despite the ban, our work continued almost legally.
After the October defeat, the factories were closed to me. And there was no prospect of receiving any unemployment benefit in the foreseeable future. My father informed me that he was no longer prepared to feed me. All the attempts of the party to find work for me were unsuccessful. For political reasons, I should have remained in the Geisel valley: I had important functions in the party and the Youth League, and was also a delegate at regional level. However, after a discussion with the regional leadership in Halle/Merseburg, we agreed that I should leave the district and find work elsewhere. I then got in touch with my sister in Berlin. At the beginning of January, I left the Geisel valley to set up home in Berlin.

***In The Beginning Were The Words…Dennis Quiad’s The Words –A Film Review

 

 

 

DVD REVIEW

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Words, starring Dennis Quiad, Jeremy Irons, Bradley Cooper, 2012

Anybody, any amateur, who has seriously tried to put three coherent paragraphs together knows that writing is a tough, tough experience. Doubly, maybe more so, for anyone with any pretensions to write professionally for some audience that he or she has in his or her head to make that big breakthrough and earn enough money to get out of some rustic garret, to be able to look the landlord in the eye and to eat something more original than day-old bread. That little struggle for success in today’s ravishingly competitive dwindling book market (old style) is one of the little points made in this entertaining and engaging film under review appropriately named, ah, The Words.    

The plotline of the film unfolds under the old standby-telling a story within a story within a story and with the limitations of that trope the film works, works well, as a study about the frustrations and temptations of the modern writer. A well-known novelist (Dennis Quiad) who is in something of a mid-career slump gives a public presentation of his latest successful novel. The plot of that novel is that a certain young New York writer, Rory (played by Bradley Cooper,  and yes, much of writing is autobiographical) was working, and waiting, for his big break out. Working and waiting with his beautiful wife whom he took on a honeymoon to Paris where she found a writer’s briefcase that she purchased thinking it might be a good omen. Sometime later after they got home to New York and Rory was in deep writer’s funk he found in that Parisian briefcase a tattered and torn anonymous manuscript which had all the ingredients of a major new novel. After about a minute of reflection he decided to copy the manuscript and claim it as his own work. After cajoling publishers the thing was finally published and was a smash critical and popular hit. He then had that fame and fortune that he had craved for so long.             

Well almost, see the story-line that he, ah, stole, was the effort of a budding American soldier-writer (Jeremy Irons) in World War II who got the writing craze as will happen and also a craze for a French girl he met while doing garrison duty. Their ill-fated love affair (including the then French wife leaving the manuscript behind in that briefcase that Rory’s wife had subsequently purchased) was the central theme of that novel. Well, Jeremy although no longer writing had a strong interest in letting Rory know he knew that it was not his work. That tension, between whether Rory should admit the plagiarism or just continue to draw revenue and probably generous advances on future books, was what drove the latter portion of the film. Yeah, and you say the writing game is not such a tough racket. Huh!         

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

February is Black History Month

 Jazzonia 

This was the limit. That exact thought and no other crossed Louise Crawford’s mind as she fumed, fumed for the third time that week waiting, waiting for his lordship, his budding poet lordship, to show up sometime in the next decade so that he could take her to the Red Hat where the Earl and the boys were playing some heavy noted jazz that week. No, no Crawford  was ever on this great earth to be kept waiting, for anything under any circumstances, and she would make that abundantly clear to him when he arrived, if he did arrive. (Yes that Crawford of the Wall Street financiers Crawford she, Louise the youngest daughter, twenty-two, if anybody was asking.)  Of course, she recognized the double-standard, although only recognized it and would not be enslaved to it any more than any other twenty-two year old woman would be, that she was more than willing to play her own fashionably late card when it suited her, especially among her old boarding school friends who made something of a science of the custom.

She, moreover, did not care, did not care one whit, that he, Jesse to give him a name, was somebody’s protégé , some friend of Mabel Dodge’s granddaughter or something like that, and the greatest poet, the greatest black poet since, what was his name, oh yes, Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance back in the Jazz Age or something (not real jazz, not from what she had heard on old records but more stuff to please the booze-swilling patrons, not like today with Earl, and walking daddies like Earl, and their cool, ultra-cool be-bop, be-bop sound). She had had her full string of Greenwich Village hipsters, or want-to-be- hipsters,of every variety and she had had a veritable United Nations of lovers from the time she had turned eighteen and learned the karma sutra arts (and liked them) from poet prince Jesse back to Bob, the Jewish folksinger, and before him, Jim the jug band guy, and let’s see, Julio the painter, Michelangelo the sculptor (no, not that old time one), Betty, the writer (just a crush and trying something new when some guy, a trumpet player so it figured, introduced her to sister and to some low-life sex stuff), Lothario the high-wire artist and juggler, and, well you know, a lot of very interesting people.

Of course Jesse was her first negro, oops, black lover. (She remembered one night when she called him that, negro, “the greatest Negro poet since Langston Hughes,” when she introduced him to friends at a party and later he yelled holy hell at her saying that he was a black man, a black son of Mother Africa and that his people were creating stuff, human progress stuff, when her people were figuring out how to use a spoon, and trying to figure out why anyone would use such a thing if they could figure it out. He said if he was in Mexico or Spain and was called that it would be okay, okay maybe, but in America he was black, a sable warrior, black. And had been black since Pharaoh times. Later that night he wrote his well-received In Pharaoh Times to blow off the madness steam he still felt toward her). And being her first black lover she gave him some room knowing that he was an artist, and he really was good in bed but this standing up thing was just not done, not done to a Crawford and so she determined that she would give him his walking papers.

Just then she remembered, remembered the last time, that second time he, Jesse, had kept her waiting and the next day, as an act of contrition, he had written his lovely poem Louise Love In Quiet Time for her that some Village poetry journal was all aflutter to publish (and that she had re-read constantly). So maybe tonight she would not give him his walking papers…

Jazzonia

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

Langston Hughes

 

 

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-
Present Day Relevance of the Transitional Programme (1966)

Markin comment:

Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.

Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.

As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow. 

 

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. 
******** 

  Present Day Relevance of the Transitional Programme


This is the first complete translation of the French version of the preface to the Hungarian edition of the Transitional Programme written above the pseudonym of Balazs Nagy, which was published in La Verité, no.538, 1966, pp.31-3, the theoretical magazine of the OCI. A portion of it was reproduced as document 11 in the appendix to Jean-Jacques Marie’s Le Trotskysme, Paris 1970, pp.1110-1, and translated into English by Richard Stephenson in the International Bulletin of the Revolutionary Communist League, no.1, Autumn 1970, pp.33-4. Its importance lies in its clear demonstration that many of the demands thrown up by the logic of the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy unconsciously echoed those formulated in the Transitional Programme 18 years earlier, proving at one and the same time the validity of that document and its analysis of Stalinism.
Nobody could be better placed to assess this than the author of this piece, who was one of the three secretaries of the Petöfi Circle formed by Hungarian intellectuals in April 1956, whose demonstrations and protests began the chain of events leading to the Hungarian Revolution. He escaped across the Austrian frontier after the Russian intervention put down that revolt in November 1956 for exile in Western Europe, where he moved towards a Trotskyist position, and joined the OCI in 1962. There he organised the Hungarian League of Revolutionary Socialists, which joined the International Committee of the Fourth International in 1963, and which became the basis for the subsequent Committee for the Organisation of Eastern European Communists (Trotskyists). But at the International Preconference of 1972, at which it was decided to set up the OCRFI, Varga objected to the liquidation of the International Committee, and was expelled. In 1973 he formed the short-lived International League Rebuilding the Fourth International, but was expelled from this after a sharp factional dispute in 1984. He is presently Secretary of the Workers’ International for the formation of the Fourth International, whose British affiliate is the Workers Revolutionary Party (Workers Press).
The thesis developed here can be checked against: the author's own account, Budapest 1956: the Central Workers’ Council, which was translated into English in International Socialism, no.18, Autumn 1964, and reproduced in Bill Lomax (ed.), Eyewitness in Hungary, Nottingham 1980, pp.165-81 , along with other necessary matter. The documentary evidence for the political demands thrown up by the Hungarian movement can be studied in Jean-Jacques Marie and Balazs Nagy (Michel Varga), Pologne-Hongrie 1956, Paris 1966, some of which appears in Gerry Healy (ed.), Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, London 1966, accompanied by other useful material, including an essay by Robert Black (Robin Blick), The Workers’ Councils in the Hungarian Revolution.
The literature thrown up by the Hungarian Revolution is very large. Still a classic is Peter Fryer’s Hungarian Tragedy, second edition, London 1986, and Tibor Meray’s Thirteen Days That Shook the Kremlin, London 1958, yet retains its value. There is also Sandor Kopasci, In the Name of the Working Class, Harmondsworth 1989. But to these must now be added The Hungarian Workers’ Revolution, Direct Action Pamphlet no.2, and Andy Anderson, Hungary ’56, Solidarity, 1964, both accounts influenced by Anarchism, and the more recent and comprehensive treatments. François Manuel, La révolution hongroise des conseils ouvriers, Paris 1976, and Bill Lomax, Hungary 1956, London 1976. First hand descriptions of varying worth are to be consulted in Frank Füredi, The Tragedy of the Hungarian October, the next step, 24 October 1986, Nicholas Krasso, Hungary 1956 (an interview), Meta, nos.3-4, pp.5-10, and Sandor Racz, Hungary ’56: The Workers’ Case, Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, Volume 7, no.2, Summer 1984, pp.2-17, a most illuminating interview with the President of the Central Workers’ Council of Greater Budapest. The same journal (Volume 5, nos-3-4, Summer 1982) included an essay by Bill Lomax, 25 Years Later – New Light on 1956.
General articles on the crisis run into hundreds. Most useful to revolutionary historians are John Lister’s collection Hungary and the Crisis of Stalinism, Socialist Viewpoint, no.14, November 1986, pp.17-28, John Hunt, We Won’t Stop Halfway – Stalinism Must be Destroyed, Workers Power, November 1986, with some interesting remarks about the politics of the workers’ councils, and The Hungarian Workers’ Uprising of 1956, Workers Vanguard, 4 August 1989, which draws some telling comparisons with the analysis in Trotsky’s The Class Nature of the Soviet State, written as long ago as 1933.
Chris Harman’s analysis of Hungary as state capitalist draws comparison with the dual power situation in Russia in 1917 in chapter 7 of his Class Struggles in Eastern Europe, London, 1988, pp.119-86. Others who share this reasoning include Jim Hensman, Hungary: The Struggle for Workers' Democracy 1956, Militant (Britain), 29 October 1976, and Clive Bradley, The Lessons of Hungary, Socialist Organiser, 30 October 1986.
General descriptions, all of them with some perceptive insights include The Hungarian Commune, Socialist Current, Volume 1, no.7, December 1956, Political Revolution in Hungary – Ten Years After, Spartacist, no.8, November/December 1966, pp.8-9, Joseph Seymour, The 1956 Hungarian Workers’ Uprising, Workers Hammer, October 1986, Sean Matgamna, The Hungarian Commune of 1956, in Reform and Revolution in Eastern Europe, London 1988, pp.14-5 (originally in An Solas, December 1966), The Revolution Drowned in Blood, Workers Power, November 1986, Frank Richards, Twenty Five Years After Budapest, One Year on from Gdansk, the next step, October 1981, and Ian Taylor, Hungary 1956: When the Myths Were Shattered, Socialist Worker, 25 October 1986.
The evolution of Stalinist apologetics about what happened can be examined in Charles Coutts, Eyewitness in Hungary, Daily Worker pamphlet, 1957, some of which is excerpted in Lomax’s book of the same title (pp.108-21), Ursula McLean, Hungary 1956, Socialist Europe, no.4, and Sam Russell, Rough Justice in Tough Times, Seven Days, 6 November 1986. They carried no more conviction at the time than they do now, and several hundred Communists left their party to join the British Trotskyist movement in the years after 1956.

ICL Statement

Regarding the editorial introduction to the Present Day Relevance of the Transitional Programme, we note that after the OCI, expelled Varga, they falsely charged him in 1973 with being an agent of the GPU, and later of the CIA as well. In 1974 the OCI published a pamphlet containing extensive excerpts from Varga’s correspondence in an attempt to back up their charges. They also released copies of some 200 pages of Varga’s ‘archives’ from the years 1957-1960.
In March 1976, after lengthy negotiations, an international Commission of Inquiry was finally formed to investigate the OCI’s charges against Varga. Representatives of Lutte Ouvrière, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, the US Socialist Workers Party, and the international Spartacist tendency (iSt – now International Communist League) sat on the Commission.
Despite the fact that the materials made available by the OCI (I) indicated that Varga had solicited funds from the US State Department; (2) expressed clearly anti-Semitic views (for example: “it is time to exclude this dirty yid from the cultural milieu”, 4 March 1959); and (3) expressed openly racist attitudes (“the Belgians were wrong to grant independence [to the Congo] with no preparation, after a paternalistic colonialism ... But that’s no reason for the Blacks to be irresponsible”, 9 August 1960), Varga refused to make any sort of statement to the Commission. Nor did he ever disavow the published correspondence.
The Commission’s final declaration, dated 29 May 1977 and signed by representatives of the SWP, the LCR and the iSt, dismissed the OCI's charges as “unproved”. The iSt signed the Declaration only on condition that a separate iSt statement be appended and published with the Declaration. Our statement characterised the OCI’ unproven accusations as slanders, and also noted that Varga’s refusal to shed light on his past indicated him to be “a suspicious and highly dubious individual”. Documentation on the Commission’s inquiry is available in French and English. See the pamphlet Documents sur l’affaire Varga, or Spartacist, no.24, Autumn 1977, both available from the ICL.

Editor’s Note

The above statement appears in conformity with our ground rules in this magazine. But I feel that I must, as editor, place on record my disquiet about the use of such statements to make personal attacks upon the leaders of other organisations represented on the board, apart from the lack of courtesy towards one of our contributors. None of us should really be taken to task over statements we made before joining the revolutionary movement, and it should also be added that even a bourgeois court does not call into question the character of its defendant after his acquittal.
Al Richardson

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Ten years ago, when the Hungarian Revolution broke the power of the bureaucracy, the workers, toiling peasants, intellectuals and youth knew nothing of the Fourth International. Its programme was unknown to them. Hence the resemblance, even identity, between this programme and their spontaneous demands is astonishing.
“A fresh upsurge of the revolution in the USSR”, says the Transitional Programme, “will undoubtedly begin under the banner of the struggle against social inequality and political oppression. Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy! Down with Stakhanovism! Down with the Soviet aristocracy and its ranks and orders! Greater equality of wages for all forms of labour!“ In fact, that is just how the ferment began that resulted in the revolution of 1956. Already since 1953 protests had arisen more and more openly against the big shops and sanatoria destined for the use of the leading caste, against all its privileges, against work norms, Stakhanovism and work emulation. The first act of the Revolution was the augmentation of the lowest wages. An entire series of the demands of 1956 was to echo the programme drawn up 20 years before. If we go on to quote it, the agreement between the principles of the Fourth International and the practice of the Hungarian revolution becomes even more striking.
The Programme demands: “... it is necessary to drive the bureaucracy and the new aristocracy out of the Soviets. In the Soviets there is room only for the representatives of the workers, rank-and-file collective farmers, peasants and Red Army men. Democratisation of the Soviets is impossible without legalisation of Soviet parties. The workers and peasants themselves by their own free vote will indicate what parties they recognise as soviet parties.”
The Hungarian Revolution created a system of councils without bureaucrats in which the majority of the Hungarian workers adopted a position for the legalisation of the parties which recognised Hungary's decisive transformation of a Socialist type and the council system, the greatest conquest of 1956.
In the Programme we read: “revision of the planned economy from top to bottom in the interests of producers and consumers!” And equally we find this demand, practically word for word, in the programme of all the councils, committees and popular organs of the revolution of 1956.
“Reorganisation of the collective farms in accordance with the will and in the interests of the workers there engaged!” the programme continues. In the same way since 1953 the opposition has expressed the interest of the peasants in the reorganisation of the collectivised agriculture, which was realised by the peasants in 1956 in the most natural way: they liquidated the collective farms organised by force that had failed, but maintained those which were “in accordance with their will” and that functioned “in their interests”.
What is the origin of this singular and astonishing agreement between Hungary ’56 and the Programme of the Fourth International drawn up by Leon Trotsky who was murdered by Stalin in 1940, well before the birth of the Hungarian ‘people’s democracy’, and even before the Second World War, in 1938?
The programme of a party cannot be compared with the programme of a government. A political programme is not a programme of work, but a summary of the political experience of a class accumulated in the course of its struggles, the systematisation of its basic principles and its essential aims. On this basis it fixes the principles of its struggle and its aims during a given historical period.
The Hungarian workers may well ask the question: Why do we need this programme, seeing as the formula of Social Democracy has been the political programme of the workers for a long time? In fact, the Programme of the Fourth International summarises the experiences of the working class as regards Social Democracy as well, when it shows that it has become an organic part of the capitalist system since 1914. Its programme has given up the independent aims of the working class, since under the pretext of defending democracy it appeals to the workers to accept the bourgeois system. Is there any need to furnish any clearer examples of this than the anti-working-class policy of the Wilson government in Britain, or the programme and practice of the German Social Democracy or the SFIO in France?
Others might maintain that seeing as the Communist parties themselves are opposed to capitalism, a new programme is not needed. It is true that the Leninist programme formulates the experiences and aims of the struggle for the overthrow of the world capitalism. But the working class has acquired political experiences of historic importance since the death of Lenin. The Soviet Union that was created by the Revolution of October 1917 remained alone, and the first workers’ state of soviets degenerated in that isolated and backward country. The power of a privileged bureaucratic caste took shape, which in the form of Stalinism erected a reactionary anti-working-class regime inside the country, and on the international level delivered the working class over to the bourgeoisie, betraying its revolutions. The programmes elaborated by Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and by the first four congresses of the Communist International could not have foreseen this development. It was necessary to summarise the experiences of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and of the Communist parties, experiences that were to show that the policy of the Communist parties had become anti-working class inside the USSR as well as within the capitalist system, helping to maintain it. This is the fundamental point of departure for the Programme of the Fourth International, which thus formulates the main conclusion of the experiences of the last 40 years: “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterised by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat”.
‘Leninism’ and ‘Trotskyism’ differ only from each other by the fact that the latter draws the lessons of the utter bankruptcy of Stalinism as a whole, analyses its roots, causes and methods, and sets out to make war on it in order to resolve “the crisis of the leadership of the proletariat”. Both of them are the Marxist analyses of their time, or, to be more exact, the Marxism. But the aim of the programme elaborated by Trotsky was not only to cleanse the Leninist programme of all Stalinist falsifications and betrayals, but to apply Marxism to the Soviet Union as well.
Marxism is a universal method. Class analysis and criticism must be applied to the USSR as well as to the so-called ‘People’s Democracies’. This programme codifies the experiences of the international working class amid the fresh conditions of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and of the Communist parties, of the development, causes and consequences of Stalinism – that is how it was able to formulate the demands of the revolution of 1956 – 20 years before!
The spontaneous movement of the Hungarian working class took the same route as the conscious Marxist analysis summarised in the Programme. This is because it expressed the historic and immediate interests of the international working class one and indivisible, because it is a Marxist programme, in other words. It becomes clear in the light of this that the Communist Opposition grouped around Imre Nagy – on account of its Stalinist training – was not Marxist, for it only took account of the ‘given situation’ created by Stalinism itself, and did not base its activity upon the historic and immediate interests of the working class. The Hungarian vanguard workers and Socialists had to re-examine, in practice, in the struggle, the experiences of this past (and of the present) by a Marxist analysis of the real problems of Socialism and of the tasks that flow from it. This is why we arrive at a single method – there could only be one of them – that of the assimilation and application of the Programme with an analysis of our past weaknesses and the elimination of them.
The Hungarian Communist Opposition that was formed between 1953 and 1956, and the writer of these lines along with it, thought that it could realise its aims gradually, by successive reforms. But among the important lessons of 1956 that were learned by the Hungarian working class was that we understood that for the realisation of these demands, the revolution of the workers and all the toilers was indispensable. 1956 showed how confused was the activity of the Opposition in the course of the revolution, to which its own programme, however inconsequential it was, led it. The reason for this confusion was that the Opposition did not make clear what Trotsky had formulated 20 years previously, and what was to become the most important lesson of 1956: it is impossible to realise this programme, we read in the Programme itself, without the overthrow of the bureaucracy: “Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development toward Socialism”. What the Hungarian Communist Opposition did not know how to clarify, which resulted in the revolution catching it unawares, was clearly laid out in the Marxist Programme of the international working class.
The policy provided by the Programme of the Fourth International as a central task for the working class flowing from its experiences is to resolve the crisis of its leadership – in other words, to build the Marxist workers’ party over against the Stalinist and Social Democratic ‘leading’ parties in order to replace them. Given that the 1956 Opposition – lacking a Marxist preparation – could not elaborate a correct revolutionary programme, neither could it subordinate its activity to the only decisive task, the construction of an independent Marxist working class party. For 1956 showed clearly that its greatest weakness was precisely the absence of such a party effectively organising the best revolutionary forces.
But the outcome and the irrelevance of the Opposition also had another origin. It also looked at the Western countries through the distorting lenses of its Stalinist education, as at best the unchallenged rule of the bourgeoisie, or at worst in accordance with the activity of the western Stalinist parties. Thus it did not see that if the Marxist method is universal, the international working class is also one and indivisible, and that the universality of Marxism is indissolubly linked with the international unity of the working class. The Opposition did not know how to define its role and tasks, any more than it understood that its ally was the international working class, which is confronted by the Holy Alliance of world imperialism and Stalinism on account of its fundamental position. It lacked the fundamental idea of the Programme in its conceptions, in understanding that there aren’t blocs marked off by frontiers, but on the one side the international working class, and on the other the bourgeoisie along with its Stalinist ally. Such is the fundamental antagonism of our epoch taught us by Marxism. Any other assertion serves to oppress the masses.
There is no Marxism without revolutionary practice. There is therefore no international working class without an international. The Programme elaborated by Leon Trotsky is the expression of the unity of the world struggle of the working class, because it links organically the struggle of the workers of the capitalist countries for the Socialist revolution with that of the workers of the countries under the domination of the bureaucracy for the overthrow of its power, for the power of the councils, and for Socialism. This unity is not a mere theoretical understanding, but the Programme of the World Party of the working class, the Fourth International.
The lessons of 1956 as well as the experiences of today demonstrate the necessity for the construction of the Hungarian Marxist workers’ party. But this struggle must be carried on at the same time as the struggle carried on for the reconstruction of the Fourth International. The advanced workers and the Hungarian Socialist workers can only accomplish this difficult task successfully to the extent that they understand the experiences, situation and historic and immediate tasks of the international, and hence the Hungarian, working class, and adapt their struggle to them. The means of this understanding is the Programme.

Balazs Nagy (Michel Varga)
Paris, October 1966

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Spain Betrayed-How the Popular Front Opened the Gates to Franco

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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. 
********

Mieczyslaw Bortenstein (M. Casanova)

Spain Betrayed-How the Popular Front Opened the Gates to Franco

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From Revolutionary History, Vol.4 Nos.1-2. Used by permission.

This account was first published over the pseudonym of M. Casanova as a pamphlet in the Le Tract collection (no.3) and in Quatrième Internationale, no.17, May 1939.

Introduction

Author’s Introduction

1. The Tragic Exodus

2. Why Barcelona Was Given Up Without A Fight

3. And the CNT?

4. The Republican Army and its Contradictions

5. The Ideological Factor in the Civil War

6. Can the Francoist Army be Disintegrated?

7. Once More on Technique

8. War Industry

9. What Happened on 19 July?

10. Was there a Proletarian Revolution in Spain?

11. The Events of May 1937

12. The Economy of the Popular Front

13. Food Supplies

14. Republican Order

15. The Withdrawal of the Volunteers

16. The Republican Ideology

17. The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM)

18. The Anarchists of the Left and the ‘God-Seekers’ in the Light of the Spanish Experience

19. The Fourth International in the Spanish Revolution

20. The Miaja-Casado Pronunciamento

21. What else could have been done?

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

February is Black History Month

 

 

Juke Box Love Song

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Langston Hughes

He, Jimmy Sands, new in town, new in New Jack City although, not new to city life having lived in Baltimore, Detroit, Chi Town, Frisco and Seattle along the way decided to hit the uptown hot spots one night. Not the “hot’ hot spots like the Kit- Kat Club which was strictly for the Mayfair swells, or the Banjo Club, the same, but the lesser clubs, the what did he mock call them, yah, “the plebeian clubs,” which translated to him as the place where hot chicks, mostly white, Irish usually, from the old country, all red-headed, all slim and slinky, all, all, pray, pray, ready to give up that goddam novena book they carried around since birth, maybe before, and live, ready to  give in to his siren song of love, and ditto some sassy light-skinned (high yalla his father, his father who never got beyond Kentucky-born nigra to designate the black kindred, called them) black girls, steamy Latinas with those luscious lips and far-way brown eyes, and foxy (foxy if he could ever understand them, or rather their wants) Asian girls, a whole mix, a mix joined together by one thing, no, two things, one youth, young, young and hungry, young and ready, young and, well, you know, young and horny, and two, a love of dancing, rock and roll dancing (and in a pinch, maybe that last dance pinch, in order to seal the evening’s deal, a slow one.

So one James Sands, taxi-driven, indicating that for once in his tender young life that he was flush with dough (having just done a seaman’s three month tour of every odd-ball oil-tanker port of call in the eastern world it seemed, he was not sure that he would ever get that oil tank smell out of his nostrils, all he knew was that he would have to be shanghaied or something to get him back on one of those dirty buggers) and ready to spend it on high- shelf liquor (already having scored some precious high end jimson, you know, weed, reefer in case he got lucky), some multi-colored women (choices listed see above), and some music, alighted (nice) in front of Jim Sweeney’s Hi Hat Club up around 100^thStreet just around where things began to mix and match in the city. The only problem, when he inquired, inquired of that beautiful ganga connection, was that while Jim Sweeney’s had plenty of high- priced, high-shelf liquor and plenty of that mix and match bevy of women that the place had no live band for dancing just a jukebox. But a jukebox that had every kind of song, rock and blues song, you could ask for and the speakers were to die for. So here he was.

As Jimmy entered (nice, no cover) he remembered back to the old neighborhood, the old high school after school scene, in dockside Baltimore, at Ginny’s Pizza Parlor where every cool guy and gal went to have their chilling out pizza and soda, maybe a couple of cigarettes and to play about ten songs on Ginny’s jukebox. He remembered too that afternoon when Shana, long, tall, high yalla (sorry) Shana, from the cheerleaders squad showed up there alone, and Shana, if you had seen her would under no circumstances ever need to be alone in any spot in this good green earth much less at Ginny’s. Seems she and her boyfriend had had a falling out and she was on the prowl. Taking his chances Jimmy, old smooth Jimmy, asked her to dance when somebody put Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven on, and she said, yes, did you hear that, yes. And that dance got him a couple more, and then a couple more after that, until Shana said she had to leave to go home for some supper and then somebody put on Ballad of Easy Rider, a slow one by The Byrds, and that was their last chance dance. They saw each other a few times after that, had shared some stuff, but, hell, there was no way in that damn Baltimore city that a white-bread (term of art used in the neighborhood so take no offense) and a high yalla (take offense) could breathe the air there together, although he was ready to jump the hoops to do the thing. Maybe tonight, maybe in the crazy mix and match night if he didn’t get distracted by some red-headed Irish girl ready to burn that damn novena book for some whiskey and smoke, he might find his Shana, make something of it, and make the East River smile.

 

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Teen Dance Club Night

Recently I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes, tunes that our local jukeboxes devoured many a hard-earned father nickel and dime it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation. The generation of ’68, the generation that slogged through the red scare cold war night, survived and, for a minute, were ready to turn the world upside down, and who had just started to tune into rock music as some sort of harbinger of things to come.  

And we, we small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word, not the derogatory sense), we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who would now claim otherwise, claiming some form of amnesia about when that beat hit them square in the eyes, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not my grammar school best friend “wild man” Billie who I will talk about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night when Elvis (and us, us too) were young and hungry.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll-never get-to-heaven-listening-to-that-devil's- music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yeah right, Ma, Pa like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail-break cravings.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, of course) hanging from the lips, Coke, big sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. And, of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing. Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working-class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them).

But the crème de la crème to beat all was the teen night club. Easy concept, and something that could only have been thought up by someone in cahoots with our parents (or maybe it was them alone, although could they have been that smart). Open a “ballroom” (in reality some old VFW, Knight of Columbus, Elks, etc. hall that was either going to waste or was ready for the demolition ball), bring in live music on Friday and Saturday night with some rocking band (but not too rocking, not Elvis swiveling at the hips to the gates of hell rocking, no way), serve the kids drinks…, oops, sodas (Coke Pepsi, Grape and Orange Nehi, Hires Root Beer, etc.), and have them out of there by midnight, unscathed. All supervised, and make no mistake these things were supervised, by something like the equivalent of the elite troops of the 101st Airborne Rangers.

And we bought it, and bought into it hard. And, if you had that set-up where you lived, you bought it too. And why? Come on now, have you been paying attention? Girls, tons of girls (or boys, as the case may be). See, even doubting Thomas-type parents gave their okay on this one because of that elite troops of the 101st Airborne factor. So, some down and the heels, tee-shirted, engineer- booted Jimmy or Johnny Speedo from the wrong side of the tracks, all boozed up and ready to “hot rod” with that ‘boss”’57 Chevy that he just painted to spec, is no going to blow into the joint and carry Mary Lou or Peggy Sue away, never to be seen again. No way. That stuff happened, sure, but that was on the side. This is not what drove that scene for the few years while we were still getting wise to the ways of the world The girls (and guys) were plentiful and friendly in that guarded, backed up by 101st Airborne way (damn it). And we had our …sodas (I won’t list the brands again, okay). But, and know this true, we blasted on the music. The music that is on this compilation, no question. And I will tell you some of the stick outs:

Save The Last Dance For Me, The Drifters (oh, sweet baby, that I have had my eye on all night, please, please, James Brown, please save that last one for me, and on too few occasions she did, or her kindred so I came out about even); Only The Lonely, Roy Orbison (for some reason the girls loved covers of this one, especially one night, one church hall teen dance Friday night when a certain she planted a big kiss on my face, well, lips after I sang that one along with the band); Alley Oop, The Hollywood Argyles (a good goofy song to break up the sexual tension that always filled the air, early and late, at these things as the mating ritual worked its mysterious ways); Handy Man, Jimmy Jones( a personal favorite, as I kept telling every girl, and maybe a few guys as well, that I was that very handy man that those self-same gals had been waiting, waiting up on those lonely weekend nights for. Egad!); Stay, Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs (nice harmonics and good feeling); New Orleans, Joe Jones (great dance number as the twist and other exotic dances started to break into the early 1960s consciousness); and, Let The Little Girl Dance, Billy Bland (yes, let her dance, hesitant, saying no at first mother, please, please, no I will not invoke James Brown on this one, please).