***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Elvis’s Are You Lonesome Tonight -Take Two

 

 

…he wondered, truly wondered whether she missed him, missed her walking daddy that night, that seemingly endless night when he wondered once again whether  she missed him after all the slow meaningless time that had passed those past few months since their over-heated short love affair had gone down in flames almost as quickly as it had started. That walking daddy moniker was a little term of endearment that she had tagged him with after they had, well, done the “do the do” and she though that she had him reined in, reined him in with kisses and a few little special things that he liked, and that she knew he liked even before he told her that he did. That “do the do” sex stuff was the least of their problems, he knew she liked his  kisses and a few little special things that she liked, and that  he knew she liked even before she told him that she did, although at the end maybe it was the sex stuff  too, it could have been everything jumbled together. But if anybody asked him he missed that part, no question.    

 

He did not really believe that she did, did miss him, she was not built that way, had kind of steel-trap mind on the subject (and others too, subjects she was steel-trapped about), he knew from the first, and she made the fact abundantly clear in all their conversations, that once she was done with a man that was that and she moved on, maybe to the next man, maybe just off to lick her wounds. She would illustrate the point  with examples citing, chapter and verse, whenever the subject came up ex-husbands and lovers, one of whom she said had asked if she needed a blackboard once she got on her high horse about the subject. Still he took a ticket, took a chance that he would be, what she called him at the beginning, oh yeah, her “forever” man (and a few short months later her “never” man although she did not say that word exactly he just plucked it out of the air one night, one early on night when he first thought about whether she missed him).  Yeah, so no question he was as sure as a man could be, a man who no longer was on speaking terms with her to find out, that she did not miss him.

 

He wondered too whether she was lonesome tonight for her walking daddy, a very different proposition than whether she missed him. He was not sure on that score, although he thought in the far recesses of his brain she might. See as she also explained in detail with those same ex-husbands and major lovers example complete with blackboard remark even if she was through with a man, had moved on to another man, or just went off to lick her wounds the way she put the fact in those same conversations mentioned above about her way with men, she was as likely to be licking her wounds as looking for another man. As likely to be filled with solitary sadness as out on the town, out with another man.

 

That is where those two marriages and many love affairs came in, came in and softened rather than hardened her to life’s romantic ups and downs. She mentioned that she had since childhood and a very savagely cruel upbringing had a hard time letting go, letting the past fade, and that it took her a long time to get over a man once they were through. How did he say she put it one night, oh yeah, she was fast to love a man when he got under her skin and slow to forget him. That fast love start had been her way with him in their whirlwind love affair smothering him with all kinds of undeserved accolades based on fairly limited knowledge of who he was, what he had been through, and his own spoken appreciations of his worth which added up to the usual man of clay, nothing more. All of the above not giving him time to breathe before trying to plan their future unto infinity after about a month. Yeah, the far recesses of brain might be right she might be lonesome that night he spoke of but let me tell you what he told me one night about that night he was wondering and many others before and after while we were sipping white wines at a Boston bar, listening to some old time piped-in jazz music as background (could have been Cry Me A River starting out, in fact I think it was), which started him out on what exactly had happened the previous few months. Let me give you some of the story and you try to figure the damn thing out:     

 

He had met her sitting at the bar in Cambridge, a rock and roll bar, an oldies but goodies bar that he frequented when he needed to hear Elvis, Chuck, Bo, or some rockabilly beat after some hard case was done or he just needed to blow off steam when some appeals case was slipping away for lack of presentable issues that could win. Some nights, like that night, he wound up just slugging quarters in the juke-box, others, mainly weekend nights he would wind up listening to a live band, The Rockin’ Ramrods, covering the classics. He noticed that from his vantage point a few stools down she looked very familiar in a long ago way. After he slid down the few empty barstools between them to get beside her he had mentioned that fact to her as a come-on and offered and bought her a drink on that basis (a glass of red wine which she loved, loved to perdition as he would find out later) they spent the next several minutes trying to figure where that might have been. Work, no, some godforsaken political conference, no, another along ago bar, no, the Cape, no, College, no, and so on. 

 

Strangely they found out once they discussed where they had grown up (she had told him at first she was from New Hampshire and he said that he lived in Cambridge so the subject of home towns did not come up at first run) that the link had been  that they had gone to the same high school together, she a couple of years after him, North Adamsville High, located on the South Shore of Boston although they had not known each other, had not had any of the same classes, back then (but since they had also gone to the same junior high school they agreed later after they were “smitten” with each other, her term, and wanted to make some symbolic “written in the wind” closeness count they must have been in the same space at some point if only the gym, auditorium or cafeteria). That got them cutting up old torches that night for a while, well, a long while since they closed the bar that night. They agreed that they had some common interests and that they should continue the conversation further via e-mail and cellphone. See, since she lived up in New Hampshire in a town outside of Manchester, was a professor at the state university and had been in Cambridge to attend an education conference at Harvard so getting together soon in person with her busy start of semester schedule was problematic.

 

So for a while, a few weeks, they carried on an e-mail/cellphone correspondence. Both were however struck by the number of things they had in common, things from childhood like growing up poor, growing up in hostile and dangerous family environments, growing up insecure and with nothing and nobody to guide them left to their own resources. Moreover they found that they had many similar teenage angst and alienation episodes in high school in common as well as current political and academic interests. Both agreed that they should meet again in person since they had already “met” in high school (somehow in the rush of things they discounted that they had really met in Cambridge in a bar, but such are the ways of love in bloom go figure).

 

And so they met again, met many times in neutral territory since they lived so far apart (they called their romance, the Merrimack romance for all the old mill towns the met in, Lowell, Nashua, Manchester, Haverhill, Amesbury and a couple of others I forgot), had many chatty dinners and did other things together like museums and took long walks along the river. He explained to me the powerful first dinner where they talked for hours and went he escorted her to her car in the parking lot for them to go their separate ways home when she got teary-eyed and he caressed her hair to console her. Yeah, it was like that when it was good.   Before long they agreed to meet at a hotel in New Hampshire to see if they had a spark that way. Well you know they did since otherwise there would be no story to tell. You also know, at least you know what he thought about the matter, that they did very well in bed together.  Yes, they, he and she, were both smitten, both felt very comfortable with each other and were heading forward with eyes open. Along the way they had discussed their two each marriages, their serious love affairs and their attitudes toward relationships. Those were the times she would emphasize her take on men, her expectations and her limitations. She also early on started her campaign to get him to go stay with her in New Hampshire and leave Cambridge. He although not as well formed in his take on their relationship as she did likewise explain his two marriages, especially the hard fall of the second marriage which left him very stunned, and major love affairs, although he early on balked when she spoke of leaving the city for the Podunk country up north as he called her place. So yes both sets of eyes were open, open wide.

 

She pulled the hammer down, pulled it down early. Within a couple of months she spoke of love, of living together, of sailing out into the sunset together. He, slower on the uptake, slower having been more severely burned in his last marriage than he let on to her or had thought had happened, was a bit bewildered by her speedy emotional attachments to him. They went on a couple of trips away to New York and Washington together, had some good times, had some rocky times interspersed too when she tried to rein him in. He wasn’t afraid to commit exactly (well maybe he confessed to me although not to her when it could have helped maybe had a little “cold feet” problem but he said not bad for him) as much as he wanted the thing to develop naturally, give him time to breathe although I already said that air to breathe thing before didn’t I, there always seemed to be an air of suffocation every time she got on her high horse, got her wanting habits on, got the best of him sometimes.

 

Then he made his fatal mistake, or rather series of mistakes, starting with strong words one night at dinner when they both had had a bit too much to drink, too much wine, and she was going on and on as she did after her second or third glass depending on how tired she had been. He admitted he got snappy, told her they needed to slow down and enjoy each other. She responded with a blast that shook him up but they were able to kiss and make up that night. The real mistake though was one time after they had not seen each other for a week or so he sent her an e-mail speaking in sorrow of the drift of their recent relationship and he wanted the spark back that had go them going. She exploded at that e-mail seeing that as a callous rebuke of her actions rather than as what he thought was a plaintive love letter. What did he say she had called it, oh yeah, a closing argument, a damn lawyer’s closing argument (the “damn” part a result of having been married to a lawyer the first time out and now him). They agreed to meet at a neutral restaurant to discuss the matter (on the Merrimack River of course but I will not give the location since there still may be blood on the water).

 

When he thought about it later he could see where she had prepared herself to be confrontational toward him or at least be prepared to force the issue because the first words out of her mouth were an ultimatum-“come live with me or the affair is over.” The exchange got heated as she drank more wine this night as well (he did not drink that night having learned a lesson from the last session). She said something that when we talked he could not for the life of him remember but they were fighting words. He exploded saying “I don’t need this,” threw money on the table and stormed out. That was the last he saw of her not even looking back to see how she took the matter.  Oh sure the next day he tried frantically to call several times knowing that a decisive turning point had been reached, no answer. Tried some e-mails-same response. Later that day he got a message on his voicemail from her giving her walking daddy his walking papers. She told him not to call, not to write as she would not respond. He never did. As he explained it to me he never did although he spent many a night thinking about whether he should call, about what he would say and thought too of an e-mail but he knew in his bones she would not answer like with his first attempts so he let it go. Knew her steel-trapped policies toward men, toward him in her walking papers summary. Let it go to spend his time, his free time, fretting about what had happened. Jesus.

  

What he did do seriously in the few weeks after their break-up, what he was doing this tonight he spoke of to me as well as months earlier  when he first fretted over what had gone wrong, was think through how it could have played out differently. Did that blame game in order to curb his own lonesomeness as he replayed their short affair, as he tried to try to figure out something that had bothered him since that fierce parting night. No, not about the specific details of what had caused his downfall, although he was still perplexed about why his concern about their present situation and his anger at that last meeting over her ultimatum should have been the irretrievable cause. He would accept that, had to accept that was the way she perceived the situation and that those were the causes of his downfall pure and simple. He didn’t like it but he has come to see where what she said in her voicemail message that she could never see him in the old way, the way she had in the beginning of their affair when their love flamed, precluded any future romantic relationship. 

 

What he thought about mostly though concerned one point-how could two intelligent, worldly people, who individually had many strong and powerful inner resources gathered through surviving stormy childhoods and life’s hard knocks, not be able to figure a way to avoid letting their fragile relationship blow away in the wind, blow away without a trace after many professions of desire, devotion and fidelity. He fretted over how little energy they had devoted to using some of those personal inner resources in order to build the foundations of a strong relationship. He had been willing to take his fair share of the blame for his “cold feet” which had him, more often than not, attempting to walk away from not toward her. That last marriage had damaged him more than he had thought and it had still colored his worldview on intimacy, on commitment, no question. That walking away as they got closer, as she started to get under his skin, always seemed strongest as he left her after some bad days when she was pushing him hard. Or when he thought the whole thing was hopeless since they lived too far away from each other to compromise on a living arrangement. Yeah, he would take his fair share of blame on that.

 

She infuriated him though with her interminable future plans while disregarding the present, although he could not speak for her and whether she believed his house of card blown in the wind idea about what had happened. She had plans for them to go to live in California when they retired, deemed it mandatory that he spent a certain number of days up in New Hampshire even while he had pressing business to take care of in Boston, but best, best as an example, was that she had their next Christmas and New Year already mapped out in March. All the time not paying attention to the drift of the tempo of their day to day relationship where he was, frankly, unhappy, very unhappy. In the end he was shocked by how little there had been to hold them together in a serious crisis which he conceded or would have conceded if she had ever decided to talk to him again was a serious crisis. Now that he thought about it for a while he told me, no, whether she had a new walking daddy or not (or whatever new moniker she would make up for him) she would not be lonesome that night.                        

***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 

 

…she hadn’t thought about the upcoming date all that much, hadn’t thought about how Art was going to squire her to the first dance of the school year, the decisive Fall Frolic. She had been slow, late 1950s bewildered young woman who had gotten her “friend” late slow (her period but every girl called it anybody but that and she had come  to rely on that designation as being as appropriate as any although it was anything but a friend more like a curse) in the boy department. Although given her total logged time on the girlfriend telephone, many times the midnight telephone when she was lonely, lonely more so of late as she had been more distracted, with Jenny who was more up-to-date on matters of the opposite sex (and sex although don’t let that so-called advanced knowledge of Jenny’s part throw you off since most  of what she knew was wrong, wrong gotten from an older brother, Ted,  who like all young men, young Catholic men, got what he knew of sex from the streets just like everybody else and thus not surprisingly mostly wrong which almost caught her flat-footed in the pregnancy department one time when Sal “protection” might not have protected) she was certainly interested in boys (and at least theoretically sex, although that interest had a quality of being sealed with seven seals and tied up, tied up with a big bow with that prevalent mores of saving herself for marriage, or some such thing).

This Fall Frolic by the way had a probable track record in creating class “items” come senior year. While it was not a formal dance, not even semi-formal like the junior prom every young woman who planned to attend planned to have a “fox” dress fitting for the occasion and expected that her date would put some extra effort into looking good for the dance. All classes at old North Adamsville at least since 1951 when the underclassmen put up a stink about being shut out were entitled (and encouraged) to attend but no question the event reeked of a senior project. Most of the dance committee were well-known seniors and the band selection and theme of the year’s dance were a senior monopoly. It would take several more years and something like a civil war to break the senior monopoly but by then nobody was committed to an all-out defend of the old traditions. That was the 1960s when everybody was ready for a jailbreak and there was even talk by school official that the damn thing would be canceled if the drug use could not be controlled (it was as everybody got stoned in cars or back alleys before the dance and at intermission). So this was the environment which she was approaching her task ahead, a task involving getting the best date possible for the big dance of the fall.              

She knew, knew from Jenny, and knew from about six other sources that the lead-up here was decisive in that one’s date, one’s successful date, at that event usually foretold who one would be going to the senior prom with. Since the end of junior year that choice had come more and more to seen to be Art Graham. Art who began to talk to her in World History class after ignoring her and about every other girl in class as far as she could gather when she, not much for history, started to get peppered by Mr. Nolan, the World History teacher, who thought girls were dumb when it came to history and would publicly try to humiliate as many as possible. Toward the end of the year he had aimed his barbs her way. Art, a history nut and sort of Mr. Nolan’s pet, took pity on her and tried to coach her a little. The coaching paid off and old Nolan backed off a bit. Then she found herself talking to Art about other subjects and he didn’t seem to mind that they were not about history so she started to dream a little about Art, but just a little as summer break kind of ended what had started. They met at the beach a few times during the summer, spent a few hours together but not what any self-respecting girl in 1958 would call a date. So she laid her plans.        

It wasn’t that she was crazy for Art, not in the way best friend, Jenny, was crazy over Sal, Sal with the wavy black hair and athletic build, crazy to let him do what he wanted with her, but she did see him a one part of her “item” for the senior year if only he showed a little spark her way. Although she knew exactly what Jenny let sexy Sal do with her since Jenny burned many a midnight telephone call describing what went down in the town’s lovers’ lane section of the beach she had no intention of letting Art have his way with her, she wasn’t like that. She began to think less of Jenny the more she told her about her sexual experiences but she wanted that dance date and was frustrated when Art kept her at arm’s length. Damn, she almost had to force the issue and invite him to the dance herself after they had spent some time together in school talking once classes resumed in September and she relied on him to bail her out in Problems in Democracy class where she was more under water that in World History, if that was possible. Then he started walking her home after school, talking, talking about his big future plans, talking about maybe they could go to the movies or to the school football games together. Anything but that damn dance (her term so she, not given to swearing, was certainly frustrated). They spent their time together like that before the date of the dance was getting perilously until one afternoon she asked him if he liked to dance, he said he did although he cushioned the remark with “I’m not very good” and they kind of by osmosis made a date for the Fall Frolics.

And so we move forward to the big night and  she was now up in her room (and darting to the bathroom as well) preening herself, fluffing her hair, tightening that damn girdle to make her more slender than she already was, applying yet another touch-up on the make-up, as expected of any girl going to the Frolics with a guy that might form part of an “item” for senior year. She just hoped, hoped to high heaven that he, not known for being a sharp dresser like Sal, would look okay and also not forget to bring her a corsage so she would not be the only girl without one, especially since she practically had to order the thing herself.

She wasn’t sure when she heard the rumble of the engine coming up the street, maybe just before the car stopped in front of her house, but she definitely heard it before Art knocked on the door downstairs as her mother welcomed him in while she was finishing her last preparations. As she came down the stairs she noticed that he looked especially handsome in his suit and with his hair parted just so. Things already looked up for the evening. She did not know the half of it though until he opened the front door for her as they were leaving and she spied that big old Cadillac sitting in front of her sidewalk. Seems that old Art, once he got the message from the time they had danced around the dance invitation, started his own version of the courting ritual and convinced his friend, Spider Mack, to let him borrow his souped-up Caddy. Spider was well known around town, notorious to many parents, especially girl parents for getting the back seat of that vehicle messed up around midnight or maybe later after so two o’clock “chicken run” victory and he collected the spoils of war, some wet girl thrilled by the prospect of that backseat with the king of the North Adamsville muscle car night. So she knew that if Art had such an automobile and moreover that Spider trusted Art with his most precious possession that the night might be interesting, and she might make it interesting for Art once she thought about that possibility. And off they went, first to pick up Jenny and Sal, she proud to be seem in the company of a man who knew how to bring a girl to the dance in style, and she too thinking how envious Jenny was that she was sitting in the front seat of Spider’s car just like she belonged there.

 

But that was only the beginning of it once they got to the school gym when the Frolics were held annually. She could hardly believe the transformation of the old smelly medicine ball gym into something that looked like a downtown hotel setting (even if only a hokey North Adamsville setting) with flowers festooned all over, table covered with school colors white and blue tablecloths, the walls filled with various rock posters to hide the creepy cinderblocks, and the entrance with a trestle also garlanded with flowers. Yes, special. But more special Art seemed a man transformed as the cover band hired for the evening by the Fall Frolic senior committee (like I said before it was always a senior-sponsored affair back then, a kind of last gift to their fellow schoolmates leaving or to be left behind), the Ready Riders, kissed off the old classics, you know Patti Page, Frank, Dean, those guys, that had guided previous dances and kicked out the jams. Kicked out the ones guaranteed parent approved and hence boring, or something like that. She noticed that Art, a guy who said he had two left feet and maybe he did but he looked, well, sexy, had become almost a whirling dervish as he rocked by himself in her direction, that was no other way to put it since previously everybody did a waltz or a variation at school dances also parent approved, to some older rhythm and blues stuff and then laid out the full program when the band tore into a big riffing dose of Ike Turner’s Rocket 88.

That was the tune that everybody at Doc’s Drugstore over on Main was dropping endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box to hear over and over. Although it was actually an older song, maybe the early 1950s, Doc had refused to place it on his jukebox (or rather he was pressured to not put it on his jukebox by those meddlesome parents) since it was considered a “colored” record back then. Jesus. But the kids, late 1950s kids including apparently Art, flipped out over it. And so the night went as she got more in tune with Art’s new form of dancing and mimicked his moves to his delight. As the dance ended, ended with a slow one by the Dubs’ Could This Be Magic, she, they ran into Jenny and Sal, and she, she who had so often secretly scorned the stuff Jenny told her that she and Sal did down at Adamsville Beach, suggested that the foursome take Spider’s car and go down to that very beach to, well, she said “cool off” after the dance. But you know what she meant just in case her parents might be around, or some girlfriend who would have plenty to say come Monday morning before school girls’ lav talk about how she had come of age, had come into the time of her time. So, yes, if anybody was interested she and Art were an “item” that year …              

 

 

***Of This And That In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of…..Those Who Served  

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

For those who have been following this series about the old days in my old home town of North Adamsville, particularly the high school day as the 50^th anniversary of my graduation creeps up, will notice that recently I have been doing sketches based on my reaction to various e-mails sent by fellow classmates via the class website. So I have taken on the tough tasks of sending kisses to raging grandmothers, talking up old flames with guys I used to hang around the corners with, remembering those long ago searches for the heart of Saturday night, getting wistful about elementary school daydreams, taking up the cudgels for be-bop lost boys and the like. That is no accident as I have of late been avidly perusing the personal profiles of various members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 website as fellow classmates have come on to the site and lost their shyness about telling their life stories (or have increased their computer technology capacities, not an unimportant consideration for the generation of ’68, a generation on the cusp of the computer revolution and so not necessarily as computer savvy as the average eight-year old today).

Some stuff is interesting to a point, you know, including those endless tales about the doings and not doings of the grandchildren, odd hobbies and other ventures taken up in retirement and so on although not worthy of me making a little off-hand commentary on. Some stuff is either too sensitive or too risqué to publish on a family-friendly site. Some stuff, some stuff about the old days and what did, or did not, happened to, or between, fellow classmates, you know the boy-girl thing (other now acceptable relationships were below the radar then) has naturally perked my interest.

Other stuff defies simple classification as is the case here in dealing with those who served in the military in whatever capacity and especially those who fell in our generation’s war, the Vietnam War, a war that sometimes put classmate against classmate in trying to make sense of the thing. What did not, or rather does not, divide us today is remembrance of those who served and those who fell. It was not the individual soldier that we had a dispute with but with the government and its policies. That difference was sometimes obscured back then.

In an attempt to pay tribute to those who served the class site webmaster, Donna, created a special section and as classmates joined the site, mainly male from that generation but a few females, they were asked about their military service and those who had were placed there with their branch of service. What amazed me, although it should not have, in our old working class town of Adamsville, which along with those who grew up in the inner city ghettos and barrios and the farmland of the Midwest, provided more than its fair share of “cannon fodder” was the high number of male joiners who also served in the military. Part of this number obviously represented young men then subject to the military draft which was then in effect who, fervently or sullenly, went when their number was called but part also represented for our class the notion that one did  not oppose the government whatever one thought of its policies, including its war policies.

Although most classmates who joined gave their military service information naturally in a class of over five hundred graduates not all members are now recognized on the site since many classmates are “missing” (a category for those who have not joined). More troubling was figuring out the number from our class who fell in Vietnam (or perhaps other later wars for any career soldiers) and information about their fate. For what I could gather there were two from our class who fell, Dave Martin and Jim Slater, and who are listed for eternity both down on that tear-stained black marble in Washington and over at the Vietnam Memorial Park near the bay in Adamsville. What was missing was broader information about their service and when they were killed. As an old veteran I volunteered to find out more to add to the special section in the For Those Who Served section for the fallen. I was able to check with certain classmates who knew them and the following is the gist of what I was looking for in my e-mail dispersal.   

  

“Gary-Before Donna, our webmaster, changed the format you had a site listed on your personal profile page for our fallen brothers in Vietnam who are listed on the black marble down in DC and at the Adamsville memorial at Marina Bay. We are looking for more information on David Martin, Jim Slater and I think you listed somebody else who was not on the list at the Marina. Donna has asked me to find out from you-Do you know more/ can you find out more about years of their deaths or any other information. Also are others from NA64 missing from the lists? Also how about disabled or wounded? Donna intends to have a separate section of the site to honor all these veterans. Any help either by personal knowledge or giving sites to get information would be greatly appreciated-Thanks Frank Jackman”

Through Gary and an ex-girlfriend of Dave’s, Melinda Loring, I was able to get the years that they died and the circumstances of their deaths provided by their respective service branches (Marines and Air Force) and that information is now included in their section to go along with those black marble and bay remembrances. Thanks for your service, guys.       

From The Pen Of Vladimir Lenin -Leader Of The Russian October 1917 Revolution   

A link below to the Lenin Internet Archives.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/

Markin comment from the American Left History blog:

DVD REVIEW

LENIN-VOICE OF THE REVOLUTION, A&E PRODUCTION, 2005

Every militant who wants to fight for socialism, or put the fight for socialism back on the front burner, needs tocome to terms with the legacy of Vladimir Lenin and his impact on 20th century revolutionary thought. Every radical who believes that society can be changed by just a few adjustments needs to address this question as well in order to understand the limits of such a position. Thus, it is necessary for any politically literate person of this new generation to go through the arguments both politically and organizationally associated with Lenin’s name. Before delving into his works a review of his life and times would help to orient those unfamiliar with the period. Obviously the best way to do this is read one of the many biographies about him. There is not dearth of such biographies although they overwhelmingly tend to be hostile. But so be it. For those who prefer a quick snapshot view of his life this documentary, although much, much too simply is an adequate sketch of the highlights of his life. It is worth an hour of your time, in any case.

The film goes through Lenin's early childhood, the key role that the execution of older brother Alexander for an assassination attempt on the Czar played in driving him to revolution, his early involvement in the revolutionary socialist movement, his imprisonment and various internal and external exiles, his role in the 1905 Revolution, his role in the 1917 Revolution, his consolidation of power through the Bolshevik Party and his untimely death in 1924. An added feature, as is usual in these kinds of films, is the use of ‘talking heads’ who periodically explain what it all meant. I would caution those who are unfamiliar with the history of the anti-Bolshevik movement that three of the commentators, Adam Ulam, Richard Daniels and Robert Conquest were ‘stars’ of that movement at the height of the anti-Soviet Cold War. I would also add that nothing presented in this biography, despite the alleged additional materials available with the‘opening’ of the Soviet files, that has not been familiar for a long time.

On the 25th Anniversary- The Spectre of Tiananmen and Working-Class Struggle in China Today
Defend, Extend Gains of 1949 Revolution!
 The Spectre of Tiananmen and Working-Class Struggle in China Today  For Proletarian Political Revolution!  Reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 836 and 837, 12 and 26 November 2004.
We print below, slightly edited for publication an October 9 forum in Oakland, California, by Spartacist League spokesman Keith Markin.
 One of the most hotly debated subjects throughout the world, especially in China, is whether China is capitalist or socialist. The significance of the Tiananmen uprising in the spring of 1989 is another subject of debate in China. What is going to happen there? One thing is certain: it's not very stable. There's a book, appropriately entitled One China, Many Paths, which has contributions from the intelligentsia within China, that deals with these questions. I'll refer to articles from this book. China's economy continues to grow. It has emerged as the number one steel producer in the world. At the same time, there is an increasing gap of social inequality exceeded by only a few countries. While there are some people that can buy a $30,000 car with cash, many more live in abject poverty, especially in the countryside and in the west of China. The wealthy living on the east and southern coasts have access to the most modern comforts.  The lie of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has led to China losing 15 million manufacturing jobs in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) between 1995 and 2002. Prostitution is skyrocketing, and female infanticide is rampant in the countryside. There are over 100 million people living on less than $106 per year. The United States has about 40 percent more acreage under cultivation than China, yet the Chinese agricultural labor force is 100 times larger than that of the U.S. And the U.S. has over six times as many tractors as China. These dire conditions have forced as many as 130 million rural Chinese to become migrant laborers in search of work on the eastern and southern coasts.  The workers no longer have their "iron rice bowl," which guaranteed a job and benefits for workers in SOEs. A journalist traveling in the northeast of China, where millions of workers have been laid off, explained that in the past an "average worker could—just based on a letter of introduction, something equivalent to current credit card or privileged position in these times—get excellent treatment at a hospital." He says, "This is something of a legend to young people [in China] who do not know their history."  After crushing the Tiananmen uprising in 1989, the Stalinist regime waited a few years before they began more aggressive market policies, such as the increase in free-trade zones, where a section of the Stalinist bureaucracy functions as labor contractors for the imperialists and offshore bourgeoisie. But the proletariat and peasantry have been far from silent. It is reported by the police that from 1993 to 1999 there was an increase of protests from approximately 8,500 per year to 32,000. According to unofficial Chinese reports, the number of public protests has probably risen each of the last three years.  In the spring of 2002, thousands of workers from the northeast provinces protested against the massive layoffs and the failure to receive back pay and pensions. This area used to be the industrial heartland of China; it has become a rust bowl. During the protests, banners proclaimed such slogans as "The army of industrial workers wants to live!" and "It is a crime to embezzle pensions!" The spectre of the Tiananmen uprising looms large. This has led the ruling Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao regime to adopt a more "populist" style than the technocratic Jiang Zemin regime which preceded it.  The central government has since promised to invest in the northeast region to appease the workers. What happens in China is not a foregone conclusion. It will be determined through social struggle. Peter Taaffe, leader of the Socialist Party, a left group centered in Britain, commented on the 16th Chinese Communist Party Congress two years ago: "China is on the road to complete capitalist restoration, but the ruling clique are attempting to do this gradually and by maintaining their repressive authoritarian grip" (Socialist, 22 November 2002). Maoists and neo-Maoists outside China— the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) is a good example—believe that China is capitalist, and has been for some time.  Neo-Maoists within the bureaucracy want to reform the bureaucracy by changing its policies. They are opposed to the "market socialist" economy, though they believe China is still "socialist." The Chinese "New Left" is heterogeneous. Most support the market economy, but they are critical of the ramifications of the market: corruption, the gap between rich and poor, etc. They consider themselves part of the anti-globalization movement. Wang Hui, a prominent spokesman of the Chinese "New Left," says that after Tiananmen China "has completely conformed to the dictates of capital and the activities of the market." We Trotskyists sharply disagree with all of these characterizations of China and the conclusions drawn by the Chinese "New Left."  I want to clarify three points today: first, in Marxist terminology, China is a bureaucratically deformed workers state because the core of the economy is based on collectivized property. This is the basis for the International Communist League's unconditional military defense of China against imperialism and internal counterrevolution. Second, there is a privileged bureaucratic caste that politically rules the workers state. The bureaucracy's policies of "market socialism" are paving the way for either capitalist restoration or for a new revolutionary explosion. What happened during the Tiananmen uprising, as well as the current class struggle in China, shows the contradictions of the deformed workers state and the dual character of the bureaucracy. And third, the historical task of the Chinese proletariat is to build a revolutionary party—not its Stalinist or Maoist perversion. A revolutionary party is necessary to lead workers, peasants and the oppressed to defend the gains of the 1949 Revolution through a proletarian political revolution that establishes workers democracy.  The key political question for such a party is to break the Chinese proletariat from the nationalist dogma of "socialism in one country" and win them to an internationalist, proletarian perspective. For those new to Marxism, I will explain just what all this means.  What Is Marxism?  The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) is a proletarian, revolutionary and internationalist tendency. We are based on the politics of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. The debates in China are framed by a false identity of Maoism with Marxism.  In order to understand what I'll be talking about and how we are different from the other political tendencies, I want to explain some basics about Marxism. First of all, Marxism is a science. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "physics" as a science that deals with matter and energy and their interactions. Marxism is the science of changing the world through international proletarian revolution. It deals with the relationship of class forces in the class struggle and the political consciousness of the international proletariat. The starting point for a Marxist is the understanding that the interests of the capitalists and of the proletariat are irreconcilable.  I've already jumped the gun. You're asking: What's a class? I want to quote Leon Trotsky. He, along with Lenin, led the Russian Revolution, which took proletarian revolution out of the realm of theory and gave it reality. In The Class Nature of the Soviet State, Trotsky explains just what a class is and why the Chinese bureaucracy is not a class (he was referring to the former Soviet Union):  "The class has an exceptionally important and, moreover, a scientifically restricted meaning to a Marxist. A class is defined not by its participation in the distribution of the national income alone, but by its independent role in the general structure of the economy and by its independent roots in the economic foundation of society. Each class (the feudal nobility, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the capitalist bourgeoisie and the proletariat) works out its own special forms of property. The bureaucracy lacks all these social traits. It has no independent position in the process of production and distribution. It has no independent property roots. Its functions relate basically to the political technique of class rule. The existence of a bureaucracy, in all its variety of forms and differences in specific weight, characterizes every class regime. Its power is of a reflected character. The bureaucracy is indissolubly bound up with a ruling economic class, feeding itself upon the social roots of the latter, maintaining itself and falling together with it."  Another important Marxist term is the state. A state consists of armed people and institutions that defend particular types of property. A capitalist state defends private ownership over factories, natural resources and banks (called the means of production). Capitalist production is based on what is most profitable for the private capitalist. A workers state defends collectivized property in the means of production. Production is based on what is actually needed by society. Another name for a workers state is the dictatorship of the proletariat.  Through international proletarian revolution, the system of private ownership of the means of production is replaced by a system of collective ownership of the means of production. A socialist revolution must establish a workers state to defend collectivized property against both the indigenous capitalists and imperialism. It is a step toward the international revolution. In order to remove the social rule of the working class, a social counterrevolution is necessary to re-establish a capitalist state, the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.  Capitalist production played a very important role in human history. It led to the development of modern sciences and technology. Humanity has the means to feed the world, but the capitalists and their system of production, which breeds imperialist wars, are obstacles that must be gotten rid of. Marxism seeks to resolve the problem of scarcity concerning food, clothing and shelter in the world through international proletarian revolution. Socialism is a classless, egalitarian, international economic system based on material abundance. Under a socialist system the problem of scarcity in the world can be resolved.  Both the 1949 Chinese Revolution and the Russian Revolution established collectivized property in the means of production and workers states to defend this type of property. The collectivized economy in the Soviet Union and China laid the basis for a leap in social progress, in particular for women. In China, the barbaric practice of foot-binding, which symbolized women's miserable status, was banned. But there was a qualitative difference between the two revolutions. The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was carried out by a class-conscious proletariat led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolshevik Party, which won the support of the poor peasants, and saw the seizure of state power as the first step toward world socialist revolution. The Chinese Revolution was the result of peasant guerrilla war led by Mao. The proletariat did not struggle in its own right for power in China. The 1949 Revolution was deformed from its inception under the rule of Mao's Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime. Mao was a Chinese Stalin; the political regime of the Chinese workers state was modeled on that of Stalin, who represented the privileged bureaucracy in the Soviet Union that usurped political power from the proletariat in 1923-24.
 The bureaucracy derives all its privileges by sitting on top of the collectivized economy, like a parasite. This is the basis of the contradictory character of what we describe as a bureaucratically deformed workers state. China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea are all deformed workers states. Because there was workers democracy in the Soviet Union before the Stalinist bureaucracy usurped political power in 1923-24, we characterized the Soviet Union as a "degenerated" rather than a "deformed" workers state. You see, the Bolshevik Party won a majority in the workers and soldiers soviets in 1917. There has never been workers democracy in China, Cuba, North Korea or Vietnam.  The bureaucracy rules in the name of the working class because all its privileges are derived from the collectivized property of the working class. It defends the workers state insofar as it can protect its privileged position atop the workers state. So it defends the workers state by its own methods. The bureaucracy is opposed to the perspective of workers revolution internationally. The Stalinist bureaucrats adopted the nationalist dogma that socialism— an international, classless, egalitarian society based on material abundance—could be built in a single country. This means the bureaucracy prefers to accommodate world imperialism in the hope of maintaining the status quo, so that they can continue to feed off the workers state. In order to replace the political rule of the bureaucracy and change the political form of a workers state to workers democracy, a proletarian political revolution is necessary, not a social revolution. The economic foundations of the state remain the same.  Another significant difference between the Russian and Chinese Revolutions is that the Russian bourgeoisie was destroyed as a class; the Chinese bourgeoisie wasn't. The offshore bourgeoisie in Taiwan and Hong Kong, along with the imperialists, are the main forces for counterrevolution in China, and the Stalinist bureaucracy strengthens these forces.  In our article "China: Defeat Imperialist Drive for Counterrevolution!" (WV Nos. 814 and 815, 21 November and 5 December 2003), which is now out in Chinese, we explain why China is a bureaucratically deformed workers state. It is the core collectivized elements of the economy that continue to be dominant, though not in a stable, coherent manner. The private (including foreign-owned) sector consists for the most part of factories producing light manufactures by labor-intensive methods. Heavy industry, the high-tech sectors and modern armaments production are overwhelmingly concentrated in state-owned enterprises. It is these enterprises that have enabled China to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to ward off the American imperialists' threat of a nuclear first strike. Also, all major banks in China are state owned.   Government control of the financial system has been key to maintaining and expanding production in state-owned industry and to the overall expansion of the state sector. The Beijing bureaucracy's abandonment of the strict state monopoly of foreign trade serves to facilitate Wall Street's plans for counterrevolution. It is precisely these core collectivist elements of China's economy that the forces of world imperialism want to eliminate and dismantle.  The ICL fights for unconditional military defense of all the deformed workers states against imperialism and internal capitalist counterrevolution because these states are based on collectivized property. That means we don't pose as a condition for defense that the Stalinist bureaucracy be overthrown before we will defend China. Why is this so important here in the U.S. and other capitalist countries in the world? If the proletariat of the U.S., Japan and Germany don't understand the historic significance of the gains of the Chinese Revolution, like the collectivized economy, then they will never understand the importance of making a revolution against their "own" bourgeoisie. We are for the revolutionary reunification of Taiwan with China: this means socialist revolution in Taiwan, expropriating the bourgeoisie in Hong Kong, and proletarian political revolution on the mainland.
 Tiananmen, Incipient Proletarian Political Revolution  First, the background—three key events in China shaped the Tiananmen uprising: the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), China's anti-Soviet alliance with U.S. imperialism, and the market reforms begun in 1978.  Mao's Cultural Revolution is important because it significantly shaped the political consciousness of Chinese workers, peasants, students and intellectuals through the 1980s. Essentially it was a fight between two wings of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The Maoists had to purge the conservative wing of the bureaucracy (led by Liu Shao-chi and Deng Xiaoping), who had led China during its recovery from the devastating results of Mao's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s.  Millions of students were mobilized as Red Guards, supposedly to fight against bureaucratism, and, according to the RCP, against the restoration of capitalism. It played out quite differently in the real world. In January 1967, when workers in Shanghai organized a general strike to defend their standard of living, along with a national railway strike, Mao sent his Red Guards and they smashed the strikes. The orders the Red Guards were given by Mao could be summed up as the "Two Whatevers":  "Support whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made and follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave."  There is a prejudice derived from class society that the rulers would only work with their brains while the slaves would only work with their hands. The idea of resolving this class prejudice of the Chinese intelligentsia by sending students, intellectuals and professionals out to the countryside for a period of time to learn by toiling with the peasants has real merit. But, implemented by Mao's bureaucracy, this became brutal punishment for long periods of time for many of those who disagreed with Mao, especially intellectuals and professionals.  The Cultural Revolution polarized Chinese society along the wrong lines by pitting subjectively revolutionary student youth against workers defending their standard of living. There was no side for revolutionaries in this fight within the Stalinist bureaucracy. More people died in the Cultural Revolution than in the suppression of Tiananmen. Yet the RCP hails Mao's Cultural Revolution.  After Mao died, the Deng wing of the bureaucracy resumed control of the government. The market reforms, begun in 1978, spawned a new class of rich peasants in the countryside and petty entrepreneurs. This, along with increasing unemployment in the cities, has laid the basis for the huge disparities in wealth that exist in China today.  Students and the intelligentsia were fervent supporters of the market reforms. Deng denounced the Cultural Revolution, and this sparked a period of debate within the intelligentsia in the early 1980s. The mainstream outlook for Chinese intellectuals became what is called the "New Enlightenment," which was in large measure seen as emancipation from what they thought was orthodox Marxism. The intellectuals of the "New Enlightenment," which greatly influenced the students protesting at Tiananmen, knew very little about Chinese history. They had simply imported Western ideas into the reform process. In particular, the students and intellectuals had a lot of illusions that "democracy" would necessarily go together with a market economy.  For Marxists, democracy is one of the political forms of a state. As I said earlier, the class nature of the state is determined by what type of property ownership over the means of production is defended by the cops and army. When we Marxists refer to "democracy," we ask: For what class? Many students and intellectuals had illusions in the bourgeois democracy of the U.S. This was conditioned by China's alliance with U.S. imperialism.  Wang Hui of the Chinese "New Left" points out in "The New Criticism" that, while China has always been involved in foreign trade, "The Open Door policies of Deng Xiaoping demanded a much deeper insertion of China into the world market. How did that happen? A key step in the process was China's invasion of Vietnam in 1978 [sic—1979]—the first war of aggression by the PRC after 1949." When China invaded Vietnam, the Spartacist League/U.S. raised the slogan: "China: Don't Be a Cat's Paw of U.S. Imperialism!" But why did China invade Vietnam? In the first place, it was only four years after the Vietnamese workers and peasants drove U.S. imperialism out of their country. This was a historic military defeat for U.S. imperialism. China had volunteers fighting in Vietnam against U.S. imperialism, too.  During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's China became very hostile to the Soviet Union. Mao argued that the Soviet Union, not U.S. imperialism, was the greatest threat to the world. This led to Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972, where he embraced Mao at the very moment that U.S. warplanes were bombing Vietnam! Vietnam was a close ally of the Soviet Union. In addition to invading Vietnam in 1979 (by the way, they got whupped by seasoned Vietnamese troops), China aided the CIA-backed mujahedin in Afghanistan.  Both Mao and Deng shared great-power aspirations based on the nationalist and anti-Marxist dogma that socialism could be built in one country. China's criminal anti-Soviet alliance with the U.S. happened because the U.S. changed its policy toward China, not the other way around. "Socialism in one country" necessitates accommodating to imperialism. China's alliance with U.S. imperialism contributed to the downfall of the Soviet degenerated workers state. The fact is that without the Soviet nuclear shield the Chinese Revolution would have very likely faced nuclear destruction by U.S. imperialism.  The increase in wealth from the market reforms only affected a very small fraction of the Chinese population. Skyrocketing inflation exacerbated this economic disparity and corruption became rampant. The "New Enlightenment" began to diverge on this issue. The government, led by Zhao Ziyang, implemented anti-corruption campaigns, but students wanted a more effective campaign. Within China, illusions in American "democracy" and the benevolence of U.S. imperialism began to take off in 1972. In mid February 1989, Gorbachev withdrew the Red Army from Afghanistan. The Tiananmen protests began about two months later.  The occupation of Tiananmen began with a memorial gathering for former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary general Hu Yaobang, who had died on April 15. Hu had been widely respected for the simple fact that he was one of the few leading officials not personally tainted with corruption. Teams of youth took their demands to working-class neighborhoods to stress that they did "not oppose the government or the party."  By May 4, 300,000 people had flocked to Tiananmen. It was the 70th anniversary of the May 4th Movement of 1919, which began with anti-imperialist student demonstrations and led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party two years later. At the 4 May 1989 protest students and workers were singing together the revolutionary workers' anthem, the "Internationale." Following the May 4 protest, student leaders—without any social power and fearful of mobilizing the working class—decided to launch a hunger strike to force concessions from the government. Sympathy with the hunger strikers led to another huge demonstration on May 17. At this demonstration, there was massive participation of factory workers from around Beijing. The students, with very little social power, had sparked the seething economic discontent of the Chinese proletariat.    The workers wanted to do something about the attacks on their "iron rice bowl" of previously guaranteed jobs and social benefits, and about rising inflation. They began organizing independently of the bureaucracy, like the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation (BWAF). The BWAF demanded a wage increase, price stabilization, and opposed corruption within the CCP. They called to "make public the personal incomes and possessions of top party officials." The social power of the working class gave the protests their potentially revolutionary nature.  Li Peng, hatchet man for Deng Xiaoping and his regime, went to Capital Iron and Steel to discourage and intimidate workers there sympathetic to the students' protest. It was the threat of a general strike that led Li and Deng to declare martial law on May 20. The 38th Army was ordered to put down the so-called "counterrevolutionary" uprising. However, these troops were based in Beijing and refused to move on the crowds.  The fledgling Chinese workers organizations began to organize resistance to the declaration of martial law. They formed "workers picket corps" and "dare to die" teams to protect protesting students against repression. Students and workers fraternized with the troops. The streets of Beijing were crowded with ordinary people arguing about politics, expressing their opinions on the way forward. The police vanished from the streets.  After governmental authority in Beijing evaporated, workers groups began to take on responsibility for public safety, taking over essential services like transporting food and other vital necessities. A group of People's Liberation Army generals sent a letter of protest to Deng Xiaoping. The army was politically split. Not horizontally, as in a social revolution where the ranks split from the officers, but vertically. This is what an incipient proletarian political revolution looks like. For two weeks the order of martial law was not implemented.  On June 3, Deng was able to mobilize the 27th Army to implement the orders for martial law. The bloodletting began. It is reported that when the troops reached Tiananmen in the early morning of June 4, their first target was the workers' station at the western end. One student leader saw tanks flatten the tents of the BWAF, killing 20 people. In contrast to the war waged against the working people of the city, most of the students were allowed to leave Tiananmen Square without punitive actions being taken.
Why the savage repression at the very first signs of working-class protest? The Stalinist bureaucracy is a parasitic caste resting upon a collectivized economy. The bureaucrats do not own the means of production. They do not have the myriad threads of social control of a ruling capitalist class, such as the right to pass property ownership to their children. Their power stems from monopolizing political control of the governing apparatus. Since they claim to rule in the name of the workers, they cannot tolerate any independent workers organization. Any real workers movement necessarily challenges the legitimacy of the Stalinist bureaucracy. This is the contradiction of every deformed workers state.

Pentagon OKs Chelsea Manning Transfer for Gender Treatment

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WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon is trying to transfer convicted national security leaker Pvt. Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so she can get treatment for her gender disorder, defense officials said.

Manning, formerly named Bradley, was convicted of sending classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The soldier has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman.

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The request was the first ever made by a transgender military inmate and set up a dilemma for the Defense Department: How to treat a soldier for a diagnosed disorder without violating long-standing military policy. Transgenders are not allowed to serve in the U.S. military and the Defense Department does not provide such treatment, but Manning can't be discharged from the service while serving his 35-year prison sentence.

Some officials have said privately that keeping the soldier in a military prison and unable to have treatment could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

US Army via AFP - Getty Images

This undated photo courtesy of the U.S. Army shows a photo of Bradley Manning in wig and make-up.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last month gave the Army approval to try to work out a transfer plan with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which does provide such treatment, two Pentagon officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

"No decision to transfer Pvt. Manning to a civilian detention facility has been made, and any such decision will, of course, properly balance the soldier's medical needs with our obligation to ensure she remains behind bars," Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

The two agencies are just starting discussions about prospects for a transfer, the two officials said.

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The Army has a memorandum of agreement with the Bureau of Prisons for use of several hundred beds and has sent an average of 15 to 20 prisoners a year to civilian prisons. But circumstances are different in Manning's case. The Army normally transfers some prisoners to federal prisons after all military appeals have been exhausted and discharge from military service has been executed. Cases of national security interest are not normally approved for transfer from military custody to the federal prison system.

The former intelligence analyst was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offenses for giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret military and U.S. State Department documents, along with battlefield video, while working in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. An Army general later upheld the convictions, clearing the way for an appeal at the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

After the conviction, Manning announced the desire to live as a woman and to be called Chelsea, a name change that was approved last month by a Leavenworth County District Judge and that the military did not oppose.

The soldier has been diagnosed by military doctors multiple times — including last fall after arriving at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, prison — with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man's body.

By November, a military doctor there had approved a treatment plan, including hormone therapy, but it was sent higher up the chain of command for consideration, according to a complaint filed by Manning in March over the delay in getting treatment.

The plan the military was considering has not been publicly released, but Manning said in the complaint that she had specifically asked that the treatment "plan consider ... three types of treatment."

Those were "real life experience" — a regimen in which the person tries dressing and living as the sex they want to transition to (something not possible in the Leavenworth men's facility); hormone therapy, which changes some physical traits such as breast and hair growth; and sex reassignnment surgery. Manning has not been specific about possible surgery, but experts in transgender health say it can include any of a large number of procedures such as chest reconstruction, genital reconstruction and plastic surgery such as facial reconstruction.

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- The Associated Press

• Pentagon OKs Chelsea Manning Transfer for Gender Treatment

First published May 14th 2014, 2:34 am