Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958-The Search For The Great Working-Class Love Song - With Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning, 1952 In Mind –Take Two

Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958-The Search For The Great Working-Class Love Song - With Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning, 1952 In Mind –Take Two

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:

Several years ago, maybe about eight years now that I think about it, I did a series of sketches on guys, folk-singers, folk-rockers, rock-folkers or whatever you want to call those who weened us away from the stale pablum rock in the early 1960s (Bobby Vee, Rydell, Darin, et al, Sandra Dee, Brenda Lee, et al) after the gold rush dried up in what is now called the classic age of rock and roll in the mid to late 1950s when Elvis, Jerry Lee, Buddy, Chuck, Bo and their kindred made us jump. (There were gals too like Wanda Jackson but mainly it was guys in those days.) I am referring of course to the savior folk minute of the early 1960 when a lot of guys with acoustic guitars, some self-made lyrics, or stuff from old Harry Smith Anthology times gave us a reprieve. The series titled Not Bob Dylan centered on why those budding folkies like Tom Rush, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Jesse Winchester and the man under review Richard Thompson to name a few did not make the leap to be the “king of folk” that had been ceded by the media to Bob Dylan and whatever happened to them once the folk minute went south after the combined assault of the British rock invasion (you know the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, hell, even Herman’s Hermits got play for a while),   and the rise of acid rock put folk in the shade (you know the Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, The Doors, The Who, hell, even the aforementioned Beatles and Stones got caught up in the fray although not to their eternal musical playlist benefit). I also did a series on Not Joan Baez, the “queen of the folk minute” asking that same question on the female side but here dealing with one Richard Thompson the male side of the question is what is of interest.

I did a couple of sketches on Richard Thompson back then, or rather sketches based on probably his most famous song, Vincent Black Lightning, 1952 which dove-tailed with some remembrances of my youth and my semi-outlaw front to the world and the role that motorcycles played in that world. Additionally, in light of the way that a number of people whom I knew back then, classmates whom I reconnected on a class reunion website responded when I posed the question of what they thought was the great working-class love song since North Adamsville was definitely a working class town driven by that self-same ethos I wrote some other sketches driving home my selection of Thompson’s song as my choice.

The latter sketches are what interest me here. See Thompson at various times packed it in, said he had no more spirit or some such and gave up the road, the music and the struggle to made that music, as least professionally. Took time to make a more religious bent to his life and other such doings. Not unlike a number of other performers from that period who tired of the road or got discourage with the small crowds, or lost the folk spirit. Probably as many reasons as individuals to give them. Then he, they had an epiphany or something, got the juices flowing again and came back on the road.  That fact is to the good for old time folk (and rock) aficionados like me.

What that fact of returning to the road by Thompson and a slew of others has meant is that my friend and I, (okay, okay my sweetie who prefers that I call her my soulmate but that is just between us so friend) now have many opportunities to see acts like Thompson’s Trio, his current band configuration, to see if we think they still “have it” (along with acts of those who never left the road like Bob Dylan who apparently is on an endless tour whether we want him to do so or not). That idea got started about a decade ago when we saw another come-back kid, Geoff Muldaur of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, solo, who had taken something twenty years off. He had it. So we started looking for whoever was left of the old folks acts (rock and blues too) to check out that question-unfortunately the actuarial tables took their toll before we could see some of them at least one last time like Dave Von Ronk.

That brings us to Richard Thompson. Recently we got a chance to see him in a cabaret setting with tables and good views from every position, at least on in the orchestra section, at the Wilbur Theater in Boston with his trio, a big brush drummer and an all-around side guitar player (and other instruments like the mando). Thompson broke the performance up into two parts, a solo set of six or seven numbers high-lighted by Vincent Black Lightning, and Dimming Of The Day which was fine. The second part based on a new album and a bunch of his well-known rock standards left us shaking our heads. Maybe the room could not handle that much sound, although David Bromberg’s five piece band handled it well a couple of weeks before, or maybe it was the melodically sameness of the songs and the same delivery voice and style but we were frankly disappointed and not disappointed to leave at the encore.  Most tunes didn’t resonant although a few in all honesty did we walked out of the theater with our hands in our pockets. No thumbs up or down flat based on that first old time set otherwise down. However, damn it, Bob Dylan does not have to move over, now.  Our only consolation that great working-class love song, Vincent Black Lightning, still intact.

Which brings us to one of those sketches I did based on Brother Thompson’s glorious Vincent Black Lightning. When I got home I began to revise that piece which I have included below. Now on to the next act in the great quest- a reunion of the three remaining active members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim Maria Muldaur, and of course Geoff at the Club Passim (which traces its genesis back to the folk minute’s iconic Club 47 over on Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. We’ll see if that gets the thumbs up.     

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958

Yes, 1958 was a good time to be a motorcycle boy, A de facto, de jure wild boy who ate babies, gave old people heart attacks and spread murder and mayhem in their trail to speak nothing of what they were doing to property, private property on their treks through small civilized towns who stood defenseless against the biggest marauders since Genghis Klan hit Europe or wherever he waylaid whatever was in front of him just for kicks according to the chattering, clueless, disapproving parents of the time. Especially the parents of impressionable teenage girls who were starting to get out of hand anyway with that devil’s music rock and roll making them make all, well, all kind of sexy moves although they refused to use the “s” word, called it jitterbugging or something like that might they meant the “s” word when had their Mary Catherine or Beth on the carpet for whatever they had the girls on the carpet for so sleek grungy motorcycle boys with high-powered wheels making those girls a little itchy was  beyond  their comprehension.

And not just teenage girls either although what they, those dumfounded parents did not see (or hear about from some prim prudish roommate or schoolgirl friend) was just as well if they, the parents, had had a clue what was going on over at State U with the twenty some-things, including their Janie, when the music and liquor got going (and in some “hip” or badass locales the dreaded dope, marijuana or worse previously only hearsay or seen and read in Nelson Algren be-bop Man With A Golden Arm junkie sagas filled with cold turkey nightmares and back alley “shooting galleries, Jesus). Got going big time when the wild boys, who nobody invited but nobody was stupid enough to ask to leave beside among the young men there was certain sense of awe as well and those bikes sure beat the family car on date night, but all “dressed-up” in greasy work-on-the bike-all-day-damn that-cranky carburetor denim, tee-shirt, greasy or not, denim cut-off at the shoulders jacket, doo rag  handkerchief for the head and whatever magic number-word symbol represented their chapter existence patched somewhere on their person, showed up to get it on and a few girls, adventurous girls in those pre-pill sex times, got a little wet thinking about that possibility, took a flyer on that hot backseat just built to get their sweet thing humming and don’t kid yourself on that, to the everlasting chagrin of Joe College in his sports jacket and loafers who after six months on the chase got nothing but some midnight kiss. If that.

Of course parents didn’t count, count for much anyway, when trends, moods, and what was cool got discussed in front of night times mom and pop variety stores where corner boys of all descriptions and attitudes held forth. Or at Doc’s Drugstore in our town, North Adamsville, after school, high school, of course, lesser grades needed not to bother to show up within fifty yards of the place  except maybe in early morning to get some candy bar or other sweet to get them through until growing-up time lunch, where all manner of school boy and girl went for a soda and snack but mainly to hear some latest tune, maybe some hot Jerry Lee wild boy mad man thing, seventeen times in Doc’s amped up super juke box. In those quarters motorcycle wild boys were cool, if maybe just a little dangerous.

And maybe just slightly illegal too as their parents’ cops (as part of that parent-police-teacher-priest-politician-hell-maybe even mom and pop variety store owner authority continuum) frowned, no more than frowned, got irate and even threatened to do something about it when some local detachment of the Devils’ Disciples roared through the Adamsville Beach boulevard night. The sight of flashing blue lights on the boulevard usually meant one thing. Some wild boy had his just juiced up after working on the damn thing all day exhaust system too loud, or he wasn’t wearing a helmet (not mandatory then but “suggested” that doo rag got its start as the “helmet” still does act so in places like Maine and New Hampshire), or he switched lanes without signaling (signaling “Jesus, give me a break, officer” I was trying roust those old biddies doing twenty in a fifty mile an hour zone in said wild boy’s head), or maybe for just being ugly, cop’s eyes ugly (he too worrying about that teenage daughter who was getting a little precocious and sassy about things as she grew into young womanhood), or some lame thing like that.

Those small civic sins only added to the mystique though. Especially on sultry summer nights when the colors (the Disciples had blue parallelogram patches with the number thirteen on them meaning you had to have carnally known at least thirteen women although contrary to rumor not all virgins or underage) passed turning every guy’s eyes, even mine, to listen to that power amped up on the asphalt and to set every girl, including guys I hung with sisters and mine too, impressionable or not, to thinking, thinking Wild Boy Marlon Brando thinking about what was behind that power.

See before Tom Wolfe (in the description of their partying down at Ken Kesey’s place in La Honda in his classic 1960s coming of socials age book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and the late lamented Hunter Thompson ( a motorcycle aficionado himself who cruised plenty of midnight Pacific Coast Highway turns and who hung with the Oakland Hell’s Angels in the mid-1960s for a year or so and both lived to tell about it and wrote the classic pop sociological account of the group in his The Hell’s Angels) put  everybody straight about the seamy side of motorcycle life, life-style motorcycle life with its felonies and mayhem, Marlon and his wild boys (and maybe throw in James Dean and his “chicken run” cars although they were a little too tame to be as revered as the motorcycle boys were) had cleaned up the wild boy scene, made it okay to be an easy rider, made it sexy. Not the weekend warrior flip turns and wheelies and then Monday morning back to the bank stuff but real alienated Johnnies just like you and me. Old Marlon had made alienated wild boys cool. For a while in the early 1960s dead air small town night, no car, no girls, no dough and definitely no cool bike that would light up many a conversation.   

Yeah marlon, old sexy white tee-shirt, maybe a pack of Luckies rolled up one sleeve, a cap rakishly turn at an angle on his head, but mainly an attitude, an attitude of distain, hell, maybe hatred, toward that ever present authority that told every kid, every boy and girl that you had better take what you can when you can because it won’t be there long. And along with that attitude, call it fellahin philosophy if you like, that slight snarl that accompanied every word. Yah, cool, cool daddy cool.

And the girls, wells, they were doing that wondering, wondering about what was behind that power thrust, as those leather jackets and engineer boots roared by. To the detriment of their dates while sitting in the front seat of their, the date’s father’s borrowed plain vanilla boxed tail fin car that he had had to almost declare a civil war to get for the evening and promise to mow some future lawn as compensation. Jesus. Or worse, infinitely worse, seeing that metal, chrome and fire pass by after her date, her car-less date, had just walked her over to the beach to sit on that cold stony seawall. Her eyes flamed red, as she almost flagged down some local easy rider as he passed by just to get some kicks, and maybe freedom from squaresville town (and that square guy, who one time was me, as I will relate below, car-less sit by the seawall me).

It wasn’t always low-down grunges with no style, Neanderthals with bad breathe and stinking body odor, who occupied the flamed night either. Every town probably had it story, many more that one, of some wild boy motorcycle boy who ruled the roost, who took what he needed, or better, wanted and said the hell with civilization. Yeah, a real outlaw, an outlaw way outside the system like North Adamsville wild boy James Preston, a guy they still talk about, although not when tender ears are around (you know those impressionable teenage girls, star-dust boys thinking about that bike and those impressionable girls). Back in 1957, maybe 1958 that was all the talk, all the talk that counted among anguished and alienated teen like I said when Pretty James Preston got his chopper. Damn, I can still hear that explosion when he gunned that pedal even now.

See, Pretty James Preston (and nobody called him, as far as I know, anything else except that exact designation, not “Pretty” which would probably have gotten you chain-whipped, not Pretty James which probably would have put you in the hospital) had Elvis-like looks to go with his outlaw snarl. Dark hair combed back like Elvis (but never ever use that comparison then, not if you don’t want to fight, fight whip chains fight or cut-up knives just so you know), black kind of Spanish eyes, long and tall, wiry some would say, but tough as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks could be. Nobody messed with Pretty James Preston (see, hell, even fifty years or more later I still call him that just in case, just in case his chain-wielding ghost is still around). So tough that he, around ordinary citizens, was almost civilized. He could afford to be and because it cost him nothing in his world calculus that was that.

So naturally every high school girl, and you would have been surprised how many and who, even women since at that time Pretty James Preston was about twenty-one, had some tough nights up in their lonely rooms thinking about that wild boy. Now maybe not everyone, okay, North Adamsville was not that small a town but let’s say any girl (or young woman) who thought she had a shot, or maybe half a shot, at his favors was having sweaty summer nights. Even Mimi Murphy, my girlfriend, my faithless girlfriend. Now Mimi was maybe not the dish of the town, with her flaming red hair and her slender, maybe skinny is a better way to describe it, body but she had a certain something, a certain, smile, a certain style about her that made some guys who you would never ever think would give her a second look (like I had to my delight) were intrigued by her. Including one Pretty James Preston.

So one summer night after I walked Mimi, yes, car-less walked, Mimi over to the seawall down at the Seal Rock end of old Adamsville Beach I (we) heard that roar, that roar that meant only one thing- Pretty James Preston was coming down the boulevard full throttle. I turned around and before I knew it there he was stopped in front of us as we sat on the seawall. I swear I don’t remember him saying word one to Mimi (or me). Maybe a nod, maybe they had some secret karmic thing, I don’t know. All I know is that the queen of Sacred Heart Church (Roman Catholic) for the number of novenas said in the old days, some white veil Madonna aura always present, one of the smartest girl in our class and, also probably the closest thing we had to a quirky girl in our class walked over to Pretty James Preston and his strange and powerful Vincent Black Lighting and straddled her long legs on the back saddle of the bike. And into the night they roared.

But see that strange bike, that British-made exotic Vincent Black Lightning (which later proved to have been stolen, not by Pretty James but by someone else, and then ferreted over from England to take its place in North Adamsville lore) was the undoing of Pretty James Preston (although not to hold you in suspense not of Mimi Murphy, not officially). Pretty James was leading kind of a double life. Let me explain, or try to, the way I heard it from some sources that I trusted (not Mimi, for I never really saw her to speak to after that fateful roar off into the Pretty James night).

In order to keep up his bike, his chopper Pretty James Preston robbed, robbed persons, places and things if you like. Not around North Adamsville since he was too well known (although after it was all over a few people around town admitted that he had robbed them, robbed them at gun-point and they were too scared to say anything. Maybe true, maybe not.). But around, a gas station here, a mom and pop variety store there, a couple of department stores, a few wealthy homes over in Millsville, maybe jack-roll a drunk if things got desperate. Not much dough but steady.

Then one day we heard that Pretty James Preston had stepped up his act. Banks, or rather a bank, the Granite City National Bank branch over in Braintree. And that was his downfall. Somehow he bungled the job, or some alarm went off, or some rum brave cop got religion and before he could get out the door Pretty James was shot, shot six ways to Sunday. Dead, DOA, done. The only thing left to say is that somebody thought they saw a skinny, long-legged, long- haired, red-headed girl in a leather jacket and dungarees standing across the street from the bank and when they turned around after looking away upon hearing the shots the girl were gone. They later found the Vincent Black Lightning over in the Adamsville projects kind of mashed up.

The red-headed girl, my Mimi, was not seen around town again. (Rumors, small rumors swirled for a few months about her fate, some reported that she was in a convent up North, others that she was holed up doing tricks in some high –end whorehouse in Boston but I never got very far with the few leads I had and soon gave it up.) Yes, Pretty James Preston was an outlaw from his first to last breath. And you wonder why they still talk about him with hushed breath.

The music too befit the motorcycle wild boy time of end of time times, the times when it seemed every little mishap in some godforsaken corner of this wicked old world turned into a major crisis causing everybody at some invisible authority’s urging to head for the air-raid shelters and keep their heads down. And their butts up. Jerry Lee wild man piano stuff, always ready to break out, jail break out ever since he popped the question in high school confidential, Chuck leering at sweet little sixteens and you know what I mean, Eddie Cochran giving us a summer time blues anthem to hang our hopes on, and all kinds of one hit wonders trying to put a dent in our angst, our special teen angst that was ready to boil over, to break out and be free. Free from that invisible hand authority.

No wonder the wild boys had a field day. Those impressionable girls, maybe Mimi too although we never talked about such things, Jesus no, worried they would never get to “do it” but were fearful to “do it” nevertheless in that Pill-less world. And guys hoping that the girls were worrying about not “doing it” before the world exploded egged them on although not with as much concern as necessary about consequences. The wild boys, those easy riders, though said “take no prisoners” and that was attractive, that and that promise of power that had many a girl restless late at night.

So no wonder too some young thing in the Jody Reynolds’ song “Endless Sleep”, maybe worried about getting pregnant after she let lover boy go further than she (and he) expected decided to go down to that sunless beach and let old Neptune have his way with her. And he, lover boy, maybe with a wild boy sensibility on the surface but more the weekend warrior when the deal went down, went looking for the dizzy dame, his dizzy dame and left old Neptune in the lurch. And many years later, maybe in some dream remembrance, they would throw the old records on the turntable, amp up the teen angst, the teen alienation, then sit back and listen to maybe the last minute in the 1950s when free-wheeling rock and roll blasted the night away. And the motorcycle boys held forth in the thundering night.

ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /

/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk-Part IV-THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk-Part IV-THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
 
Markin comment:

This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.

Leon Trotsky
History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk
Part IV
THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
At an historical night sitting, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the historical Peace Decree. At that time the power of the Soviets was still only consolidating in the most important centres of the country, while the number of people abroad who had confidence in it was quite insignificant. We carried the decrees unanimously, but to many it appeared to be merely a political demonstration. The Compromise-mongers kept repeating at every street corner that our resolution could not lead to any practical results, since, on the one hand, the German Imperialists would not recognize and would not even condescend to talk with us, and, on the other hand, our allies would declare war on us for entering into separate peace negotiations. It was under the shadow of these gloomy predictions that we were making our first steps towards a universal democratic peace. The Decree was accepted on November 8th, when Kerensky and Krasnoff were at the very gates of Petrograd, and on November 20th we communicated over the wireless our proposals for the conclusion of a general peace both to our allies and enemies. By way of reply the Allied Governments addressed, through their military agents, remonstrances to General Dukhonin, the Commander-in-Chief, stating that all further steps on our part towards separate peace negotiations would lead to most serious results. We, on our part, replied on November 24th to this protest by a manifesto to all workers, soldiers, and peasants, declaring that under no circumstances should we allow our army to shed its blood by order of any foreign bourgeoisie. We brushed aside the threats of the Western Imperialists and assumed full responsibility for our peace policy before the international working class. First of all, by way of discharging our previous pledges, we published the secret treaties and declared that we repudiated all that was opposed in them to the interests of the popular masses everywhere. The capitalist Governments tried to play off our disclosures against one another, but the popular masses everywhere understood us and appreciated our action. Not a single Socialist patriotic paper, as far as we know, dared protest against this radical change effected by the Government of workers and peasants in all traditional methods of diplomacy, against our repudiation of its evil and unscrupulous intrigues. We made it the aim and purpose of our diplomacy to enlighten the popular masses, to open their eyes as to the nature of the policy of their respective Governments, and to fuse them in one common struggle against, and hatred of, the bourgeois-capitalist regime. The German bourgeois Press accused us of protracting the negotiations, but the peoples themselves eagerly listened everywhere to the dialogues at Brest, and thereby, in the course of the two and a half months during which the peace negotiations proceeded, a service was rendered to the cause of peace which has been acknowledged even by honest enemies. For the first time the question of peace was raised in such a way that it could no longer be distorted by any machinations behind the scenes.

On December 5th we signed the agreement for the suspension of hostilities along the whole front, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. We again appealed to the Allies to join us and to conduct the peace negotiations together with us. We received no answer, although this time our allies did not try to intimidate us by threats. The peace negotiations began on December 22nd, six weeks after the adoption of the Peace Decree. This shows that the accusations levelled at us by the hireling and Socialist traitor Press, that we had not tried to come to an understanding with the Allies, were nothing but lies. For six weeks we kept on informing them of every step we made, and constantly appealed to them to join us in the peace negotiations. We can face the people of France, Italy, and Great Britain with a clear conscience. We did all we could to prevail upon the belligerent nations to join us in the peace negotiations. The responsibility for our separate peace negotiations rests not upon us, but upon the Imperialists of the West, as well as those Russian parties which all along had been predicting an early death to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government and urging the Allies not to take seriously our peace Initiative.

Anyhow, on December 22nd the peace negotiations were opened. Our delegates made a declaration of principles defining the basis of a general democratic peace in the precise terms of the Decree of November 8th. The other side demanded an adjournment of the sittings; but their resumption was put off, on Kühlmann’s motion, from day to day. It was obvious that the delegates of the Quadruple Alliance had considerable difficulty in drawing up their reply to our declaration. At last, on December 25th, the reply came. The diplomats of the Quadruple Alliance adhered to the democratic formulæ of a peace without annexations and contributions on the principle of self-determination of nations. We could see clearly that this was merely a piece of make-believe. But we did not expect even that, for is not hypocrisy the tribute paid by vice to virtue? The fact that the German Imperialists considered it necessary to pay this tribute to our democratic principles was, in our eyes, evidence of the rather serious internal condition of Germany. But although, on the whole, we had no illusions as to the democratic leanings of Kühlmann and Czernin – we were only too well acquainted with the nature of the German and Austrian ruling classes – it must, nevertheless, be candidly admitted that we did not at the time anticipate that the actual proposals of the German Imperialists would be separated by such a wide gulf from the formulæ presented to us by Kühlmann on December 25th as a sort of plagiarism of the Russian Revolution. We, indeed, did not expect such an acme of impudence.

The masses of the working classes in Russia were deeply impressed by Kühlmann’s reply. They read in it the fear of the ruling classes of the Central Empires in face of the discontent and growing impatience of the masses in Germany. On December 28th, a gigantic workers’ and soldiers’ demonstration took place in Petrograd in favour of a democratic peace. But the next morning our delegates returned from Brest-Litovsk and brought those predatory demands which Kühlmann had presented on behalf of the Central Empires by way of interpretation of his so-called democratic formulæ.

At first it may appear difficult to understand what exactly were the expectations of the German diplomacy when they presented their democratic formulæ in order, two or three days later, to reveal their brutal appetites. The theoretical debates, too, about those democratic formulæfor the most part initiated by Kühlmann himself – may seem to have been rather a risky affair. It ought to have been clear to them from the beginning that on this battlefield the diplomacy of the Central Empires could scarcely gain any laurels. But the secret of Kühlmann’s conduct of diplomacy lay in that he was profoundly convinced that we would be ready to play duets with him. The trend of his thought was approximately as follows: Russia must have peace. The Bolsheviks had obtained power thanks to their fight for peace. The Bolsheviks wanted to remain in power. This was only possible on one condition, namely, the conclusion of peace. True, they had committed themselves to a definite democratic peace programme. But what were the diplomats for, if not for disguising black as white? They, the Germans, would make the position easier for the Bolsheviks by hiding their spoil and plunder beneath a democratic formula. Bolshevik diplomacy would have sufficient grounds for not desiring to probe too deeply for the political essence of their enticing formulae, or, rather, for not revealing it to the eyes of the world. In other words, Kühlmann hoped to come to a tacit understanding with us. He would pay us back in our fine formula, and we should give him an opportunity of obtaining provinces and whole nationalities for the benefit of the Central Empires without any protest on our side. In the eyes of the German working classes, therefore, this violent annexation would receive the sanction of the Russian Revolution. When, during the negotiations, we made it clear that we were not discussing mere empty formulæ and decorative screens hiding a secret bargain, but the democratic foundations of the cohabitation of nations, Kühlmann took it as a malevolent breach of a tacit agreement. He would not for anything in the world budge even an inch from his formula of December 25th. Relying on his refined bureaucratic and legal logic, he tried his best to prove to the world that there was no difference whatever between black and white, and that it was only due to our malicious will that we were insisting on it.

Count Czernin, the representative of Austria-Hungary, played at these negotiations a part which no one would call impressive or dignified. He clumsily seconded and undertook at air critical moments, on behalf of Kühlmann, to make the most violent and cynical declarations. As against this, General Hoffman would often introduce a most refreshing note into the negotiations. Without shamming any great sympathy with the diplomatic niceties of Kühlmann, General Hoffman many times banged his soldier’s boot on the table, at which the most intricate legal debates were carried on. For our part, we had not a moment’s doubt that at these negotiations General Hoffman’s boot was the only serious reality.

The presence of the representatives of the Kieff Rada at the negotiations was a great trump card in Kühlmann’s hands. To the Ukrainian lower middle class, who were then in power, their “recognition” by the capitalist Governments of Europe seemed the most important thing in the world. At first, the Rada had offered its services to the Allied Imperialists and got from them some pocket-money. It then sent delegates to Brest-Litovsk in order to obtain from the Austro-German Governments, behind the backs of the peoples of Russia, the recognition of their legitimate birth. Scarcely had the Kieff diplomats entered on the road of “international” relations than they manifested the same out look and the same moral level which had hitherto been a characteristic feature of the petty Balkan politicians. Messrs. Kühlmann and Czernin, of course, did not indulge in any illusions as to the solvency of the new partner at the negotiations. But they realized quite correctly that by the attendance of the Kieff delegates the game was fated to become more complicated, but also more promising to them. At their first appearance at Brest-Litovsk the Kieff delegation defined the Ukraine as a component part of the nascent Federal Republic of Russia. That was an obvious embarrassment to the diplomats of the Central Powers, whose chief concern was to turn the Russian Republic into a new Balkan Peninsula. At their second appearance, the diplomats of the Rada declared, under the dictation of Austro-German diplomacy, that from that moment the Ukraine no longer desired to form part of the Russian Federation and would constitute henceforth an independent Republic.

In order to give the readers a clear idea of the situation in which the Soviet Government was placed at the last stage of the peace negotiations, I think it useful to reproduce here the main passages of the speech which the author of these lines delivered, as the People’s Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, at the sitting of the Central Executive Committee on February 27, 1918.



THE SPEECH OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSIONER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
“Comrades, – Russia of the Soviets has not only to build the new, but also to sum up the results of the past and, to a certain extent – a very large extent indeed – to settle old accounts, above all, the accounts of the present war which has now lasted three and a half years. The war has been a test of the economic resources of the belligerent nations. The fate of Russia, a poor, backward country, was, a war of attrition, pre-determined from the beginning. In the mighty conflict of the military machines the decisive r6le belonged, in the last resort, to the ability of the respective nations to adapt their industry in the shortest possible time, and thus to turn out again and again, with constantly increasing rapidity and in ever-increasing quantities, the engines of destruction which have been wearing out in no time in this terrible slaughter of nations. At the beginning of the war every, or almost every, country, even the most backward, could be in possession of powerful engines of destruction, since those machines could be obtained from abroad. All backward countries did possess them, including Russia. But the war soon wears out its dead capital, unless it is constantly replenished. The military power of every individual country drawn into the whirlwind of the worldwide war was measured by the ability to make guns, shells, and other engines of destruction by its own means during the war itself. If the war had decided the question of the balance of power in a very short time, Russia, speaking theoretically, might have come out on the victorious side. But the war dragged on, and did so by no means accidentally. The mere fact that during the preceding half-century all international politics had been reduced to the establishment of the so-called balance of power, that IS, to the greatest possible equalization of the military forces of the adversaries, was bound, m view of the strength and Wealth of the modern capitalist nations, to make the war a protracted business. The result has been, first and foremost, the exhaustion of the poorer, less economically developed countries.

Germany proved to be the most powerfull country in the military sense, owing to the mighty development of her industry and the new, rational, up-to-date structure of that industry side by side with the archaic structure of her State. France, with her economic system largely based on small production, proved to be very much behind Germany, while even such a powerful Colonial Empire as England showed herself weaker than Germany, owing to the more conservative, routine-like character of her industries. When the will of History summoned revolutionary Russia to initiate peace negotiations, we had no doubt whatever that, failing the intervention of the decisive power of the world’s revolutionary proletariat, we should have to pay in full for over three and a half years of war. We knew perfectly well that German Imperialism was an enemy imbued with the consciousness of its own colossal strength, as manifested so glaringly in the present war.

All the arguments of the bourgeois cliques which keep telling us that we should have been incomparably stronger had we conducted our peace negotiations in conjunction with our Allies are fundamentally wrong. If we were to carry on, at some distant future, the peace negotiations in conjunction with the Allies, we should, in the first place, have had to go on with the war; but seeing how our country was exhausted and weakened, its continuation, not its cessation, would have led to further exhaustion and ruin. We should thus have had to foot the bill of the war in conditions still more unfavourable to us. Even if the camp which Russia had joined on account of the international intrigues of Tsardom and the bourgeoisie – the camp, that is, at the head of which stands Great Britain – should come out of the war completely victorious (granting for the moment this rather improbable eventuality), it does not follow, comrades, that our country would also have come Out victorious, since Russia, inside this victorious camp, would have been still more exhausted and ruined by the long-drawn-out war than it is now. The masters of that camp, who would have gathered all the fruits of victory – that is, England and America – would, in their treatment of our country, have displayed the same methods which were employed by Germany at the peace negotiations. It would be absurd and childish, in appraising the policy of the Imperialist Countries, to start from other premises than their naked self-interest and material strength. Hence, if we, as a nation, are now weakened in the face of the Imperialist world, we are so. not because we broke away from the fiery circle of the war after previously shaking off the chains of international military obligations – no, we are weakened by the same policy of Tsardom and the bourgeois classes against which we fought, as a revolutionary party, both before and during the war.

You remember, comrades, the conditions in which our delegates went to Brest-Litovsk last time, direct from one of the sittings of the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets. We had informed you then of the state of negotiations and of the demands of the enemy. These demands, as you no doubt remember, amounted to disguised, or rather semi-disguised, annexationist claims to Lithuania, Courland, part of Livonia, the Moon Sound Islands, and a semi-masked indemnity which we then computed at six to eight or even ten thousand million roubles. In the interval, which lasted ten days, serious disturbances broke out in Austria and strikes took place among the labouring masses there – the first act of recognition of our methods of conducting the peace negotiations on the part of the proletariat of the Central Powers in face of the annexationist demands of German Imperialism. How miserable are the allegations of the bourgeois Press, that it took us two months’ talk with Kühlmann before we discovered that the German Imperialists would demand robbers’ terms. No, we knew that beforehand. But we tried to turn our “conversations” with the representatives of German Imperialism into a means of strengthening those forces which were struggling against it. We did not promise in this connection any miracles, but we asserted that our way was the only way still left at the disposal of revolutionary democracy for securing the chances of its further development.

“One may complain that the proletariat of other countries, especially of the Central Empires, is passing to an open revolutionary struggle too slowly. Yes, the tempo of its advance is much too slow. But in Austria-Hungary we saw a movement which assumed the proportions of a national event and which was a direct and immediate result of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations.

Before we departed from here we discussed the matter together, and we said that we had no reason to believe that that wave would sweep away the Austro-Hungarian militarism. Had we been convinced to the contrary, we should have certainly given the pledge so eagerly demanded from us by certain persons, namely, that we should never sign a separate treaty with Germany. I said at the time that it was impossible for us to make such a pledge, as it would have been tantamount to pledging ourselves to defeat German Imperialism. We held the secret of no such victory in our hands, and in so far as we could not pledge ourselves to Change the balance and correlation of the world’s powers in a very short period of time, we openly and honestly declared that the revolutionary Government might, under certain circumstances, be compelled to accept an annexationist peace. For not the acceptance of a peace forced upon us by the course of events, but an attempt to hide its predatory character from our own people would have been the beginning of the end of the revolutionary Government.

At the same time we pointed out that we were departing for Brest in order to continue the negotiations in circumstances which were apparently becoming more favourable to us and less advantageous to our adversaries. We were watching the events in Austria-Hungary, and various circumstances made us think that, as hinted at by Socialist spokesmen in the Reichstag, Germany was on the eve of similar events. Such were our hopes, and then in the course of the first days of our new stay at Brest the wireless brought us via Vilna the first news that a tremendous strike movement had broken out in Berlin, which, like the movement in Austria-Hungary, was the direct result of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations. But, as it often happens, in consequence of the “dialectical,” double-edged, character of the class struggle, it was just this powerful swing of the proletarian movement, such as Germany had never seen before, that aroused the propertied classes and caused them to close their ranks and to take up a more irreconcilable attitude. The German ruling classes are only too well imbued with the instinct of self-preservation, and they understood that any, even partial concession, under such circumstances, when they were being pressed by the masses of their own people, would have been tantamount to a capitulation before the idea of revolution. That is “why, after the first period of conferences, when Kühlmann had been deliberately delaying the negotiations by either postponing the sittings or wasting them on minor questions of form, he, as soon as the strike had been suppressed and his masters, he felt, were for the time being out of danger, reverted to his old accents of complete self-confidence, and redoubled his aggressiveness. Our negotiations became complicated owing to the participation of the Kieff Rada. We reported the facts of the case last time. The Rada delegates made their appearance at a time when the Rada still represented a fairly strong organization in the Ukraine and when the issue of the struggle had not yet been decided. Just at that moment we made the Rada an official offer to conclude with us a definite agreement, the principal term of which was our demand that the Rada should proclaim Kaledin and Korniloff enemies of the Revolution and refrain from interfering in our fight against them. The Kieff delegates arrived at the moment when we were cherishing hopes of coming to an agreement with it on both heads. We had already made clear to the Rada that so long as it was recognized by the Ukrainian people we should admit it to the negotiations as an independent member of the Conference. But in proportion as things in Russia and the Ukraine developed, and the antagonism between the democratic masses and the Rada was becoming deeper and deeper, the readiness of the Rada also increased to conclude any sort of peace with the Central Powers, and, if necessary, to invite German Imperialism to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ukrainian Republic in order to support the Rada against the Russian Revolution.

On February 9th we learned that the peace negotiations between the Rada and the Central Powers had been successfully completed behind our backs. February 9th was the birthday of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, and, as is the custom in monarchical countries, the solemn, historical act of signing the treaty was fixed for this festal day – whether with the Rada’s agreement or not we do not know. General Hoffman caused the artillery to fire a salute in honour of Leopold of Bavaria, having previously asked the Ukrainians’ permission to do so, as, according to that treaty, Brest-Litovsk had been incorporated with the Ukraine.

However, at the very moment when General Hoffman was asking the Kieff Rada for permission to fire a salute in honour of Prince Leopold, events had advanced so far that, with the exception of Brest-Litovsk, but little territory was left under the Rada’s authority. On the strength of telegrams which we had received from Petrograd we officially informed the delegates of the Central Powers that the Kieff Rada was no longer in existence – a fact which was by no means immaterial for the course of the peace negotiations. We proposed to Count Czernin to send representatives, accompanied by our officers, to the territory of the Ukraine in order to see on the spot whether his co-partner, the Kieff Rada, was still in existence or not. Czernin at first seemed to jump at the idea, but when we raised the question whether the treaty with the Kieff delegation would only be signed after the return of his messengers or not, he began to hesitate and promised to consult K4llhmann, and having done so, sent us a reply in the negative. This was on February 8th, and on the following day they were obliged to sign the treaty. That brooked no delay, not only because of Prince Leopold’s birthday, but also because of a more serious circumstance, which, of course, Kühlmann had explained to Czernin: “If we send our representatives to the Ukraine now, they may find that the Rada is no longer in existence, and then we should have to face the Russian delegates only; which of course would greatly thwart our chances at the negotiations.” We were told by the Austro-Hungarian delegates: “Leave alone the question of principles, place the problem on a practical footing – then the German delegates will try to meet you. It is impossible that the Germans should desire to continue the war for the sake, for instance, of the Moon Sound Islands, if you formulate your demands more concretely ...” We answered: “ Very well, we are ready to test the conciliatory attitude of your colleagues, the German delegates. So far we have been discussing the question of the right of self-determination of Lithuanians, Poles, Letts, Esthonians, etc., and have elucidated the fact that there is no chance for the self-determination of these small nations. Let us now see what kind of self-determination you intend to allot to the Russian people, and what are the military strategical plans and devices behind your seizure of the Moon Islands. The Moon Islands, as part of the Esthonian Republic, as a possession of the Russian Federal Republic, have a defensive value, while in the hands of Germany they are means of offence and constitute a menace to the most vital centres of our country, particularly to Petrograd.” But, of course, Hoffman had not the slightest intention of making any concessions. Then the decisive moment came. We could not declare war – we were too weak. The army was in a state of complete internal dissolution. In order to save our country from ruin it was necessary to re-establish the internal organization of the labouring masses. This moral union could be established only by constructive work in the villages, in the workshop and the factory. The masses, who had passed through the colossal suffering and the catastrophic experiences of the war, had to be brought back to the fields and factories, where they could be rejuvenated morally and physically by work and thus be enabled to create the necessary internal discipline. There was no other way of salvation for our country, which had to pay the penalty for the sins committed by Tsardom and the bourgeoisie. We were forced to get out of the war and lead our army out of the slaughter. At the same time we declared to German Imperialism, straight in the face: “The peace terms which you force us to accept are those of violence and plunder. We cannot allow you, diplomats, to tell the German workers: ‘You branded our demands as annexationist; look here, those demands have been signed by the Russian Revolution!’ Yes, we are weak, ‘we cannot fight at present, but we have enough of revolutionary courage to tell you that we will never of our own free will sign the terms which you are writing with your sword across the bodies of the living peoples’.” We refused to give our signatures, and I believe, comrades, that we acted as we ought to have acted.

Comrades, I do not want to say that a further advance of the Germans against us is out of the question. Such a statement would be too risky, considering the power of the German Imperialist Party. But I think that by the position we have taken up on the question we have made any advance a very embarrassing affair for the German militarists. What would happen if they should nevertheless advance? There is only one answer to this question. If it is still possible to raise the spirit in the most revolutionary and healthy elements in our exhausted country, reduced as it is to desperate straits, if it is still possible for Russia to rise for the defence of our Revolution and the territories of the Revolution, it is possible only as a result of the present situation, as a result of our coming out of the war and of our refusal to sign the peace treaty.



THE SECOND WAR AND THE SIGNING OF PEACE.
The German Government, during the first days after the breaking off of the negotiations, hesitated, uncertain as to which course to. choose. The politicians and diplomats thought apparently that the chief thing bad been accomplished, and that there was no need to run after our signatures. The military, however, were in all circumstances prepared to break through the framework outlined by the German Government in the Brest-Litovsk treaty. Professor Kriege, adviser to the German delegation, told one of our delegates that in the present conditions there could be no question of a new German offensive against Russia. Count Mirbach, then at the head of the German mission in Russia, left for Berlin assuring us that a satisfactory agreement on the exchange of prisoners had been reached. But all this did not prevent General Hoffman from announcing, on the fifth day after the breaking off of the negotiations, the end of the armistice, the seven days’ notice being antedated by him from the day of the last sitting at Brest. It would be truly out of place to waste time here, in righteous indignation at this dishonourable act, for it is but in keeping with the general diplomatic and military morality of all the governing classes.

The new German offensive developed under conditions which were deadly to Russia. Instead of the agreed seven days’ warning, we only had two days’. This spread a panic in the ranks of the army, already in a state of chronic dissolution. There could scarcely be any question of resistance. The soldiers would not believe that the Germans would advance, after we had declared the state of war at an end. The panic-stricken retreat paralysed even the will of those individual regiments which were ready to take up fighting positions. In the working-class quarters of Petrograd and Moscow the indignation at the treacherous and truly buccaneering German attack knew no bounds. The workers were ready, in those tragic days and nights, to enlist in the army in their tens of thousands. But the necessary organization was lagging far behind. Individual guerrilla detachments, full of enthusiasm, perceived their helplessness at the first serious encounter with the German regular troops, and this was, of course, followed by a further depression of spirits. The old army, long ago mortally wounded, was falling to pieces, and was only blocking up all ways and by-ways. The new army, on the other hand, was arising much too slowly amidst the general exhaustion and the terrible dislocation of industry and transport. The only real serious obstacle in the path of the German advance was the huge distances.

Austria-Hungary had her eyes chiefly on the Ukraine. Through its delegates the Rada had made a direct request to the Central Empires for military help against the Soviets, which by that time had obtained complete victory throughout Ukrainia. In this way the Ukrainian lower middle-class democracy, in its fight with the workers and the poorest peasantry, had voluntarily opened the gates to foreign invasion.

At the same time the Government of Svinhufvud was seeking the help of German bayonets against the Finnish proletariat. German militarism was assuming quite openly, in the face of the whole world, the rôle of executioner of the Russian workers’ and peasants’ revolution.

In the ranks of our party there arose a heated discussion as to whether we should, under such conditions, submit to the German ultimatum and sign a new treaty which – we were all quite convinced of that – would contain far more onerous conditions than those we had been offered at Brest-Litovsk. The representatives of one school of thought considered that at the present moment, when the Germans were effectively intervening in the internal struggles on the territory of the Russian Republic, it was unthinkable to make peace in one part of Russia and remain passive whilst in the north and south the German troops were establishing a regime of bourgeois dictatorship. Another school of thought, at the head of which stood Lenin, argued that every interval, every breathing space, however short, would be of the greatest value for the internal consolidation of Russia and for the restoration of her capacity for self-defence. After our absolute inability to defend ourselves at the present moment from the attacks of the enemy had been demonstrated so tragically before the whole country and the whole world, our conclusion of peace would be understood everywhere as an act forced on us by the cruel law of the correlation of forces. It would be mere Childishness to base our action on abstract revolutionary morals. The question at issue was not how to perish with honour, but how, in the end, we could live through to victory. The Russian revolution wants to live, must live, and must by all possible means refuse to be drawn into battle far beyond her strength she must win time in the expectation that the revolutionary movement in the West would come to her aid. German Imperialism was still at close and fierce grip with British and American militarism. Only for this reason was it possible to conclude peace between Germany and Russia. We must not let this opportunity slip by. The well-being of the Revolution was the supreme law I We must accept the peace which we dared not refuse we must gain some time for intensive work in the interior, including the reconstruction of our army.

At the Congress of the Communist Party, just as at the fourth Congress of the Soviets, those in favour of peace were in a majority. Many of those who in January had been opposed to signing the Brest peace treaty were now in favour of peace. “At that time,” said they, “our signature would have been understood by the British and French workers as a miserable capitulation without any attempt to avoid it; even the base insinuations of the Anglo-French chauvinists about a secret agreement between the Soviet Government and the Germans might have met with some acceptance in certain sections of the Western European workers, had we then signed the peace treaty. But after our refusal to sign, after the new German offensive against us, after our attempt at resistance, after our military weakness has been demonstrated to the whole world with such awful clearness, no one will dare reproach us with having capitulated without a struggle.” The Brest-Litovsk treaty, the second, more onerous edition, was duly signed and ratified.

In the meantime, in the Ukraine and in Finland the executioners were going on with their grim work, threatening more and more the most vital centres of Great Russia. Thus, the question of the very existence of Russia as an independent country became indissolubly bound up with the question of a European revolution.



CONCLUSION
When our party was assuming the reins of Government, we knew beforehand “what difficulties we should undoubtedly meet on our way. Economically the country had been exhausted by the war to the last degree. The Revolution had destroyed the old administrative machinery without having had the opportunity of creating a new one m its place. Millions of workers had been forcibly torn away from the economic life of the country, thrown out of their class, and morally and mentally shattered by three years of war. A colossal war industry on an insufficiently developed economic foundation had sucked up the very life-blood of the nation, and its demobilization presented the greatest difficulties. The phenomena inseparable from economic and political anarchy had spread widely throughout the country. The Russian peasantry had been for centuries welded together by the barbarous discipline of the land and bent down from above by the iron discipline of Tsardom. The state of our economic development had undermined the one discipline and the Revolution destroyed the other. Psychologically, the Revolution meant an awakening of human individuality in the peasant masses. The anarchical form in which this awakening found expression was but the inevitable result of the previous repression. It will only be possible to arrive at the establishment of a new order of things, based on the control of production by the producers themselves, by a general internal deliverance from the anarchical forms of the Revolution.

On the other hand, the propertied classes, although forcibly removed from power, refuse to give up their positions without a fight. The Revolution has raised in an acute form the question of private property in land and the means of production, that is, the question. of the life and death of the exploiting classes. Politically this means a constant – sometlmes covert, sometimes overt – bitter civil war. In its turn, civil war necessarily brings in its train anarchist tendencies in the movement of the labouring masses.

In view of the dislocation of finance, industry, transport, and the food supply, a protracted civil war, therefore, is bound to cause gigantic difficulties in the way of the constructive work of organization. Nevertheless, the Soviet regime has every right to look forward to the future with confidence. Only an exact inventory of the resources of the country; only a national universal plan of organization of production ; only a prudent and economical distribution of all products can save the country. And this is just Socialism. Either a descent to the state of a mere colony, or a Socialist transformation – such is the alternative which faces our country.

This war has undermined the foundations of the entire capitalist world, and in this lies our invincible strength. The Imperialist ring which is choking us will be broken by a proletarian revolution. We no more doubt this for one moment than we ever doubted the final downfall of Tsardorn during the long decades of our underground work.

To struggle, to close our ranks, to establish discipline of labour and a Socialist order, to increase the productivity of labour, and not to be balked by any obstacle – such is our watchword. History is working for us. A proletarian revolution in Europe and America will break out sooner or later, and it will free not only the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Courland, and Finland, but the whole of suffering humanity.

Αποκηρύξτε το Ξεπούλημα του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στην ΕΕ!

17 Ιουλίου 2015

Αποκηρύξτε το Ξεπούλημα του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στην ΕΕ!

ΑΡΚΕΤΑ!

 

Αποκηρύξτε το ξεπούλημα του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στην ΕΕ και στις τράπεζες. Η ΕΕ και το νόμισμά της το ευρώ είναι παγίδα βασάνων για τη συντριπτική μάζα του ελληνικού λαού. Η ΕΕ και το ευρώ πρέπει να αποκηρυχθούν. Επιτροπές αποτελούμενες από εργάτες διαφορετικών τάσεων καθώς και τους συμμάχους τους – νέους, άνεργους, μετανάστες, συνταξιούχους – πρέπει να συσταθούν σε ολόκληρη τη χώρα για να παλέψουν για αυτό το σκοπό και για μία κυβέρνηση που θα δρα για τα συμφέροντα των εργαζόμενων και θα βρίσκεται υπό τον έλεγχό τους. Αυτή η μάχη δεν μπορεί να κερδηθεί μέσα στα κοινοβουλευτικά πλαίσια. Καλούμε επίσης όλους αυτούς τους ταξικά συνειδητούς εργαζόμενους που σκέφτονται με τον ίδιο τρόπο σε ολόκληρη την κακώς ονομαζόμενη Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση να μας υποστηρίξουν στους στόχους μας και να αναρωτηθούν τις επιπτώσεις για τις δικές τους χώρες. Σπάστε με τους Καπιταλιστές και τις Τράπεζές τους!

Χτίστε Εργατικές Επιτροπές Δράσης για να Παλέψουμε για:

•  Διαγραφή του χρέους! Κάτω το ευρώ και η ΕΕ! Σκίστε το Τρίτο Μνημόνιο!
•  Κοινή ταξική πάλη των Ελλήνων, των Γερμανών και των άλλων Ευρωπαίων εργατών ενάντια στους Σόιμπλε, Μέρκελ, Ολάντ και όλους τους εγκληματίες της ΕΕ!
•  Εργατικές αμυντικές φρουρές για να τσακίσουμε τη φασιστική απειλή! Υπερασπίστε τους μετανάστες ενάντια στις ρατσιστικές επιθέσεις!
•  Κατάργηση του ΦΠΑ και όλων των οπισθοδρομικών φόρων! Αξιοπρεπή στέγαση για όλους, όχι εξώσεις! Για εργατικό έλεγχο της διανομής τροφίμων και των τιμών!
•  Κατάργηση των μυστικών των επιχειρήσεων και των τραπεζών—Ανοίξτε τα βιβλία!
•  Απαλλοτρίωση των τραπεζών, των επιχειρήσεων κοινής ωφέλειας, των μεταφορών, των λιμανιών και της ναυτιλιακής βιομηχανίας! Εκβιομηχάνιση της Ελλάδας!
•  Αξιοπρεπείς συντάξεις για όλους τους συνταξιούχους τώρα, ανάλογα με το κόστος ζωής! Ποιοτικό σύστημα υγείας για όλους!
•  Πάλη ενάντια στην ανεργία—δουλειά για όλους μέσα από μία μικρότερη εργασιακή εβδομάδα χωρίς καμία μείωση μισθών!

Κινητοποιηθείτε Τώρα! Μοιράστε αυτό το φυλλάδιο στον χώρο εργασίας σας, στα πανεπιστήμια, στις γειτονιές κ.τ.λ.

17 Ιουλίου 2015

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Πρωτοβουλία της Τροτσκιστικής Ομάδας της Ελλάδας – ΤΟΕ
Τμήμα της Διεθνούς Κομμουνιστικής Ένωσης (Τεταρτοδιεθνιστικής)

Spartacist

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες: Τροτσκιστική Ομάδα της Ελλάδας, Τ.Θ. 8274, Τ.Κ. 10210, Αθήνα
Spartacist@hotmail.com
τηλεφωνήστε στο: 6930694112
www.icl-fi.org

A View From The Left-Defend The Greek Working Class And Its Allies- Repudiate Syriza’s Sellout to the EU!-ENOUGH!

A View From The Left-Defend The Greek Working Class And Its Allies- Repudiate Syriza’s Sellout to the EU!-ENOUGH! 

The gross capitulation of the Syriza-led government in Greece to the let-them-starve dictates of the European Union (EU) imperialists is a slap in the face to the millions who voted resoundingly to reject the EU’s austerity blackmail. Our comrades in the Trotskyist Group of Greece have initiated the following call for the establishment of workers action committees around a program of proletarian struggle against the EU and its Syriza lackeys. Such struggle is in the class interests of the working people in all EU countries and internationally.

 

Repudiate Syriza’s Sellout to the EU!-ENOUGH!

 

Repudiate Syriza’s sellout to the EU and the banks. The EU and its currency the euro have been a tragic trap of suffering for the great bulk of the Greek people. The EU and euro must be repudiated. Committees composed of workers from different tendencies and their allies—youth, unemployed, immigrants, pensioners—must be set up throughout the country to struggle for this and toward a government which will act in the interests of the working people and be subordinated to them. This battle cannot be won within a parliamentary framework. We also call upon all like-minded and class-conscious working people throughout the mis-named European Union to support us in our aims and to consider the implications for their own countries.  Break with the Capitalists and their Banks!

Build workers action committees to fight for:

• Cancel the debt! Down with the euro and the EU! Rip up the Third Memorandum!
• For common class struggle of Greek, German and other European workers against Schäuble, Merkel, Hollande and all the EU criminals!
• Workers defense guards to smash the fascist threat! Defend immigrants against racist attacks!
• Abolish the VAT and all regressive taxes! Decent housing for all, no evictions! For workers control of food distribution and prices!
• Abolish business and bank secrets—Open the books!
• Expropriate the banks, utilities, transportation, ports and shipping industry! Industrialize Greece!
• For decent pensions for all retirees pegged to the cost of living, now! Quality health care for all!
• Fight unemployment—Jobs for all through a shorter workweek with no loss in pay!

Mobilize now! Hand this leaflet out at your workplace, campuses, neighborhoods, etc.

 

Initiated by the Trotskyist Group of Greece
section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
17 July 2015

 

A Day In The Life…-Kevin Costner’s Draft Day

A Day In The Life…-Kevin Costner’s Draft Day

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Draft Day, starring Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, 2014

Someone once said that paper will take any subject that is written on it. Apparently the same is true for film except its taking anything projected on it as the subject of this film under review, Draft Day, readily demonstrates. One would think that those who are interested in the draft and draft day, the football draft of former college student-athletes who will replenish the National Football League not the dreaded military draft that men of my generation associate with that word, that the “real” event would produce enough “real” drama to last a whole season. But apparently somebody, and I am not privy to whom, decided that a run through the behind the scene maneuvers by hard-crusted and surly professional football team general managers in additional to the real draft day event had box office appeal.      

Now I will confess straight up that I am not a guy who lives and breathes for NFL draft day ready to don team paraphernalia and whoop it up as the draft selections get called. I don’t particularly have any current interest in which college player plays for which team (although in the past I had an interest in the fate of the Los Angeles Ram when they were in Los Angeles so you can tell it has been a while since I have gone nutty over professional football). I do admit to a current interest in college football standings figuring out weekly my own Top 25 teams (as the recently established play-off system for the national championship becomes more layered that interest may fate as well) although not to the fates of individual players as the turn pro so maybe that is why this film did not grab me.   

Let me tell you about it a little. Frankly it is hard to get worked up about the back room maneuvers behind individual draft selections as the myriad professional football teams scramble to keep themselves in contention, or the reality of draft day since it is skewed toward the low-end teams in the age of parity who will try to get well by savvy selections (aided and abetted by those massive television contracts that get everybody well). Here Sonny (played by Kevin Costner), yes Sonny Weaver, the son of the late legendary Cleveland Browns head coach of the same name who had passed away the week before draft day (by the way having been fired by dear son Sonny at some point to make way for a new coach who had a Super Bowl ring to his credit) and the front office general manager for the Browns needs to make some deals to get the Browns well, get them higher up on the NFL food chain. So Sonny is open to any and all proposals from shifting draft choice positions for future choices, to dumping high contract players in order to keep inside the budget, to “dissing”  certain draftees on draft day (as apparently every general manager in the film seemed to be). All in the spirit of something like the guys who work the floor in the Chicago pork belly and wheat futures markets.         

Sonny by hook or by crook makes some deals that sounded like they would move the Browns up the chain but frankly I was non-plussed by the “drama” of the moves. In any case the screenwriters thoughtfully figured out that the inner workings of draft day would not appeal to a mass audience so they threw in a little off-hand romance between Sonny and his number-cruncher staff member girlfriend and a cameo appearance by his grieving mother to show that work is work but that Sonny was not really a futures market kind of guy after all. Yes, film will take any subject projected on it.          

***The Rich Are Really No Different From You and I-Right?-My Man Godfrey-A Film Review

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of "My Man Godfrey" starring William Powell and Carole Lombard.

DVD REVIEW

My Man Godfrey, Criterion Collections, 2001

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously is reputed to have said that the very rich are different from you and I. Well, hell we knew that. Nevertheless the premise of this little 1930’s class comedy seeks to turn that proposition on its head, at least partially. William Powell as 1930’s down and out hobo (although in reality just another scion of a rich family looking to find himself and his place in the world during the Great Depression) is singled out to be a reclamation project (as the family butler, of course) for the Mayfair swells, a society family of crazies.

In the process that family learns some lessons about how the other half lives and about the universal proposition that it is nice to be nice in the world. Especially a class conscious, ruling class conscious that is, daughter who is the foil for old Godfrey's antics. Add a little off-hand romance by Powell with a batty younger daughter played by Carol Lombard and all’s well that ends well. Except, as I recall during the later part of the 1930’s, the period when this 'slice of life' film was produced there were little things like the Little Steel Strike Massacre, the sit-downs in order to organize the automobile industry in Michigan and myriad other actions to ‘level the playing field’ with the rich. But, my friends, that is another story.

William Powell, although always identified in my mind as the 'society' detective Nick Charles (with his lovely Nora, played by Myrna Loy, and the ever-present Asta)plays it straight here. Carol Lombard is, well, Carol Lombard a fine comedic actress. So suspend your disbelief and take this funny look at the class struggle for what it is worth.

***"Red" Writer's Corner- Howard Fast -The Way They Were- An American Communist Party Cadre's Story Of The 1950s Red Scare

Click on title to link to the "Guardian" (U.K.) literary/political obituary of writer Howard Fast by Eric Homberger.

BOOK REVIEW

BEING RED, HOWARD FAST, M.E. SHAPE, NEW YORK, 1994

I have always been intrigued by the American Communist Party’s ability up until the period of the “red scare” of the late 1940’s and the 1950’s to draw to itself and recruit a relatively large number of free-lance intellectuals and cultural workers. Whether the party could keep them once recruited and how effective they were are separate questions. Nevertheless, if one draws up a Who’s Who of those members of the American intelligentsia who passed through the party’s orbit during the first half of the 20th century one would find numbers far greater than would be indicated by the party’s actual influence in American politics. The novelist Howard Fast in his memoir of his decade long membership in the American Communist Party is highly representative of that trend. Or, at least of the those in that trend who could rationally explain their experience in the Party without either foaming at the mouth or running to the nearest government law enforcement agency.

The tale Mr. Fast has to tell about his trek to the party is informative and, except for the utterly extreme poverty of his childhood and the early loss of his mother, not atypical of the urban children of immigrants in general and New York Jewish youth in particular who came of age between World War I and II and joined the party. The key events that drove many into the party’s orbit were the Depression, the rise of Nazism in Europe and the hope that Soviet Union could provide a model for a socialist future. Those events also drove many youth into the Social Democratic and Trotskyist movements during this period as well.

What is interesting to me about Mr. Fast’s story is that he joined the party at the tail end of the Communist Party’s Popular Front period (excepts a short hiatus for the support of Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-41, oops). That period was exemplified by Party Chairman Earl Browder’s declaration that “Communism is 20th century Americanism” and Mr. Fast and those recruited during the period really believed that this was the road to socialism. In short, the belief that some form of parliamentary road to socialism was possible. Unfortunately for them, Browder and those recruits including Mr. Fast got caught between the hammer of the American ruling class’s Cold War strategy and the Soviet’s “left” turn to seeming anti-capitalist militancy in the immediate post-World War II period that for a long time effectively ended the harmonious relationships provided during the Popular Front period.

Mr. Fast is somewhat exceptional in that rather than quietly leaving the party, selling out to the government or selling out his friends to the government as many did during the “red scare” he dug in his heels, stuck it out and did his duty. That is to his credit. The curious thing about this honorable position is that from what this reviewer was able to read between the lines of his book Mr. Fast seems instinctively much closer to a Social Democratic or pacifist view of the world than a Communist view of the world during this period. But such are the vagaries of the human personality.

As Mr. Fast unfolds his story he has many reminiscences to relate concerning the background to events such as the confusion in the party during the last part of World War II about the nature of the post-war period, the “red scare” as seen down at the local level by those who lacked adequate resources to defend themselves, the ominous beginnings of the Cold War, the start of the Korean War, and the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as "atomic spies". Some of the information presented here I knew previously but much is new and interesting. One should be glad that an old ex-Stalinist decided to write about his experiences. Maybe future generations can learn from those mistakes made by the American Stalinists but at the same time also take courage from the courage of such political opponents as Mr. Fast who stood up to government repression while others, too many others, ducked. Read on.