A View From The Left-Independence For Catalonia-Now!

A View From The Left-Independence For Catalonia-Now!  

The national question in Catalonia is on the agenda-here is a view from the left concenring a struggle to get that idea right from the leftist perpective of national slef-determination   

The Basque Country and Catalonia

There is a single Basque nation and a single Catalan nation, both of which are divided and oppressed by two capitalist states. The differences in how nationalist sentiments are expressed in the northern and southern provinces of the Basque Country and Catalonia reflect the differences in capitalist development in Spain and France.

In Spain, the Catalans and the republican Basques played a vanguard role in the Spanish Revolution of the 1930s. After its defeat, the influx of tens of thousands of refugees reinvigorated national vitality in the northern part of these nations in France. Under Franco, all languages except Castilian were outlawed, and this was embodied in the slogan “one nation, great and free.” The autonomy statutes enacted by the Republic in 1932 were abolished. The Franco regime carried out harsh and punitive repression against oppressed nations, symbolized by the 1937 carpet bombing of the Basque city of Guernica by the Nazis at Franco’s behest. As a result of this repression, after Franco died in 1975 the struggles of the oppressed nations were mainly expressed along national lines, in contrast to those of the 1930s, when the working classes of these same nations fought directly for power.

The Spanish constitution of 1978 maintained the rule of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain, which was restored by the grace and favor of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The restoration of the monarchy was essential to stabilize the central Castilian state and retain the oppressed nations within Spain by force. In order to stabilize the Spanish state, Catalonia and the Basque Country—along with other regions—were granted greater autonomy. This contrasts with “glorious” republican France (“the country of the rights of man”), where to this day the oppressed nations have no linguistic or legal rights. Especially in the Basque Country, the population faces as much repression as in Spain. Due to the historical weakness of the Castilian bourgeoisie relative to the Basque and Catalan bourgeoisies, the defeat of the Spanish Revolution and the resulting Franco dictatorship, the motor force of pro-independence movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country comes from the regions forcibly retained within Spain. Thus, the fate of the provinces forcibly retained within France strongly depends on what will happen on the Spanish side of the border. We call for the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia, in the North and the South. If the Basque or Catalan regions of Spain obtained independence, it is likely that the regions in France would want to join them. If they wanted to remain part of France, we would defend their right to thus exercise their self-determination.

Jan Norden, editor of Workers Vanguard at the time, was centrally responsible for our line in opposition to national liberation struggles in Catalonia and the Basque Country on the Spanish side. For its part, the LTF is centrally responsible for our chauvinist line on the Basque Country and Catalonia on the French side. In the years around Franco’s death, Spain was shaken by significant workers struggles, leading to a social radicalization. While the struggle against national oppression played a central role in these mobilizations, WV, which regularly commented on these events, completely ignored this question. This silence had to be conscious and shows hostility to the fate of nations oppressed by the Spanish state. We launched a vicious polemic in defense of the oppression of Catalonia the first time we commented on this question in 1979.

This conference repudiates the article “Spanish LCR Pays Homage to Catalan Bourgeois Nationalism” (WV No. 233, 8 June 1979). This article is a gross capitulation to Castilian and French chauvinism and is a perversion of Leninism on the national question. We cite a polemic by Lenin against “cultural national autonomy,” and we outrageously use his arguments to oppose regional autonomy and independence, i.e., secession:

“As Leninists have always held, recognizing the right of self-determination is quite distinct from calling for its implementation, i.e., independence. And Spain is one of the most striking examples where communists would struggle doggedly to maintain working-class unity within the framework of the present state.”

This grotesque article is a loyalty oath in defense of the unity of Spain. WV acted as water boys for the bourgeoisie and the monarchy in the struggle against the national liberation of the Catalans and Basques.

The article also asserts that:

“The Basque and Catalan regions, while suffering discrimination (linguistic prohibitions, distribution of state services, repression) at the hand of the Francoist state apparatus, were the most developed regions in the country, containing the core of Spanish industry. Were they to separate, the two largest, best organized, most combative sectors of the proletariat would be subtracted, greatly weakening the workers movement in the rest of Spain and representing a considerable defeat for the European proletarian revolution.” (emphasis in original)

In fact, independence for Catalonia and the Basque Country would have been a step forward for the workers movement in Europe. This is all the more true today, when the breakup of Spain would profoundly destabilize the European Union, a reactionary imperialist bloc.

The problem with the way the LTF has approached the Basque and Catalan questions can be summed up in the following statement by a Basque nationalist: “There is not a Basque problem in France but a French problem in the Pays Basque.... The struggle of the Pays Basque will endure as long as there are Basques” (James E. Jacob, Hills of Conflict: Basque Nationalism in France[Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1994]). In 1987, at the same time that the French state was fiercely repressing the Basques, the LTF published an article that mainly attacked their demands for national rights. We wrote: “Indeed, while there is no national question in the French Basque Country, the military siege by [police ministers] Pasqua-Pandraud could well lead to one being created!” (“Gestapo-Style Raid in the Basque Country”). The article continues with a polemic against a “united, socialist Euskadi” and asserts that “self-determination is out of the question for the Basque region.” The forcible assimilation of the Basques in France is presented as a gain of the French Revolution.

These problems were only very partially corrected in 1998, when the LTF recognized the right of self-determination for the Basques in France. The International and the LTF repudiated the former political line, but in a dishonest way that covered up the full scope of the chauvinism of the 1987 article. However, we never reviewed our opposition to independence for the Basque Country nor for any other nation retained in the Hexagon.

When the question of independence for Catalonia was raised in 2014, the LTF decided not to take a position in favor of it. When the recent fight broke out in the International, the LTF did not undertake a review of its approach but instead rushed to produce a draft with a line comparable to the pre-1998 position. In a letter to the LTF, comrade Sacramento asserted:

“Your draft fundamentally equates the nationalism of the oppressed with the nationalism of the oppressors, misquoting Lenin to Salomonically denounce ‘aggressive bourgeois nationalism.’ You chose to emphasize that you are for independence of Basques and Catalans ‘in Spain,’ while somewhere in the next paragraph you barely mention that on the other side of the border we support ‘their right to join an independent Basque Country.’ In this formulation, you don’t mention explicitly their right to secede from France, regardless of what their co-nationals may do on the southern side of the border. And, as always, you found a way to ignore the Catalans in France.”

In 2014, the IEC adopted a line, against initial objections from the LTF, in favor of independence for the Basque Country and Catalonia. This change represented a qualitative improvement in our program. Nevertheless, this was done without making a complete break from the weaknesses of our former methodology: the aspirations of the oppressed for national liberation were still considered to be an obstacle to working-class struggle that we needed to “get off the agenda.” We are for independence—in the here and now—and we consciously fight to lead the struggle for national liberation toward socialist revolution. Our program is for workers republics in Catalonia and in the Basque Country.

To this day, our main argument for independence for the Basque Country and Catalonia has been that this would foster unity with the Castilian working class. In regard to Catalonia, our call for independence was based on an empirical and conjunctural assessment in the context of the 2014 referendum. The Basques and the Catalans have resisted assimilation for hundreds of years, thus expressing their desire to exist as nations. Another weakness in our recent articles is that they fail to explicitly call for the abolition of the monarchy. The fight for independence also means putting an end to this Francoist excrescence. Down with the monarchy!

Support The Catalonia General Strike-For An Independent Catalonia Now!

Catalonia is a Nation-Support The Indpendent Struggle Now!  

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons-The First World War and the Struggle for Proletarian Power

The100^thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons-The First World War and the Struggle for Proletarian Power    

Workers Vanguard No. 1106 24 February 2017 TROTSKY LENIN The First World War and the Struggle for Proletarian Power (Quote of the Week) Sparked by an International Women’s Day demonstration on 8 March 1917 (February 23 by the old Julian calendar), the February Revolution in Russia toppled the autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas II amid the interimperialist First World War. But the Provisional Government that came to power—and was supported by the Mensheviks and petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionaries—was a bourgeois government that continued to prosecute the war. At the same time, Soviets (councils) of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies were formed, posing a situation of dual power—i.e., whether it would be the proletariat or the bourgeoisie that would ultimately rule. Writing before his return from exile in Switzerland, Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin outlined a course to turn the imperialist war into a fight for working-class power. Lenin’s struggle for this strategy was vital for the victory of the Bolshevik-led proletarian socialist October Revolution. To achieve peace (and still more to achieve a really democratic, a really honourable peace), it is necessary that political power be in the hands of the workers and poorest peasants, not the landlords and capitalists. The latter represent an insignificant minority of the population, and the capitalists, as everybody knows, are making fantastic profits out of the war. The workers and poorest peasants are the vast majority of the population. They are not making profit out of the war; on the contrary, they are being reduced to ruin and starvation. They are bound neither by capital nor by the treaties between the predatory groups of capitalists; they can and sincerely want to end the war. If political power in Russia were in the hands of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, these Soviets, and the All-Russia Soviet elected by them, could, and no doubt would, agree to carry out the peace programme which our Party (the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) outlined as early as October 13, 1915, in No. 47 of its Central Organ, Sotsial-Demokrat (then published in Geneva because of the Draconic tsarist censorship). This programme would probably be the following: 1) The All-Russia Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies (or the St. Petersburg Soviet temporarily acting for it) would forthwith declare that it is not bound by any treaties concluded either by the tsarist monarchy or by the bourgeois governments. 2) It would forthwith publish all these treaties in order to hold up to public shame the predatory aims of the tsarist monarchy and of all the bourgeois governments without exception. 3) It would forthwith publicly call upon all the belligerent powers to conclude an immediate armistice. 4) It would immediately bring to the knowledge of all the people our, the workers’ and peasants’, peace terms: liberation of all colonies; liberation of all dependent, oppressed and unequal nations. 5) It would declare that it expects nothing good from the bourgeois governments and calls upon the workers of all countries to overthrow them and to transfer all political power to Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. 6) It would declare that the capitalist gentry themselves can repay the billions of debts contracted by the bourgeois governments to wage this criminal, predatory war, and that the workers and peasants refuse to recognise these debts.... For these peace terms the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies would, in my opinion, agree to wage war against any bourgeois government and against all the bourgeois governments of the world, because this would really be a just war, because all the workers and toilers in all countries would work for its success. —V.I. Lenin, “Letters from Afar, Fourth Letter: How to Achieve Peace” (March 1917)

Marxism and Insurrection

Marxism and Insurrection

Workers Vanguard No. 1118 22 September 2017 TROTSKY LENIN Marxism and Insurrection (Quote of the Week) In a letter written in mid September 1917 to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, V.I. Lenin underlined that conditions had become ripe for the seizure of power by the proletariat in Russia. The Bolsheviks had widespread support within the working class in the cities as well as growing support in the countryside, where peasants were seizing land. That month, the Bolsheviks had obtained a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets (councils). These councils were organs of proletarian power that had arisen alongside the capitalist Provisional Government after the February Revolution that had overthrown the tsarist monarchy. As Petrograd faced the threat of a bloodbath by German imperialism in the First World War and the suppression of the revolution, Lenin initiated the fight in the Bolshevik leadership to put workers insurrection on the order of the day. To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point.... All the objective conditions exist for a successful insurrection. We have the exceptional advantage of a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can put an end to that most painful thing on earth, vacillation, which has worn the people out; in which only our victory in the insurrection will give the peasants land immediately; a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can foil the game of a separate peace directed against the revolution—foil it by publicly proposing a fuller, juster and earlier peace, a peace that will benefit the revolution. Finally, our Party alone can, by a victorious insurrection, save Petrograd; for if our proposal for peace is rejected, if we do not secure even an armistice, then weshall become “defencists,” we shall place ourselves at the head of the war parties, we shall be the war party par excellence, and we shall conduct the war in a truly revolutionary manner. We shall take away all the bread and boots from the capitalists. We shall leave them only crusts and dress them in bast shoes. We shall send all the bread and footwear to the front. And then we shall save Petrograd. —V.I. Lenin, “Marxism and Insurrection” (September 1917)

In New York City on October 7th- A Forum In Honor of The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution

In New York City on October 7th- A Forum In Honor of The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-LessonsForToday- From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.)- "Lenin And The Vanguard Party"- Part Four- "Party, Faction & "Freedom Of Criticism"

Lenin And The Vanguard Party

Markin comment on this series of articles



Oddly, when I first became serious about making a revolution in the early 1970s, a socialist working class-led revolution, in the eternal quest for a more just and equitable society, there were plenty (no enough, there are never enough, but plenty) of kindred spirits who were also finding out that it was not enough to “pray” such a revolution into existence but that one had to build a party, a vanguard party in order to do so. The name Lenin, the designation Bolshevik, and the term world socialist revolution flowed easily from the tongue in the circles that I began to hang around in. As I write this general introduction, right this minute in 2011, to an important series of historical articles about the actual creation, in real time, of a Leninist vanguard working class party (and International, as well) there are few kindred, fewer still in America, maybe, fewest still, and this is not good, among the youth, to carry the message forward. Nevertheless, whatever future form the next stage in the struggle for the socialist revolution takes the question of the party, the vanguard party really, will still press upon the heads of those who wish to make it.

Although today there is no mass Bolshevik-style vanguard party (or International) -anywhere- there are groups, grouplets, leagues, tendencies, and ad hoc committees that have cadre from which the nucleus for such a formation could be formed-if we can keep it. And part of the process of being able to “keep it” is to understand what Lenin was trying to do back in the early 1900s (yes, 1900s) in Russia that is applicable today. Quite a bit, actually, as it turns out. And for all those think that the Leninist process, and as the writer of these articles is at pains to point it was an unfolding process, was simple and the cadre that had to be worked with was as pure as the driven snow I would suggest this thought. No less an august revolutionary figure that Leon Trotsky, once he got “religion” on the Bolshevik organizational question (in many ways the question of the success of the revolution), did not, try might and main, have success in forming such a mass organization. We can fight out the details from that perspective learning from the successes and failures, and fight to get many more kindred.
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Markin comment on this article:
The question of democratic centralism, the notion that the vanguard party speaks, and has to speak, in public with one voice has always been a thorny one, and one that has caused more than one tantrum on the part of petty bourgeois intellectuals who want to adhere to socialist revolutionary verbiage but be able to “bail out” in public when hard and unpopular public political positions have to be taken. That was most visibly true in the United States every time a concrete defense of the Soviet Union came up, particularly in the Trotskyist movement. In 1939-40 over the Stalin-Hitler Pact, over Cuba and Vietnam, and over Afghanistan (1979 version), and now that China is the modern day version of the “Russian Question” over its defense.

I think James Cannon was right, as he frequently was old hard-bitten faction-fighter that he was, that democratic centralism had not inherent virtue as an organizational tool but that you sure as hell better have it in place when great events call for united party action. As this article pointed out, at some deep level, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were two different parties very early on. 1917 will clearly sort that notion out but would you as a Bolshevik in the spring of 1917 want to be tied by internal discipline, by democratic centralist discipline, to the Menshevik political program. To the Lenin April Theses discipline yes, to Menshevik popular frontism no. That is the import of Cannon’s remark cited here. The Mensheviks were not going to make a socialist revolution in 1917 (at least until the great by and by) and had no need of such discipline. The problem of the abuses,the very real abuses of democratic centralism, is a separate question tied to socialist defeats and not to that particular vanguard organizational norm.
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To read about the overall purpose of this pamphlet series and other information about the history of the document go the the American Left History Archives From-Lenin and The Vanguard Party-Preface To The Second Edition And Part One, dated March 15, 2011.

Party, Faction & "Freedom Of Criticism"-Part Four

The emergence of differences with the Mensheviks over the role of bourgeois liberalism in the revolution weakened, but did not eliminate, the forces of conciliationism in the Bolshevik camp. At the all-Bolshevik Third Congress of the RSDRP in April 1905, Lenin found himself in a minority on the question of how to deal with the Mensheviks. He wanted to expel the Mensheviks, who had boycotted the Congress, from the RSDRP. The majority of delegates were unwilling to take such an extreme step. The Congress adopted a motion that the Mensheviks should be permitted to remain in a unitary RSDRP on condition that they recognize the leadership of the Bolshevik majority and adhere to party discipline. Needless to say, the Mensheviks rejected such unity conditions out of hand.

While the beginning of the 1905 Revolution deepened the split between Bolshevism and Menshevism, its further development produced overpowering pressures for the reunification of Russian Social Democracy. A number of factors, all reinforcing one another, created a tremendous sentiment for unity among members of both tendencies. Common military struggle against the tsarist state produced a strong sense of solidarity among the advanced workers of Russia, the militants and supporters of the social-democratic movement.

By the summer of 1905, a large majority of both tendencies consisted of new, young recruits who had not experienced the struggle of Iskraism against the Economists or the 1903 Bolshevik-Menshevik split and its aftermath. Thus for the majority of Russian social-democratic workers, the organizational division was incomprehensible and appeared to be based on "ancient history." The general belief that the differences within Russian Social Democracy were not significant was reinforced by the political disarray among the Menshevik leaders. The most prominent Menshevik in 1905 was Trotsky, head of the St. Petersburg Soviet, who was to the left of Lenin on the goals and prospects of the revolution. Thus the political attitudes of many who joined the Bolshevik and Menshevik organizations in 1905 did not correspond to the programs of their respective leaderships. In his 1940 biography of Stalin, Trotsky noted that in 1905 the Menshevik rank and file stood closer to Lenin's position on the role of Social Democracy in the revolution than to Plekhanov's.

The sentiment for unity was so strong that several local Bolshevik committees simply fused with their Menshevik counterparts in spite of opposition from their leadership. In his memoirs written in the 1920s, the old Bolshevik Osip Piatnitsky describes the situation in the Odessa social-democratic movement in late 1905:

"It was obvious to the [Bolshevik leading] committee that the proposal of union would be passed by a great majority at the Party meetings of both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, for wherever the advocates of immediate unity spoke they were supported almost unanimously. Therefore the Bolshevik committee was forced to work out the terms of union which they themselves were against. It was important to do that, for otherwise the union would have occurred without any conditions at all."
—Memoirs of a Bolshevik (1973)

In his 1923 history of the Bolsheviks, Gregory Zinoviev sums up the 1906 reunification thus:

"As a consequence of the revolutionary battles of late 1905 and under the influence of the masses, the staffs of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were forced to reunite. In effect the masses forced the Bolsheviks to reconcile themselves to the Mensheviks on several questions."
—History of the Bolshevik Party—A Popular Outline (1973)

Zinoviev's statement is perhaps oversimplified. It is unlikely that Lenin simply capitulated to pressure from below. The overwhelming sentiment for unity meant that the organizational divisions no longer corresponded to the political consciousness of the respective memberships. Some of the Bolsheviks' young recruits were actually closer to the left Mensheviks, and vice versa. A period of internal struggle was necessary to separate out the revolutionary elements who joined the social-democratic movement in 1905 from the opportunistic elements.

Reunification
In the fall of 1905, the Bolshevik Central Committee and Menshevik Organizing Committee began unity negotiations. The Bolshevik Central Committee in Russia approved of fusions at the local level as the means of reunifying the ) RSDRP as a whole. Lenin, who was still in exile in Switzerland, strongly intervened to stop this organic unification from below. He insisted that the reunification take place at the top, at a new party congress, with delegates elected on a factional platform. In a letter (3 October 1905) to the Central Committee, he wrote:

"We should not confuse the policy of uniting the two parts with the mixing-up of both parts. We agree to uniting the two parts, but we shall never agree to mixing them up. We must demand of the committees a distinct division, then two congresses and amalgamation." [emphasis in original]
In December 1905, a United Center was formed consisting of an equal number of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. At the same time, the central organs of the rival tendencies, the Menshevik Iskra and Bolshevik Proletary, were discontin¬ued and superseded by a single publication, Partinye Izvestaii (Party News).

Significantly, the Mensheviks agreed to accept Lenin's 1903 definition of membership as requiring formal organizational participation. This was in part a concession to the Leninists, but mainly reflected the fact that in the relatively open conditions of 1905-06, formal organizational participation was not a bar to broad recruitment. The Mensheviks' turnabout completely disproves the widespread notion that Lenin's insistence that members must be subject to organizational discipline was a peculiarity of the underground. On the contrary, it was the Mensheviks who considered that illegality required a looser definition of membership so as to attract social-democratic workers and intellectuals unwilling to face the rigors and dangers of clandestinity.

The Fourth (or "Reunification") Congress, held in Stockholm in April 1906, was divided between 62 Mensheviks and 46 Bolsheviks. Also represented were the Jewish Bund, the Lettish social democrats and the Polish social democrats led by Luxemburg and Jogiches. No one has contested that the factions' representation at the Fourth Congress corresponded to their respective strength at the base, among the social-democratic workers in Russia. (In early 1906, the Mensheviks had about 18,000 members, the Bolsheviks about 12,000.)

What accounted for the Menshevik majority among Russian social democrats in early 1906? First, the Bolshevik committeemen's conservative attitude toward recruitment in early 1905 also manifested itself in a sectarian attitude toward the new mass organizations thrown up by the revolution—the trade unions and, above all, the Soviets. Thus the Mensheviks were able to get a head start in vying for the leadership of the broad working-class organizations. Although Trotsky was not a Menshevik factionalist, his role as head of the St. Petersburg Soviet strengthened the authority of the anti-Leninist wing of Russian Social Democracy. Secondly, the Mensheviks' advocacy of immediate, organic fusion enabled them to appeal to the young recruits' political naivete and desire for unity.

With the defeat of the Bolshevik-led Moscow insurrection in December 1905, the tide turned in favor of tsarist reaction. While the Bolsheviks considered the tsarist victories a temporary setback during a continuing revolutionary situation, the Mensheviks concluded that the revolution was over. The Menshevik position corresponded to the increasingly defeatist mood of the masses in the early months of 1906.

Throughout the period of the Fourth Congress, Lenin several times affirmed his loyalty to a unitary RSDRP. For example, in a brief factional statement at the conclusion of the Congress, he wrote:

"We must and shall fight ideologically against those decisions of the Congress which we regard as erroneous. But at the same time we declare to the whole Party that we are opposed to a split of any kind. We stand for submission to the decisions of the Congress.... We are profoundly convinced that the workers' Social-Democratic organizations must be united, but in these united organizations there must be a wide and free criticism of Party questions, free comradely criticism and assessment of events in Party life."
—"An Appeal to the Party by Delegates to the Unity
Congress Who Belonged to the Former 'Bolshevik'
Group" (April 1906)

For Lenin, the reunification represented both a continuing adherence to the Kautskyan doctrine of "the party of the whole class" and a tactical maneuver to win over the mass of raw, young workers who had joined the social-democratic movement during the 1905 Revolution. We have no way of assessing the different weighting Lenin gave to these two very different considerations. Nor do we know how in 1906 Lenin envisaged the future course of Bolshevik-Menshevik relations.

It is unlikely that Lenin looked forward to or projected a definitive split and the creation of a Bolshevik party. Among other factors, Lenin knew that the Bolsheviks would not be recognized as the sole representative of Russian Social Democracy by the Second International. And when in 1912 the Bolsheviks did split completely from the Mensheviks and claimed to be the RSDRP, the leadership of the International did not recognize that claim.
Lenin probably would have liked to reduce the Mensheviks to an impotent minority subject to the discipline of a revolutionary (i.e., Bolshevik) leadership of the RSDRP.

This is how he viewed the relationship of the Bernsteinian revisionists to the Bebel/Kautsky leadership of the SPD. However, he knew that the Menshevik cadre were unwilling to act and perhaps incapable of acting as a disciplined minority in a revolutionary party. He further recognized that he did not have the authority of a Bebel to make an opportunist tendency submit to his organizational leadership.

In striving for leadership of the Russian workers movement, Lenin did not limit himself to winning over the Menshevik rank and file, to purely internal RSDRP factional struggle. He sought to recruit non-party workers and radical petty bourgeois directly to the Bolshevik tendency. To this end the Bolshevik "faction" of the RSDRP acted much like an independent party with its own press, leadership and disciplinary structure, finances, public activities and local committees. That in the 1906-12 period the Bolsheviks, while formally a faction in a unitary RSDRP, had most of the characteristics of an independent party was the later judgment of such diverse political figures as Trotsky, Zinoviev and the Menshevik leader Theodore Dan.

In the course of a 1940- polemic against the American Shachtman faction, Trotsky characterized the Bolsheviks in this period as a "faction" which "bore all the traits of a party" (In Defense of Marxism [1940]).
Zinoviev's History of the Bolshevik Party describes the situation following the Fourth Congress:

"The Bolsheviks had set up during the Congress their own internal and, for the party, illegal, Central Committee. This period of our party's history when we were in the minority on both the Central Committee and the St. Petersburg Committee and had to conceal our separate revolutionary activity, was very arduous and unpleasant for us.... It was a situation where two parties were seemingly operating within the structure of one." [our emphasis]

Theodore Dan's 1945 work, The Origins of Bolshevism (1970), presents a similar analysis of Bolshevik-Menshevik relations:

"It was not an organizational but a political divergence that very quickly split the Russian Social-Democracy into two fractions, which sometimes drew close and then clashed with each other, but basically remained independent parties that kept fighting with each other even at a time when they were nomi¬nally within the framework of a unitary party."
Democratic Centralism and "Freedom of Criticism"

From the Fourth Congress in April 1906 until the Fifth Congress in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were a minority faction in the RSDRP. In striving for the party leadership, the Bolsheviks did not primarily orient toward winning over a section of the Menshevik cadre. With a few individual exceptions, Lenin regarded the seasoned Menshevik cadre as hardened opportunists, at least in the immediate period. Paradoxically, the reunification demonstrated the hardness of the line separating the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; few veterans of either group changed sides.

One of Lenin's motives in agreeing to unity was that the continuing split repelled many social-democratic workers from joining either group. Since recruiting non-party elements was key to struggle against the Menshevik leadership of the RSDRP, Lenin naturally wanted to be able to publicly attack that leadership. It was in that historic context that Lenin defined democratic centralism as "freedom of criticism, unity in action." In the 1906-07 period, Lenin on numerous occasions advocated the right of minorities to publicly oppose the positions, though not the actions, of the party leadership.

Predictably, various rightist revisionists have "rediscovered" Lenin's 1906 advocacy of "freedom of criticism"— the product of a continuing adherence to a classic social-democratic concept of the party and a tactical maneuver against the Mensheviks—and proclaimed it the true form of Leninist democratic centralism. Certain left-centrist groupings which broke out of the fake-Trotskyist United Secretariat in the early 1970s, made "freedom of criticism" a key part of their program. The most significant of these groups was the West German Internationale Kommunisten Deutschlands, of which but feeble remnants exist today. The Leninist Faction (LF) in the American Socialist Workers Party, which gave rise to the short-lived Class Struggle League (CSL), likewise championed "freedom of criticism." A central leader of the LF/CSL, Barbara G., wrote a lengthy document entitled "Democratic Centralism" (August 1972) on the subject. The central conclusion is:

"Lenin felt that discussion of political differences in the party press was important because the party and press were those of the working class. If the workers were to see the party as their party, they must see party questions as their questions, party struggles as their struggles. The worker coming around the party must understand that he has the possibility of helping to build the party, not only through repeating the majority line, but through (under party guidelines) advancing his criticisms and ideas." [emphasis in original]

Barbara G. quotes approvingly from Lenin's May 1906 article, "Freedom to Criticize and Unity of Action":

"Criticism within the limits of the principles of the Party Program must be quite free...not only at Party meetings, but also at public meetings. Such criticism, or such 'agitation' (for criticism is inseparable from agitation) cannot be prohibited." The "Party" that Lenin is referring to here is not the Bolshevik Party which led the October Revolution. It is the inclusive party of all Russian social democrats led by the Menshevik faction, i.e., by demonstrated opportunists. To equate the RSDRP of 1906 with a revolutionary vanguard is to obliterate the distinction between Bolshevism and Menshevism.

Short of an open split, Lenin did everything possible to prevent the RSDRP's Menshevik leadership from hindering the Bolsheviks' revolutionary agitation and actions. We have already quoted Zinoviev to the effect that the Bolsheviks established a formal leadership structure in violation of party rules. They also had independent finances. By August 1906, the Bolsheviks had re-established a factional organ, Proletary, under the auspices of the St. Petersburg Committee where they had just won a majority.
That the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks could not coexist in a unitary party according to the formula "freedom of criticism, unity in action" was demonstrated by the St. Petersburg election campaign in early 1907. During this period the principal conflict between the groups focused on electoral support to the liberal monarchist Cadet Party. At a party conference in November 1906, the Menshevik majority adopted a compro¬mise whereby the local committees determined their own electoral policy. In order to undermine the Bolshevik stronghold of St. Petersburg, the Central Committee then ordered that committee split in two. Correctly denouncing this as a purely factional maneuver, the Bolsheviks refused to split the committee. At a St. Petersburg conference to decide on electoral policy, the Mensheviks split, claiming the conference was illegitimate. They then supported the Cadets against the Bolshevik RSDRP campaign.

When Lenin denounced this act of class treason in a pamphlet, The St. Petersburg Elections and the Hypocrisy of the Thirty-One Mensheviks, the Central Committee brought him up on charges of making statements "impermissible for a Party member." The Central Committee's juridical actions against Lenin were postponed until the Fifth Congress, where they were rendered moot by the Bolsheviks' gaining a majority.
The spirit in which Lenin advocated "freedom of criticism" can be seen in his "defense" against the Menshevik accusation that he "cast suspicion upon the political integrity of Party members":

"By my sharp and discourteous attacks on the Mensheviks on the eve of the St. Petersburg elections, I actually succeeded in causing that section of the proletariat which trusts and follows the Mensheviks to waver. That was my aim. That was my duty as a member of the St. Petersburg Social-Democratic organization which was conducting a campaign for a Left bloc; because, after the split, it was necessary...to rout the Mensheviks who were leading the proletariat in the footsteps of the Cadets; it was necessary to carry confusion into their ranks; it was necessary to arouse among the masses hatred, aversion and contempt for those people who had ceased to be members of a united party, had become political enemies.... Against such political enemies I then conducted—and in the event of a repetition or development of a split shall always conduct—a struggle of extermination" [emphasis in original]
—"Report to the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. on the St. Petersburg Split..." (April 1907)

Lenin's advocacy of "freedom of criticism" in the Menshevik-led RSDRP of 1906 was analogous to the Trotskyists' position on democratic centralism when they did an entry into the social-democratic parties in the mid-1930s. The Trotskyists opposed democratic centralism for those parties in order to maximize their impact both among the social-democratic membership and outside the parties as well. Conversely, elements of the social-democratic leadership then came out for democratic-centralist norms in order to suppress the Trotskyists. Referring to the Trotskyists' experience in the American Socialist Party of Norman Thomas, James P. Cannon expresses very well the unique applicability of democratic centralism to the revolutionary vanguard:

"Democratic-centralism has no special virtue per se. It is the specific principle of a combat party, united by a single program, which aims to lead a revolution. Social Democrats have no need of such a system of organization for the simple reason that they have no intention of organizing a revolution. Their democracy and centralism are not united by a hyphen but kept in separate compartments for separate purposes. The democracy is for the social patriots and the centralism is for the revolutionists. The attempt of the Zam-Tyler 'Clarity-ite' faction in the Socialist Party in introducing a rigid 'democratic-centralist' system of organization in the heterogeneous Socialist Party (1936-37) was a howling caricature; more properly, an abortion. The only thing those people needed centralization and discipline for was to suppress the rights of the left wing and then to expel it."
—Letter to Duncan Conway (3 April 1953), in Speeches to the Party (1973)

Following the definitive split with the Mensheviks and the creation of the Bolshevik Party in 1912, Lenin abandoned his 1906 position on "freedom of criticism." In July 1914, the International Socialist Bureau arranged a conference to reunite the Russian social democrats. Among Lenin's numerous conditions for unity is a clear rejection of "freedom of criticism":

"The existence of two rival newspapers in the same town or locality shall be absolutely forbidden. The minority shall have the right to discuss before the whole Party, disagreements on program, tactics and organization in a discussion journal specially published for the purpose, but shall not have the right to publish in a rival newspaper, pronouncements disruptive of the actions and decisions of the majority." [our emphasis]
—"Report to the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. to the Brussels Conference" (June 1914)

Lenin further stipulated that public agitation against the underground party or for "cultural-national autonomy" was absolutely forbidden.
Barbara G., in her paper on "Democratic Centralism," recognizes that by 1914 Lenin had changed his position:

"By 1914, then, Lenin had definitely changed his thinking on the following question: Where he used to think it permissible to have faction newspapers within the RSDLP, he now thought it impermissible because it confused and divided the working class."

Barbara G. minimizes Lenin's rejection of "freedom of criticism." He not only rejected rival public factional organs, but the right of minorities to publicly criticize the majority position in any form. He further specified that on two key differences—the underground and "cultural-national autonomy"— the minority position could not be advocated publicly at all. It is characteristic of centrists, like Barbara G., to prefer the Lenin of 1906, who accepted unity with the Mensheviks and still adhered to classic social-democratic concepts of the party, to the Lenin of 1914, who had definitively broken with the Mensheviks and thereby challenged the Kautskyan doctrine that revolutionaries and labor reformists should coexist in a unitary party.

The membership and particularly the leading cadre of a revolutionary vanguard have a qualitatively higher level of political class consciousness than all non-party elements. A revolutionary leadership can make errors, even serious ones, on issues where the masses of workers are correct. Such occurrences will be very rare. If they are not rare, then it is the revolutionary character of the organization which is called into question, not the norms of democratic centralism.

A minority within a revolutionary organization seeks to win over its leading cadre, not to appeal to more backward elements against that cadre. The resolution of differences within the vanguard should be as free as possible from the intervention of backward elements, a prime source of bourgeois ideological pressure. "Freedom of criticism" maximizes the influence of backward workers, not to speak of conscious political enemies, on the revolutionary vanguard. Thus "freedom of criticism" does grave damage to the internal cohesion and external authority of the proletarian vanguard.

Part Five of this series will be dated April 5, 2011

The Death Of A Super-Hero-Ben Affleck’s Batman vs. Superman (2016)- A Film Review

The Death Of A Super-Hero-Ben Affleck’s Batman vs. Superman (2016)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Associate Film Editor Alden Riley

Batman vs. Superman, starring Ben Affleck, based on the DC comic series character, 2016 

There were no tears shed in these quarters when I heard that so-called super-hero Superman cashed his check, parted this life. My feeling is that the times, these times, require plenty of heroes, of that there can be no doubt, but that super-heroes are a drug on the market, a dime a dozen, maybe less. So I could to use an expression that the former film editor in this space was fond of using going back to his ancient corner boy, his expression, youth give a rat’s ass about the demise of a guy who wasn’t even from earth, was an alien, and not even an alien from another country but from a woe begotten planet, Krypton, I never heard of, don’t remember reading about in high school when we studied astronomy. We will never know, and maybe it is better that way, of the how and why of his going off the track, of his nefarious activities at the end against the interests of dear Metropolis/ Gotham, an American city (which we all know is New York City where else could it be). The powers that be covered up, covered up big time after Superman bought it, after he allegedly fell on his own sword, so that “the people” could have something to believe in during these trying times. Yeah, that was the “alternate facts” story from the bowels of Washington. Figures, right.          

Let me explain how I drew this assignment, the assignment to review Batman vs. Superman in this space. I have to admit that the few months I have been doing the associate editor’s job here that the film editor, my boss, Sandy Salmon has except on rare occasions given me films to review that are of interest to me. This though is one of the times I have drawn an assignment that Sandy has “ordered” me to do but for an unusual reason so I am placating him on this one. Sandy freely admits that in his youth, afterwards too, he was addicted to DC and Marvel comics, super-hero comics mostly. He felt that he could not emotionally handle the idea that one of the key guys who brightened up his benighted youth had passed on, would be no more. He told me that he had tried to write the thing but just couldn’t finish it.

I know that Sandy had grown up in tough circumstances so maybe he needed some super heroes to get through the tough times. My own youthful times were not nearly as traumatic. In fact we used to beat up on kids who wore Superman costumes for Halloween or some occasion like that. Used to call such kids the “f” word or as my gentile father used to say they were “light on their feet” and you know what I mean. Well I know better now about such stuff but the super-hero business still leaves me cold.

Let me get to the story line as Sandy likes for all of us to summarize so the readers get an idea of what the film is about. As with most comic-based films it is kind of simplicity itself-good vs. evil and little middle ground. This is where homegrown boy, Batman, played by Ben Affleck, gets his dander up about this in the end alien Superman. It seems that through several misunderstanding and some sleight of hand by log time nemesis Lex Luthor who is never up to any good Batman thinks Superman has gone over the edge. From one stand-point that looks to be the case, especially when a guy like Superman who has a long track record of saving humanity from rescuing little girls in distress to fending off monsters and other bad guys is the last guy standing when a bomb exploded in a Senate committee hearing on how to safeguard the world against those like Lex who want to use a recent find of kryptonite as a “safeguard,” a deterrent against any Krypton-initiated attacks.

Admittedly Batman fell into a lot of traps which were made to look like old pal Superman was in on the “fix.” It was not until too late that Batman found out that Superman alter ego love interest Lois Lane and his adopted earth mother were being held ransom to get Superman to do some nefarious bidding. Superman in the end though has to fall on his metaphysical sword attempting to fight off a mega-monster to save the world. Tough break though he is mortally wounded and in the cover-up he is once again an international hero and given an appropriate send-off. (Alter Ego Clark Kent, Lois’ honey gets a quiet hometown Kansas send-off.) Yeah, no tears shed in this corner for the guy since he knew he was in way over his head but maybe one should shed a tear for Batman because who knows what he will get embroiled in next. There Sandy I did your freaking review for you. You owe me, owe me big.                 

In Cambridge-Background to Korean Crisis: Memory of Forgotten War

Background to Korean Crisis: Memory of Forgotten War

Thursday, October 5 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm 

Cambridge Friends Meeting, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle St)

“…if forced to defend itself or it’s allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”

      — President Trump address to the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 19

The deepening confrontation over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is made even more dangerous because the media provides a false narrative about the crisis which supports the policies of our unhinged president. If we want to turn this tense standoff away from an avoidable war and toward peace we have to learn the real story. Come learn.

Film Screening and Discussion with Ramsay Liem and Jill Stein

MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR (2013, 38 min.) conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of the Korean War (1950-1953) by four Korean-American survivors. Their stories take audiences through the trajectory of the war, from extensive bombing campaigns, to day-to-day struggle for survival, and separation from family members across the DMZ. Decades later, each person reunites with relatives in North Korea, conveying beyond words the meaning of family loss. These stories belie the notion that war ends when the guns are silenced and foreshadow the future of countless others displaced by ongoing military conflict today.

The film’s personal accounts are interwoven with thoughtful analysis and interpretation of events by historians Bruce Cumings and Ji-Yeon Yuh who situate these stories in a broader historical context. Additional visual materials, including newsreels, U.S. military footage, and archival photographs bring to life the political, social and historical forces that set in motion the tumultuous events of the War and its aftermath.

Ramsay Liem, director, producer, and executive producer of the film, is professor emeritus of psychology and visiting scholar at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College.  His interests include the intergenerational transmission of historical trauma and the social and historical contexts of Asian American identity formation.  He is responsible for the oral history project Korean American Memories of the Korean War and served as project director for the multi-media exhibit “Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the Forgotten War”. The documentary Memory of Forgotten War is the most recent product of his work on Korean American legacies of the Korean War.

Jill Stein, physician, activist, and politician, was the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections. She also ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010.  She participated in the U.S. Solidarity Peace Delegation to South Korea in July 2017 and will report on her experiences.

Sponsors: Massachusetts Peace Action and American Friends Service Committee / Peace and Economic Security Program, Veterans for Peace / Smedley Butler Brigade (list in formation).   Contact: 617-354-2169 • info@masspeaceation.org

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Details

Date:

October 5

Time:

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Event Tags:

Featured Post, Film, Korean War, North Korea

Organizer

Massachusetts Peace Action

Venue

Cambridge Friends Meeting

5 Longfellow Park
Cambridge, + Google Map

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"Not one step back"

Cole Harrison

Executive Director

Massachusetts Peace Action - the Commonwealth's largest grassroots peace organization

11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138

617-354-2169 w

617-466-9274 m

www.masspeaceaction.org

Facebook: facebook.com/masspeaceaction

Twitter: masspeaceaction

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The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- From "The Rag Blog" -Carl Davidson : Mondragon Diaries III: Visions of the Future

Click on the headline to link to a The Rag Blog entry for political writer Carl Davidson.

Markin comment:

The last  time that Carl Davidson's name was mentioned in this space was when I was looking for an example of a anti-Trotskyist, pro-Stalinist (Maoist variant) Guardian article in doing a political obituary of the late hard Stalinist, Irwin Silber. Apparently Brother Davidson has moved on from hack Stalinist journalist to radical travelogue enthusiast.  Good move.