On The 80th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International (1938)- “Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International -Daniel Logan-The Italian Revolution-and the Slogan “For a Republic”:The Strategy of Lenin vs. Ultra-Leftism(March 1945)

Markin comment:

Below this general introduction is another addition to the work of creating a new international working class organization-a revolutionary one fit of the slogan in the headline.

Markin comment (repost from September 2010):

Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers' international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor ordered, by all means, be my guest, BUT only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Daniel Logan-The Italian Revolution-and the Slogan “For a Republic”:
The Strategy of Lenin vs. Ultra-Leftism(March 1945)

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From New International, Vol.XI No.7, October 1945, pp.212-23.
Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
Marked up by
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

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The following article first appeared in the Internal Bulletin of the Socialist Workers Party under the title, The Slogan of the Republic in Italy and Its Discussion in the SWP. Space limitations have necessitated the omission of the first part of the article, giving the author’s account of the background of the question in the SWP discussion and his own difficulty in securing timely publication of his articles in the party’s Internal Bulletin. Comrade Logan has long been a leading member of the international Trotskyist movement. – EDITORS



“We are for Socialism!”

This is the common denominator of a great variety of arguments against the slogan of the republic in Italy: “We want socialism, not the republic!”, “We are for a workers’ republic, not a bourgeois republic!”, etc.

These arguments are not new. They are classical expressions of ultra-leftism. Arguments built on the same pattern have often been examined and refuted in our movement, and in the Bolshevik party and the Third International. In my article On the Situation in Europe and Our Tasks, I tried to show how alien that kind of argument was to our methods. Comrade Goldman dealt with them again in his article On the Question of the Slogan “For A Democratic Republic” (Internal Bulletin, Vol.VII, No.1, March 1945). I simply summarize again our conclusions.

The method of ultra-left arguments consists in opposing our goal to anything else. The method of those who want to follow Lenin is the direct opposite: it is to find a path of action from the present situation to socialism. The problem cannot be solved by simply stating whether or not we are “for socialism” (a strange thing in our movement!), but by analyzing how to get onto the road to socialism. And here the whole question of democratic demands is involved.

The fundamental defect of such arguments, when used in our ranks against the slogan of the republic, is the following: these arguments about “being for socialism” are so general that hey can equally be used against any democratic demand. That is why we have the right to say that the acceptance of a program of democratic demands by those who use such arguments against the republic is merely ritualistic. The struggle for democratic demands is so unquestionably a tradition of our movement that they cannot oppose it openly. But the kind of arguments they used against one specific slogan, being equally applicable to all, shows that they pay only lip-service to our traditions.

Of course, one can sincerely be for democratic slogans and at the same time be against the slogan of the republic in Italy now. But, in such a case, the reasons against the slogan of the republic must be specific, related to that one particular slogan, and not apply as well to all democratic slogans.


The Monarchy in Italy

The inability of some members of the majority to grasp the handling of democratic demands at all is at times suddenly revealed by the surprising arguments they use. Thus a minor spokesman of the majority declared: “If you are for the republic in Italy, why not in England?” And a burst of laughter completes his argument.

This objection is remarkable for its method: if the slogan of the republic is correct in Italy, it should also be in England. Since nobody puts it forward for England, then it is clearly incorrect for Italy. Admirable logic!

However, more than the method is deficient here; the political acumen is not especially sharp either. Today, the existence of the monarchy is in England a tenth-rank question (which, however, should not be completely forgotten in our agitation.) But, when England enters a revolutionary crisis, the Court may become a focus of counter-revolutionary Bonapartist intrigues. Its existence may become a burning political issue. In that case the slogan of the republic will become for a time an important political demand of the revolutionary party. Our critic does not seem to suspect that, and thus reveals how much his thoughts are imbedded in the frame of present reality, how little he sees a political situation in its revolutionary dynamism.

Sometimes spokesmen for the majority tell us, not without a malicious tone: “But calling for a republic means your acceptance of the bourgeois republic!” Such an argument could be directed against any partial demand. Does it mean that we stop there? We support the struggle of a union for a ten-cent increase per hour. Does that mean we are against a twenty-five cent raise? More generally, does our support of a fight for a wage increase mean our acceptance of the capitalist wage system? Etc., etc. But enough about all these ultra-left ratiocinations. Here a clear answer must be demanded about our past.


The Example of Spain

Our movement had the slogan of the republic in Spain in 1930-31. In the pre-revolutionary period of 1934-36 Trotsky suggested its inclusion in the program of action of the Belgian section of the Fourth International, where it had incomparably less importance than now in Italy. That does not imply that the slogan is necessarily correct now in Italy. But it does imply that the slogan cannot be opposed for general reasons such as: “We are for socialism, not for the bourgeois republic,” etc. It also implies that the first task of the majority of the leadership should have been to explain what concrete, specific and new conditions, not existing in the past, prevented the use of the slogan in Italy now. As it did not fulfill this elementary duty, as it left the traditions of our movement in the dark, and instead of precise clarification, threw all kinds of general accusations at the opposition, it thus opened the door to the strangest misconceptions in the minds of its own followers. The result of such a policy did not take long to appear. A minor spokesman for the majority declared: “Yes, Trotsky was for the republic in 1931, but because Spain was a feudal country.” Not a voice from the ranks of the majority came to correct such political illiteracy.

It must be repeated once more: As long as the majority does not settle its political accounts with our past, as long as it does not clearly state what specific reasons prevent us today from using a slogan we used in the past, but simply opposes us with general arguments and accusations, the majority must be considered to be in a state of political insolvency.


“The masses want Soviets!”

The argument about our being “for socialism” was so shaky, so alien to our methods for solving such a question, that most of the spokesmen of the majority felt obliged to present something a bit more concrete. They discovered, although “more than three thousand miles away,” that the Italian masses “want Soviets,” and therefore ... we cannot call for the immediate proclamation of the republic.

Does that mean we are on the eve of the passing of state power into the hands of the Italian Soviets? In such a situation, of course, the problem of the monarchy would have been solved long ago, or would have been by-passed and would have lost any significance. Unfortunately, we are not yet at such a stage.

There are no Soviets in Italy now. The Italian masses still have very little practical experience about the functioning and the potentialities of such bodies. The present problem is, then, to get Soviets. How can we get them? By the revolutionary action of the masses. How can we help the masses to unleash their revolutionary energy and enter the road of action? On that point the majority keeps silence.


How Soviets Are Formed

Soviets are not formed because the masses are intellectually convinced beforehand of their advantages, because the masses set the goal of forming them. Soviets appear at a certain state as a necessary instrument of the struggle. The objective aim of the struggle is, of course, to establish a duality of power and, later on, the power of the Soviets. Subjectively, however, in the consciousness of the masses, Soviets appear rather as a means than as an end. This is especially true at the beginning of the struggle. And we are still at the beginning in Italy.

What are the subjective aims or aims of the struggle at the starting point? There is a great variety of them. Experience in many countries, as far back as 1848, shows that many diverse issues may be incentives to action for the masses in the first stages of a revolutionary crisis. The touchstone of a revolutionary party is precisely its ability to seize upon such questions and use them as a lever to push the masses onto the road of action.

This does not at all mean that the immediate proclamation of the republic is the only or even the main slogan in Italy now. But even if the problem of the monarchy were secondary, that would be no argument for condemning the slogan of the republic. As a matter of fact, the problem of the monarchy, in my opinion, has been for the past nine months and is now one of the four or five major political questions in Italy. But, whatever may be the exact rank of the slogan of the republic in our program, it does belong to it. It is true that the problem may be solved very rapidly, in a few days of revolutionary struggle of the masses, especially if a military front ceases to separate the North from the South. However, the problem of the monarchy still exists today; it has existed since June, it existed at the time of the convention, and only those who voluntarily and obstinately closed their eyes could not see it.

If Soviets appear tomorrow in Italy with the monarchy still in power, will the fight against it lose all significance for revolutionary action? It depends on the tempo of events. If the tempo is not too quick, the duality of power will manifest itself as the opposition of the central authority of the Soviets to the monarchy. The court will become the center of reaction, the focus of Kornilovist intrigues. The question of its existence will be a burning issue, even with Soviets existing. There is the possibility, of course, if the tempo is very quick, that the Soviets will be confronted with the problem of power so rapidly that the issue of monarchy may be by-passed and as good as forgotten before being solved. This, however, seems to me the most unlikely perspective.


The Present Reality

But, whatever the future variants may be, the present reality is still the absence of Soviets. The present problem is to enter the path of action, in order to form Soviets. There is not the slightest contradiction between the orientation toward Soviets and the demand of the republic. Quite the contrary, in fighting for that demand, along with many others, the masses will build Soviets.

I have heard the following argument repeated here and there in the party: “Did not Zinoviev, in October, 1917, threaten to lead the Bolshevik Party astray, with his orientation toward the constituent assembly?” The implication is that the use of democratic demands in general and of the slogan of the republic in particular may trammel the party in its offensive for power. Surprising as such an argument may be, its examination helps us to get at the heart of the question, which is: at what stage of the Italian Revolution are we now? Answering this question is an important part of the problem of determining whether the slogan of the republic is correct or not. The majority did not give any clear answer to the question, it did not even notice the existence of a question; but, by circulating or letting circulate such arguments as the one reported above, it confused the present situation in Italy with the eve of October.

I tried to answer that question about the present stage in my article On the European Situation and Our Tasks. Using the Spanish revolutionary calendar, I made a comparison with the Berenguer interlude, trying to show the similarities as well as the differences. If we want to use the Russian calendar, the question which arises is not “Are we on the eve of October in Italy?” but “Are we before or after February?” My answer to this question is as follows: Certain factors of the Italian situation put us after February. The most important of these factors has been the participation of the Stalinists and the Socialists in the government. But other factors place us before February: the Italian masses still have less experience of a generalized political struggle in the streets than the Russian masses had after February, the monarchy is still in existence and, because of that, the Italian ruling classes still have more centralization and cohesion than the Russian ruling classes had after February. The result of the analysis tends to prove the correctness of a vigorous offensive by the revolutionary party on the question of the monarchy.


Stages in the Struggle

Certain comrades have objected to this method of establishing points of comparison between Italy now and past revolutionary periods. This method, they say, may lead to the conception of necessary stages: Italy will ascend, one by one, the successive steps of the revolutionary ladder. The objection does not seem to me to be correct. In the period we have now entered, the masses will make, from time to time, tremendous leaps. Problems which have been stagnating for months, for years, will be solved in a few weeks, a few days, even a few hours of tremendous revolutionary passion. This is precisely the true character of every revolutionary period. Moreover, the tempo will not be the same everywhere and will not be the same as in past revolutions. Here slowly, there quickly, it will bear the mark of specific circumstances.

When all this is said, however, it does not mean that anything can happen at any time. Revolutions have their natural history. If not, what is the use of studying the past? We try to establish a correspondence between the different stages in Russia, in Spain, in Italy, never forgetting, of course, that the tempo may be slower or quicker, that whole stages can be skipped over, etc. Analyzing the May days in Barcelona in 1937, Leon Trotsky tried to determine whether they were the Spanish counterpart of the Russian July days or October days. We cannot dispense with such a method. It entails a certain relativity, for events are never exactly repeated, and we must always be on the lookout for possible differences; but to abandon the method of comparison altogether means to abandon all method in political thinking.

To the question: “At what stage are we in Italy now?,” I have given my answer, using either the Spanish or the Russian calendar. I only wish that arguments be presented against me, permitting me to change, to correct or to maintain my analysis, but, anyway, helping clarify the problem. The majority has not made the slightest effort in that direction, has not even considered the problem – which has not prevented it from throwing out the most brazen accusations at its opponents and from letting some of its members here and there argue about and the eve of October.


Positive and Negative Slogans

Certain comrades put the problem this way: We can very well propagate the negative slogan: “Down with the King!,” but to call: “For the republic!,” that is impossible! And they think they have thus avoided the sin of opportunism and saved their souls.

The main argument for the substitution is that on the morning after the proclamation of the republic the masses will be disappointed with the bourgeois republic; therefore we cannot call for anything positive. Unfortunately for the proponents of the negative slogan, exactly the same arguments can be directed against it: You called to fight against the King, the King is overthrown, and things are not much better! The solution is, of course, not in the petty trick of substituting a negative slogan for a positive one, but in a proper understanding and use of the slogan.

We call for the republic, but we never take the slightest responsibility for the republic arising out of the dirty compromises between the reactionaries, the liberals and the collaborationists. On the morning after the proclamation of the republic we tell the workers: “Is that the republic we fought for? Is it for this that we have fought in1- the streets and forced the King to flee? No!” And we will develop the next stage of our problem. The masses will lend an ear to us, because we have been with them in their first fight. Bolshevism, real Bolshevism, is precisely that way of going with the masses through all their struggles, and not the lifeless manikin which is presently being built in the central offices of the SWP.


Italians’ Point of View

I must say that, if the same place and weight are accorded to them in the agitation and action of the party, the difference between the two slogans – the positive one “For the republic” and the negative one “Against the King” – is very small. If the Italian comrades would for some practical considerations prefer the negative one, I would not spend a minute discussing the change and would accept it readily. However, the Italian comrades did adopt the positive slogan of the republic and put it as the first point of their program. And when some American comrades, on this continent, prefer the negative slogan, it is not for practical considerations on the Italian scene, but the distinction is for them a kind of shelter where they expect to be protected from the scarecrows of opportunism erected by the leadership of the majority. This is why we must discuss with them and force them to bring their reasons into the open.

Since last June, newspapers have reported dozens of incidents which indicate, even more than “three thousand miles” away, that the problem of the monarchy is a burning political question in Italy. These incidents show the wrath of the masses against the accomplices of Mussolini, the King and the Crown Prince. They show also the servility of the official parties, Stalinist and Socialist, on that question.

Here we may stop an instant to answer an argument of a minor spokesman for the majority. According to him, we cannot use the slogan of the republic because the Socialists and Communists are also calling for a republic and we must “differentiate ourselves.”

First, a question of fact. It is not true that the Stalinist party is now calling for the republic or even saying anything against the monarchy. For many months the Socialist Party kept silent on the issue. Last November, Nenni, a bit less cynical than Togliatti, felt obliged to utter a few phrases against the monarchy.


What Events Proved

But even if the collaborationists were using the slogan of the republic, that would not in itself prevent us from using it. Very often we do not “differentiate ourselves” by the slogans, but we “differentiate ourselves” by the methods we advocate for their realization. We say clearly that, unlike the collaborationists, we prepare to solve the monarchic problem, as any other problem, by our own methods, through the revolutionary action of the masses. When in 1940 the Stalinists were denouncing the imperialist war, did we feel the necessity of “differentiating ourselves” by ceasing to oppose the war? But enough of that.

A great light has been thrown on the question by the November 12 meeting in Rome. It has, until now, been the greatest political demonstration in Italy since the fall of Mussolini. Let us reread a few sentences of the account in the New York Times:

The meeting was clearly anti-monarchy, as far as the sentiment of the public was concerned, although Signor Togliatti was again careful to avoid compromising himself on what has become Italy’s most delicate problem. Every possible reference to the monarchy, however indirect, was greeted with tremendous hoots, whistles and boos.

What a vivid picture of the situation!

The November meeting was such a blow at the shaky political structure of the majority that its spokesmen had to find some kind of explanation. Until now they have found nothing better than this: “The meeting was for the celebration of the anniversary of the Russian Revolution; the masses showed they were for socialism.” How revealing of their mentality is that explanation! Instead of trying to discover in the shouts, in the interruptions, in what the speakers said and in what they did not say, what questions preoccupy the masses, the spokesmen for the majority simply accepted the official Stalinist version of the meeting.

According to the New York Times’ account of the meeting,

“Signor Togliatti’s address was restrained. It was full of praise for the Russian Revolution ... Whenever possible the crowd shouted: ‘Down with the monarchy!’ But the Communist leader was careful never to mention the subject.”

The Militant was also careful not to mention the subject of the monarchy. Its account of the meeting, in the November 25 issue, simply repeated the official interpretation that “Italian Masses Celebrate 1917 Russian Revolution.” Not a word about the anti-monarchical character of the meeting! Can you imagine? The Italian masses confirming just in time by their action the prognosis of the opposition. What impudence! A letter from Comrade Abe Stein, reminding the editors of The Militant of the obvious anti-monarchical character of the meeting, was buried.


The First Step

Yes the Italian masses want socialism. But how to get socialism? How to make the first step? On that, of course, the majority is as dumb as a fish. The whole problem is erroneously transferred from the plane of action to the plane of conviction. The question is not simply to convince the masses that socialism is very beautiful, but to help them to take the first step of political struggle, to find the issues on which they are ready to fight. I have said since last July that an important one of these issues was the monarchy. The November meeting confirmed my prognosis as completely as a political prognosis can ever be confirmed. The answer of the majority is: “The masses want socialism, and you are a literary man.” Everybody can appreciate the pertinence of the answer.

Since the November meeting, new incidents have further confirmed the importance of the problem. After the escape of the Fascist hangman Roatta, a big political demonstration took place in Rome on March 6. Where did the crowd go to express its wrath? To the Quirinal Palace, that is, to the residence of the royal family. The revolutionary instinct of the Roman masses was more correct than all the ultra-left ratiocinations. The whole demonstration clearly had an anti-monarchic character. [1]

The problem of the monarchy has taken on even more political weight than one could suspect last July, when I wrote my first article on the problem. Very likely, when the military front which separates the North from the South disappears, evens will take a quicker tempo. The fate of the Italian monarchy may be sealed in a few days and the Italian revolution will tackle new and higher tasks. But, until then, the question is on the order of the day.

It is not for us, of course, to decide here, in New York, all the details of the use of the slogan of the republic. We can leave that to the Italian comrades. But have not events thrown enough light upon that question in the last nine months to permit us to adopt the slogan in itself?

The majority of the leadership of the SWP has been prevented from accepting the slogan not by lack of information, but by political prejudices. Nothing reveals that more clearly than the fact that they have concealed information about Italy. The press of the SWP has kept silence on the anti-monarchic character of the November 12th meeting and other political demonstrations. The press of the SWP took four months – and then only after a minority motion for it – to publish the program of action of our Italian comrades, which was received in the latter part of November. The delay was for no other reason, as far as we can understand, than that the first point of that program is the demand for the republic.

When political misconceptions come into such conflict with reality, it is high time to abandon them. It is high time to reject all ultra-left ratiocinations. It is high time to come back to the traditions of our movement. It is high time to enter the road outlined by the opposition.





March 14, 1945


DANIEL LOGAN




Footnote

1. Most of the big newspapers were careful not to mention this aspect of the demonstrations. But a UP dispatch, reproduced for instance in Il Progresso Italo-Americano of New York, states:

“The demonstrators shouted ‘Death to the King!,’ ‘Death to Umberto!,’ ‘Down with the House of Savoy!’”

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On The 80th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International (1938)- In Honor Of The “Old Man”- On The 71st Anniversary Of The Death Of Leon Trotsky- A Reaffirmation By Victor Serge

Click on the headline to link to a review of the early life of Leon Trotsky in his political memoir, My Life.

Markin comment:

Every year at this time we honor the memory of the great Russian revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky, a man who not only was able theoretically to articulate the arc of the Russian Revolution of 1917 (the theory of permanent revolution) but personally led the defend of that revolution against world imperialism and its internal Russian White Guard agents. Oh yes, and also wrote a million pro-communist articles, did a little turn at literary criticism, acted in various Soviet official capacities, led the Communist International, led the opposition first in Russia and then internationally to the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution, and created a new revolutionary international (the Fourth International) to rally the demoralized international working class movement in the face of Hitlerite reaction. To speak nothing of hunting, fishing, raising rabbits, collecting cactii and chasing Frida Kahlo around Mexico (oops, on that last one). In short, as I have characterized him before, the closest that this sorry old world has come to producing a complete communist man within the borders of bourgeois society (except that last thing, that skirt-chasing thing, although maybe not). All honor to his memory. Forward to new Octobers!

Usually on this anniversary I place a selection of Trotsky’s writings on various subjects in this space. This year, having found a site that has material related to his family life, the effect of his murder on that family, and other more personal details of his life I am placing that material here in his honor. The forward to new Octobers still goes, though.
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Markin comment on this article:

Whatever political differences developed between Serge and Trotsky in the late 1930s, and they were considerable and real (the meaning of Kronstadt being the most notable for those who wanted to bail out in their defense of the Soviet Union being the most publicly argued), Victor Serge knew the measure of Trotsky, what he meant to the revolutionary process, and where he stood in the pantheon of revolutionary working-class heroes.
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Victor Serge
A Reaffirmation

Source: Excerpt from Vie et Mort de Trotsky, 1947, published in Fourth International, Autumn 1959


It was to the cause of the workers that Leon Davidovitch devoted his long life of toil, combat, thought, and inflexible resistance to inhumanity. All those who approached him know that he was disinterested and conceived of his whole existence only as part of a great historic task, which was not his alone, but that of the movement of the socialist masses conscious of the perils and possibilities of our period. “These are bitter times,” he wrote, “but we have no other country.” His character was integral in the full sense of the word: seeing no gap between behavior and conviction, idea and action; not admitting that higher interests, which give meaning to life, can be sacrificed to what is passing and personal, to banal petty egotism. His moral uprightness was allied to an intelligence that was simultaneously objective and passionate, and always tended toward depth, breadth, creative effort, the fight for the right ... And he was a simple man. He happened to note in the margin of a book whose author alluded to his “will to power”: “[It was another man who] wanted power for power’s sake. I have never felt this sentiment ... I sought power over intelligences and wills ...” He felt himself to be not so much an authoritarian – though without failing to recognize the practical utility of authority – as one who spurred men on, drew them after him, not by flattering their base instincts but by summoning them to idealism, to clear reason, to the greatness of being fully men of a new type called on to transform society.

Those who hunted him down and killed him, as they killed the Russian Revolution and martyrized the peoples of the USSR, will meet their punishment. Already they have called down on a Soviet Union weakened by the massacres called the “Stalinist purges” the most disastrous invasion. They continue on their road to the abyss ... A few days after his death, I wrote – and I wish to change nothing in these lines: “Throughout his whole heroic life, Leon Davidovitch believed in the future, in the liberation of men. Far from weakening during the last sombre years, his faith matured still further and was rendered firmer by ordeal. Humanity of the future, freed from all oppression, will eliminate from its life all violence. As he did to many others, he taught me this faith.”

Veterans for Peace: Ring Church Bells on Armistice Day

Veterans for Peace: Ring Church Bells on Armistice Day

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8/9/2018

Veterans for Peace is calling on churches to ring their bells at 11 AM on Sunday, November 11 - Armistice Day - in recognition of the futility of war and to show our commitment to world peace.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the original Armistice Day, a day of celebration marking the end of fighting during World War I (the Great War). Today, Armistice Day is a call to Americans, in recognition of the horrors and futility of that war, to rededicate themselves to world peace.

While November 11 was declared Veteran's Day in 1954, Armistice Day legislation (1919; 1926 and 1938) remains in place to this day. Read excerpts from that legislation here.
                     
Veterans For Peace (VFP)  is an international organization made up of military veterans, military family members, and allies dedicated to building a culture of peace, exposing the true costs of war, and healing the wounds of war. Their goal is to change public opinion in the U.S. from an unsustainable culture of militarism and commercialism to one of peace, democracy, and sustainability. They do this primarily, although not exclusively, through grassroots organizing and education at the local level.  

Learn more about the organization  Veterans for Peace, or the local chapter, Smedley Butler Brigade. Contact Doug Stewart, VFP Chapter Leader in Boston and member of the Eliot Church of Newton, a Mass. Conference church,  here.

Ring your Bells on November 11!

As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Horace Pippin

As The 100^th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Horace Pippin  

By Seth Garth

A few years ago, starting in August 2104 the 100^th anniversary of what would become World War I, I started a series about the cultural effects of the slaughter which mowed down the flower of the European youth including an amazing number of artists, poets and other cultural figures. I had my say there in a general sense but now as we are only a few months away from the 100^th anniversary of, mercifully, the armistice which effectively ended that bloodbath I want to do a retrospective of artistic works by those who survived the war and how those war visions got translated into their works with some commentary if the spirit moves me but this is their show-no question they earned a retrospective.

As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European Youth -Otto Dix

As The 100^th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European Youth -Otto Dix  

By Seth Garth

A few years ago, starting in August 2104 the 100^th anniversary of what would become World War I, I started a series about the cultural effects of the slaughter which mowed down the flower of the European youth including an amazing number of artists, poets and other cultural figures. I had my say there in a general sense but now as we are only a few months away from the 100^th anniversary of, mercifully, the armistice which effectively ended that bloodbath I want to do a retrospective of artistic works by those who survived the war and how those war visions got translated into their works with some commentary if the spirit moves me but this is their show-no question they earned a retrospective

The Night Captain Crunch Cashed His Check-With Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind

The Night Captain Crunch Cashed His Check-With Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind 

By Bradley Fox

It was a dark, drizzly night the night in October, 2015 when Bart Webber and Sam Lowell heard from their old on the road friend from up in Maine Josh Breslin that Captain Crunch had cashed his check (for those not in the know that was an old-time 1950s and 1960s expression among hipsters, be-boppers, beats and along the edges of hippie-dom to say that somebody had passed on to the great beyond just like among the hobos, tramps and bums out in the great railroad “jungles” of the West the expression that some compadre had “caught the freight train West” meant the same thing). That night, or whenever the old gang still left heard about his demise, there must have been consideration gnashing of teeth among guys, gals too, in places like Sam and Bart’s Carver, Josh’s Olde Saco, North Adamsville, Riverdale, Steubenville, Ohio, Omaha, Saint Louie, and a thousand other places where those who knew the Captain in his prime and their primes wound up. Maybe wept a tear for their lost youth when everything was possible and knowing the Captain made you believe that hard fact even in the face of contrary evidence as the decade of the 1960s moved along. Yeah, that’s it, maybe wept a tear for their lost youth.   

See Captain Crunch, real name Jonathan Fuller, Yale Class of 1957, but always Captain Crunch to all who knew him in that time when everybody and the uncles and aunts were shedding their real names and reinventing, or trying to reinvent themselves, in many cases that was a close thing, had caught the fever caused by the stir of Jeanbon Kerouac’s classic 1950s road novel On The Road (although the events in that book had actually occurred in the late 1940s the vagaries of the publishing industry and Jack’s hubris combined to delay the news of the new dispensation much to his chagrin). That novel had come out the year the Captain had graduated from Yale and having been foot loose and fancy free coming from an old moneyed family and thus unlike many others who graduated that year not in need of a job to set himself up the world headed out to San Francisco to check out the scene there. Took the train out if anybody was wondering if he followed Jack’s hitchhike trail to breathe deeply of the American night.

The scene that was happening in that town, its doings, and its characters would eventually be widely called the “beat generation.” (The genesis of that term “beat” has a checkered history since both John Holmes who used it in an article in the later 1940s and Jack who personified “beat” claimed fatherhood to the idea but in any case Jack made the term more widely known and more interesting.) The Captain had landed in Frisco in late 1957 and headed straight to the City Lights bookstore over on Columbus run by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and a couple of other associates to see what was what. One day a few months thereafter he had met Kerouac who had just come off one of his famous, or infamous, three day drunk-doped up-sexed up binges and looked like hell but who answered his questions about his take on the scene. Jack had told him all the media stuff was all bullshit, all bullshit now not when the events depicted in the novel occurred and that the so-called hipster beatnik clowns (his term according to the Captain) running around with beards, berets, and bennies were all fakers and punks although the girls, especially those all dressed in black including their lingerie and wearing black eyeliner, who were willing to go down for him, or on him, just because he was famous now was okay as long as they didn’t expect anything of him except to get laid. The Captain (who had not taken on that persona then that would come later when he drew his own acolytes around him like Bart and Sam) hung around that scene, the edges of that Frisco beat scene for a few years until it kind of petered out of its own inertia.             

The Captain had said later when a new generation familiar with On The Road and not much else began to ask questions about what happened then that he had learned a lot from the beat poets, artists and performers no question. Knew many of them who were already famous or who would become famous in the folklore of the town Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Snyder, and Cassady or have a local fame like Jake Arbus, Dixie Davis, and Guy Daniels. But as that that movement drifted into dust he had become more interested in expanding his self-consciousness, his karmic being, when he fit in the universe and so he slowly drifted south to La Honda where Ken Kesey was putting together a new dispensation around Jack’s on the road idea and the serious use of drugs to create a new consciousness (or as Kesey would say with some candor before he himself got famous just to get through the fucking horrible day).

The biggest thing that the Captain picked up though as the 1950s drifted forlornly into the 1960s since the drugs could only take him so far was the idea of the road, the road constantly travelled, in the end the idea of being “on the bus” that he grabbed straight off from Kesey and his Merry Pranksters about 1964, 65. Kesey’s bus, a converted real live yellow brick road school bus, the Further On was a combination floating commune for the aimless homeless young who could not deal with the nine to five world, a moving concert hall complete with state of the art sound system that could handle the explosive new music coming out of the Bay area (the uprisings of the Doors, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane and a million other acts which the impresario Bill Graham put on at the Fillmore West and other locales), a dope-infested caravan with every kind of dope from LSD to horse to grass to bennies and back, and a free-lance free sex sex parlor. That idea or series of ideas attracted the Captain and after a short stay on Kesey’s bus he broke out on his own like a lot of people were starting to do and put together his own bus. Whereas say in 1965 Kesey’s bus would have been subject to talk by hipsters and gawks by the tinny tourists by the time the Captain put his bus together named Jade Karma there were many roaming up and down the Coast highway looking, well looking for something. That was the time, after he picked a few acolytes, a few fellow-travelers if you like, grabbed a girlfriend, Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Bryn Mawr Class of 1960, who gave him all the trouble of heart and mind he ever needed since she was truly a free spirit and free with her love, Jonathan Fuller one night, one laced LSD night, transformed himself into Captain Crunch.          

This is where Bart and Sam (and later others from Carver, Josh from Olde Saco, the late Pete Markin from North Adamsville and many others) enter the story. They like half their freaking generation were restless, bored with what was ahead for them in the nine to five world, worried about draft status and the social situation and decided mostly from what they read in Kerouac, mostly On The Road and Big Sur  and what they heard was happening on the West Coast to hitchhike out. Sam and Bart had gone out together after Frankie Riley also from Carver and a friend of theirs had gone out and had met up with the Captain and the bus in Golden Gate Park one summer day in 1967. So they had gone out, hitched themselves to the bandwagon and travelled with the Captain up and down the coast.

During that Frisco time they had met Josh up on Russian Hill when he came by after hitchhiking from Maine and asked for a joint. Somebody gave him one and that was that. Later Pete Markin came and for a while Bart (known as the Lonesome Cowboy), Sam (Mister Moonbeam), Pete (known as the Scribe), and Josh known as the Prince Of Love) showed up and for a while formed a core of guys who kept things somewhat stable as a ton of other people from all over who would get “on or off the bus” at various points. Of course they all imbibed in the “drugs, sex, rock and roll,” consciousness and some the political stuff although that tended to be discouraged on the bus-the idea being that the nine to five world was there and politics should be left at that door and the denizens of the bus were here so they were on two different universes.       

Bart had not stayed on the bus long, just the summer since he realized after few months of travelling and all the other things that went with it was not for him (he had a girl, Betsy Binstock back in Carver who he eventually married), that while he was not a nine to five guy (then) still he was not built for the road. Some others would follow that same path and eventually all but a remnant would be left to carry on as the 1960s drifted into the ebb tide of the 1970sand the road back to “normalcy.” Sam had stayed longer, a couple of years, had a slew of girlfriends, the longest one an ex-surfer girl Butterfly Swirl that every guy took a shot at, and lovers, did his fair share of dope, learned about lots of things, mind things, dug the music but eventually he saw something coming that looked like a drag, looked like the end of the brave new world experiment they were trying to work out. He would go back East, go to law school and prosper. Josh had stayed even longer about four years since along the way he had realized that he had a writing talent that he could exploit while on the road, got several of his pieces published by the explosion of small and alternative presses created out of the need for their “people of the light” to know something other than the mainstream media pabulum put out daily. Eventually he too saw the writing on the wall and that as the 1970s started drying up everything worthwhile from the 1960s the audience he was trying to reach was disappearing, was going back to whatever they had fled. He would continue to write for small journals and other publications and survive pretty well.

In a lot of ways though the case of Pete Markin kind of wrapped up the ebb tide of the 1960s with a big bow, kind of put a bummer edge on everything since he had stayed on the road the longest, had the most invested in seeing the great generational experiment succeed. He had been bitten hard, had had the Captain’s confidence, had stayed with him for lots of reasons some personal some to have a place to stay against the storms of his life but in the end he too got off the bus. Got off the bus but that is where his childhood growing up wanting habits that had been held in check fell apart. He had been writing but the market for his stuff dried up quicker than Josh’s and he had no backup. No back-up except to get involved in the international drug trade, got involved with the evolving cartels raising their ugly heads down south of the border. Had been blown away by some nasty gunman down in Sonora after some misdirected drug deal went awry. Had as far as anybody got the story right tried to rip the cartel off, go independent. Got a couple of slugs and a potter’s grave in Sonora for his efforts. Josh said he did not know about the others stories, about what happened later to many of those on the bus for a longer or shorter periods of time, how they turned out but probably not much different that the stories he knew, the stories of the ups and downs, the promises and failures of his generation.         

As for the Captain, well until the news came that he had cashed his check he had kind of fallen under the radar, had gotten lost in the mist of time for the Sam, Bart, and Josh. When they had a memorial service for the Captain down at Pfeiffer Beach at Big Sur where he had more or less stayed the last several years of his life and later when some whizzbang kid did a documentary about the Captain it turned out that he had stayed on the road the longest, never really got “off the bus.”   Could be seen driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway with his increasingly bizarre-looking and funky bus with a couple of graying acolytes and his old-time girlfriend Mustang Sally periodically looking, looking for something. Some of the young who were clueless about what the bus experience meant would come by when they were parked at some campsite and ask batteries of questions about what had happened and sat in awe as the Captain patiently gave them some answers. Yeah, wasn’t that a time though, wasn’t that a time. Captain Crunch, RIP.       

An Encore- Coming Of Age, Political Age, In The 1960s Night- A Baptism Of Fire-Making War On The War-Makers

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman 



He was scared. All of fourteen year old Peter Paul Markin’s body was scared. Of course he knew, knew just as well as anybody else, if anybody thought to ask, that he was really afraid not scared, but Peter Paul was scared anyway. No, not scared (or afraid for the literary correct types), not Frannie De Angelo demon neighborhood tough boy, schoolboy nemesis scared, scared that he would be kicked in the groin, bent over to the ground in pain for no reason, no reason except Frannie deep psycho hard boy reasons known only to himself. Markin was used to that kind of scared, not liking it, not liking getting used to it but he was not tough, not even close although he was wiry, but not Franny heavyweight tough, but used to it. And this certainly was not his usual girl scared-ness on the off chance that one, one girl that is, might say something to him and he would have no “cool” rejoinder. (Yes, girls scared him, not Franny scared but no social graces scared, except in the comfortable confines of a classroom where he could show off with his knowledge of two thousand arcane facts that he thought would impress them but no avail then, later he would be swarmed, well, maybe not swarmed but he didn’t have to spend many lonely weekend nights studying to get to three thousand arcane facts) This was different. This, and his handkerchief-dabbed wet palms and forehead did not lie, was an unknown scared. 

See, Peter Paul had taken a bet, a “put your money where your mouth is" bet, from best freshman high school friend Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, if you want to know the full name. Now these guys had previously bet on everything under the sun since middle school, practically, from sports game spreads, you know Ohio State by ten over Michigan stuff like that, to how high the master pizza man and owner at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, Tonio, would throw his pizza dough one strange night when Frankie needed dough (money dough that is) for his hot date with girlfriend Joanne. So no bet was too strange for this pair, although this proposition was probably way too solemn to be bet on. 

 

What got it started, the need for a bet started, this time, really had to do with school, or maybe better, the world situation in 1960. Peter Paul, a bundle of two thousand facts that he guarded like a king’s ransom, went off the deep end in 9th grade Civics class when he, during a current events discussion, exploded upon his fellow classmates with the observation that there were too many missiles, too many nuclear bomb-loaded guided missiles, in the world and that both sides in the Cold War (The United States and the Soviet Union and their respective hangers-on) should “ban the bomb.” But you have not heard the most provocative part yet, Peter Paul then argued that, as a good-will gesture and having more of them, the United States should destroy a few of its own. Unilaterally. 

 

Pandemonium ensued as smarts guys and gals, simps and stups also, even those who never uttered a word in class, took aim at Peter Paul’s head. The least of it was that he was called a “commie” and a "dupe" and the discussion degenerated from there. Mr. Merck was barely able to contain the class, and nobody usually stepped out line in his class, or else. Somehow order was restored by the end of class and within a few days the class was back to normal, smart guys and girls chirping away with all kinds of flutter answers and the simps and stups, well the simp and stups did their simp and stup thing, as always. 

 

Frankie always maintained that that particular day was one of the few that he wasn’t, and he really wasn’t, glad that Peter Paul was his friend. And during that class discussion he made a point, a big point, of not entering the fray in defense of his misbegotten friend. He thought Peter Paul was off the wall, way off the wall, on this one and let him know it after class. Of course, Peter Paul could not leave well enough alone and started badgering friend Frankie about it some more. But this was stone wall time because Frankie, irreverent, most of the time irreligious, and usually just happy to be girl-smitten in the world, and doing stuff about that, and not worried about its larger problems really believed, like the hard Roman Catholic-bred boy that he was underneath, that the evil Soviet Union should be nuclear fizzled-that very day. 

 

But Peter Paul kept egging the situation on. And here is the problem with a purist, a fourteen year old purist, a wet behind the ears fourteen year old purist when you think about it. Peter Paul was as Roman Catholic-bred underneath as Frankie but with this not so slight difference. Peter Paul’s grandmother, Anna, was, and everybody who came in contact with her agreed, a saint. A saint in the true-believer catholic social gospel sense and who was a fervent admirer of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker for social justice movement started in the 1930s. So frequently The Catholic Worker, the movement newspaper, would be lying around her house. And just as frequently Peter Paul, taking grandmother refuge from the hell-bend storms at his own house, would read the articles. And in almost every issue there would be an article bemoaning the incredible increase in nuclear weapons by both sides, the cold war freeze-out that escalated that spiral and the hard fact that the tipping point beyond no return was right around the corner. And something had to be done about it, and fast, by rational people who did not want the world blown up by someone’s ill-tempered whim. Yah, heady stuff, no question, but just the kind of thing that a certain fourteen year old boy could add to his collection of now two thousand plus facts. 

Heady stuff, yah, but also stuff that carried some contradictions. Not in grandmother Anna, not in Dorothy Day so much as in Peter Paul and through him Frankie. See, the Catholic Worker movement had no truck, not known truck, anyway with “commies" and "dupes”, although that movement too, more than once, and by fellow Catholics too, was tarred with that brush. They were as fervent in their denunciation of the atheistic Soviet Union as any 1950s red-baiter. But they also saw that that stance alone was not going to make the world safer for believers, or anybody else. And that tension between the two strands is where Frankie and Peter Paul kind of got mixed up in the world’s affairs. Especially when Peter Paul said that the Catholic Worker had an announcement in their last issue that in October (1960) they were going to help sponsor an anti-nuclear proliferation rally on the Boston Common as part of a group called SANE two weeks before the presidential elections. 

Frankie took that information as manna from heaven. See, Frankie was just as interested in knowing two thousand facts in this world as Peter Paul. Except Frankie didn’t guard them like a king’s ransom but rather used them, and then discarded them like a tissue. And old Frankie, even then, even in 1960 starting to spread his wings as the corner boy king of the North Adamsville high school class of 1964, knew how to use his stockpile of facts better than Peter Paul ever could. So one night, one fiercely debated night, when Frankie could take no more, he said “bet.” And he bet that Peter Paul would not have the courage to travel from North Adamsville to Park Street Station in Boston to attend that SANE rally by himself (who else would go from old working- class, patriotic, red-scare scared, North Adamsville anyway). And as is the nature of fourteen year old boy relationships, or was, failure to take the bet, whatever bet was social suicide. “Bet,” said Peter Paul quickly before too much thinking time would elapse and destroy the fact of the bet marred by the hint of hesitation. 

But nothing is ever just one thing in this wicked old world. Peter Paul believed, believed fervently, in the social message of the Catholic Worker movement especially on this nuclear war issue. But this was also 1960 and Irish Jack Kennedy was running, and running hard, to be President of the United States against bad man Richard Milhous Nixon and Peter Paul was crazy for Jack (really for younger brother, Bobby, the ruthless organizer behind the throne which is the way he saw his own future as a political operative). And, of course, October in election year presidential politics is crunch time, a time to be out hustling votes, out on Saturday hustling votes, especially every Irish vote, every Catholic vote, hell, every youth vote for your man. 

 

On top of that Jack, old Irish Jack Kennedy, war hero, good-looking guy with a good-looking wife (not Irish though not as far as anyone could tell), rich as hell, was trying to out-Cold War Nixon, a Cold War warrior of the first degree. And the way he was trying to outgun Nixon was by haranguing everyone who would listen that there was a “missile gap,” and the United was falling behind. And when one talked about a missile gap in 1960 that only meant one thing, only brooked only one solution- order up more, many more, nuclear-bomb loaded guided missiles. So there it was, one of the little quirks of life, of political life. So, Peter Paul, all fourteen year old scared Peter Paul has to make good on his bet with Frankie but in the process put a crimp into his hoped-for political career. And just for that one moment, although with some hesitation, he decided to be on the side of the “angels” and to go. 

That Saturday, that October Saturday, was a brisk, clear autumn day and so Peter Paul decided to walk the few miles from his house in North Adamsville over the Neponset Bridge to the first MTA subway station at Fields Corner rather than take the forever Eastern Mass. bus that came by his street erratically. After crossing the bridge he passed through one of the many sections of Boston that could pass for the streets of Dublin. Except on those streets he saw many young Peter Pauls holding signs at street corners for Jack Kennedy, other passing out literature, and others talking up Jack’s name. Even as he approached the subway station he saw signs everywhere proclaiming Jack’s virtues. Hell, the nearby political hang-out Eire Pub looked like a campaign headquarters. What this whole scene did not look like to Peter Paul was a stronghold place to talk to people about an anti-nuclear weapons rally. Peter Paul got even more scared as he thought about the reception likely at the Boston Commons. He pushed on, not without a certain tentative regret, but he pushed on through the turnstile, waited for the on-coming subway to stop, got on, and had an uneventful ride to the Park Street Station, the nearest stop to the Common. 

Now Park Street on any given Saturday, especially in October after the college student hordes have descended on Boston, is a madhouse of activity. College student strolling around downtown looking for goods at the shops, other are just rubber-necking, other are sunning themselves on the grass or park benches in the last late sun days before winter arrives with a fury. Beyond the mainly civilized college students (civilized on the streets in the daytime anyway) there are the perennial street people who populate any big city and who when not looking for handouts, a stray cigarette, or a stray drink are talking a mile a minute among themselves about some supposed injustice that has marred their lives and caused their unhappy decline. Lastly, and old town Boston, historic old town Boston, scene of many political battles for every cause from temperance to liberty, is defined by this, there are a motley crew of speakers, soap-box speakers whether on a real soap-box or not, who are holding forth on many subjects, although none that drew Peter Paul’s attention this day. After running that gauntlet, as he heads for the Francis Parkman Bandstand where the SANE rally was to take place he was amused by all that surrounds him putting him in a better mood, although still apprehensive of what the day will bring forth. 

Arriving at the bandstand he saw about twenty people milling around with signs, hand-made signs that showed some spunk, the most prominent being a large poster-painted sign that stated boldly, “Ban The Bomb.” He is in the right place, no question. Although he is surprised that there are not more people present he is happy, secretly happy, that those twenty are there, because, frankly, he thought there might be just about two. And among that crowd he spotted a clot of people who were wearing Catholic Worker buttons so he is now more fully at ease, and was starting to be glad that he came here on this day. He went over to the clot and introduced himself and tells them how he came to be there. He also noted that one CWer wore the collar of a priest; a surprise because at Sacred Heart, his parish church, it was nothing but “fire and brimstone” from the pulpit against the heathen communist menace. 

Get this-he also met a little old lady in tennis sneakers. For real. Now Frankie, devil’s advocate Frankie, baited Peter Paul in their arguments about nuclear disarmament by stating that the “peaceniks” were mainly little old ladies in tennis shoes-meaning, of course, batty and of no account, no main chance political account, no manly Jack Kennedy stand up to the Russians account. Peter Paul thought to himself wait until I see Frankie and tell him that this little old lady knew more about politics, and history, than even his two thousand facts. And was funny too boot. Moreover, and this was something that he had privately noticed, as the youngest person by far at the rally she, and later others, would make a fuss over him for that very reason talking about young bravery and courage and stuff like that. 

Over the course of the two hours or so of the rally the crowd may have swelled to about fifty, especially when a dynamic black speaker from the W.E.B. Dubois club at Harvard University linked up the struggle against nuclear weapons with the black struggle down South for voting rights that those in the North had been hearing more about lately. It was not until later, much later, that Peter Paul found out that this Dubois club business was really the name of the youth group of the American Communist Party (CP) at the time but by that time he was knowledgeable enough to say “so what.” And it was not until later that he found out that the little old lady with the tennis sneakers was a CPer, although she had said at the time he talked to her she was with some committee, some women’s peace committee, within the Democratic Party. Oh, well. But then he would also be able to say “so what” to that accusation in proper “family of the left” fashion. 

 

But forget all that later stuff, and what he knew or did not know later. See, that day, that October 1960 autumn day, Peter Paul learned something about serious politics. If you are on the right side of the angels on an issue, a central issue of the day, you are kindred. And although there were more than a few catcalls from the passers-by about “commies”, “dupes”, and “go back to Russia” he was glad, glad as hell that he came over. Although nothing turned inside him, noticeably turned inside him that day, about his politics and his determination to see Jack Kennedy and the Democrats take the White House he thought about those brave people at the bandstand and what they were standing for a lot for a long time after the event faded from memory. Oh yah, it was good to be on the side of the angels. And it didn’t hurt that he won that Frankie bet, either.