Writer's Corner- From The Pen Of Jack London-"Revolution" (1905)

REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS
Revolution


Revolution-Jack London

I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." I replied to the letter, and my letter began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." In the United States there are 400,000 men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters "Dear Comrade," and end them "Yours for the Revolution." In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters " Dear Comrade " and end them "Yours for the Revolution"; in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, 100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, 40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men -- comrades all, and revolutionists.

These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when the roll is called, an army Of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest of the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing society.

There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is alone of its kind, the first world revolution in a world whose history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited only by the limits of the planet.

This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising in a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and scholarly than the literature of any previous revolution.

They call themselves "comrades," these men, comrades in the socialist revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined of mere lip service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should be knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects itself with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The comradeship of the revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over geographical lines, transcends race prejudice, and has even proved itself mightier than the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of our forefathers. The French socialist workingmen and the German socialist workingmen forget Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war threatens, pass resolutions declaring that as workingmen and comrades they have no quarrel with each other. Only the other day, when Japan and Russia sprang at each other's throats, the revolutionists of Japan addressed the following message to the revolutionists of Russia: "Dear Comrades -- Your government and ours have recently plunged into war to carry out their imperialistic tendencies, but for us socialists there are no boundaries, race, country, or nationality. We are comrades, brothers and sisters, and have no reason to fight. Your enemies are not the Japanese people, but our militarism and so-called patriotism. Patriotism and militarism are our mutual enemies."

In January, 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held mass-meetings to express their sympathy for their struggling comrades, the revolutionists of Russia, and, more to the point, to furnish the sinews of war by collecting money and cabling it to the Russian leaders.

The fact of this call for money, and the ready response, and the very wording of the call, make a striking and practical demonstration of the international solidarity of this world revolution: "Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it an impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The heroic battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the Russian working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian socialists, thus once more demonstrating the fact that the class-conscious workingmen have become the vanguard of all liberating movements of modern times."

Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. It must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance -- romance so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. These revolutionists are swayed by great passion. They have a keen sense of personal right, much of reverence for humanity, but little reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the dead. They refuse to be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois mind their unbelief in the dominant conventions of the established order is startling. They laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with most of its sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are those that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of capital, survival of the fittest, and patriotism -- even patriotism.

Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, "No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands."

Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. To-day they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world.

Yesterday they were not so strong. To-morrow they will be still stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They are unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy existing capitalist society and to take possession of the whole world. If the law of the land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at the ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, and if they have force meted out to them, they resort to force themselves. They meet violence with violence. Their hands are strong and they are unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no suffrage. The government executes the revolutionists. The revolutionists kill the officers of the government. The revolutionists meet legal murder with assassination.

Now here arises a particularly significant phase which would be well for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I speak, and I think, of these assassins in Russia as "my comrades." So do all the comrades in America, and all the 7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of what worth an organized, international, revolutionary movement if our comrades are not backed up the world over I The worth is shown by the fact that we do back up the assassinations by our comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of Tolstoy, nor are we. We are revolutionists.

Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call "The Fighting Organization." This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed another Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its indictment of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the assassination. Now, and to the point, this document was sent out to the socialists of the world, and by them was published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. The point is, not that the socialists of the world were unafraid to do it, not that they dared to do it, but that they did it as a matter of routine, giving publication to what may be called an official document of the international revolutionary movement.

These are high lights upon the revolution granted, but they are also facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, not in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more deeply the spirit and nature of this world revolution. The time has come for the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened upon every civilized country in the world. As fast as a country becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the introduction of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. Socialism marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the American soldiers. The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away when socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto [sic] Rico. Vastly more significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution has fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip. On the contrary, on every country its grip closes tighter year by year. As an active movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. In 1867, its voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871, its vote had increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half- million point. By 1889, it had passed the million point. It had then gained momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was 1,798,391 ; in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, 5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of our Lord 1905 it passed the seven-million mark.

Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. In 1888, there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902, there were 127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904, 435,040 socialist votes were cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The first four years of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. In the state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and registered revolutionist.

One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people -- a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and diseased slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the main, a hearty, well- fed workingman, who sees the shambles waiting for him and his children and recoils from the descent. The very miserable people are too helpless to help themselves. But they are being helped, and the day is not far distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the revolutionists.

Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact that middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the contrary), and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist- and working-classes has just about been fulfilled. Little remains for it but to wail as it passes into oblivion, as it has already begun to wail in accents Populistic and Jeffersonian-Democratic. The fight is on. The revolution is here now, and it is the world's workers that are in revolt.

Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of the spirit can give rise to a world revolution. Whim does not conduce to unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make 7,000,000 men of the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the bourgeois gods and lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. There are many counts of the indictment which the revolutionists bring against the capitalist class, but for present use only one need be stated, and it is a count to which capital has never replied and can never reply.

The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has failed. And not only has it failed in its management, but it has failed deplorably, ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an opportunity such as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the history of the world. It broke away from the rule of the old feudal aristocracy and made modern society. It mastered matter, organized the machinery of life, and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, wherein no creature should cry aloud because it had not enough to eat, and wherein for every child there would be opportunity for education, for intellectual and spiritual uplift. Matter being mastered, and the machinery of life organized, all this was possible. Here was the chance, God-given, and the capitalist class failed. It was blind and greedy. It prattled sweet ideals and dear moralities, rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased one whit in its greediness, and smashed down in a failure as tremendous only as was the opportunity it had ignored.

But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As it was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang-utan's and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a hostile environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had no inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food- getting was, say, I. He did not even till the soil. With his natural efficiency of I, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got himself food and shelter. He must have done all this, else he would not have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his progeny down, generation by generation, to become even you and me.

The caveman, with his natural efficiency of I, got enough to eat most of the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he lived a healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found plenty of time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. That is to say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order to get enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true of the children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that is meant a happy childhood of play and development.

And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the most prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. By poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people who have not enough to eat. In the United States, because they have not enough to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep the ordinary measure of strength in their bodies. This means that these 10,000,000 people are perishing, are dying, body and soul, slowly, because they have not enough to eat. All over this broad, prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and children who are living miserably. In all the great cities, where they are segregated in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, their misery becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically as they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered with rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard and for as long hours as they toil.

In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She was a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among the Italian garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the dressmakers is go cents, but they work every week in the year. The average weekly wage of the pants finishers in $1.31, and the average number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly earnings of the dressmakers is $37.00; of the pants finishers, $42.41. Such wages means no childhood for the children, beastliness of living, and starvation for all.

Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever be feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the work, and in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes acute. This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. Let several of the countless instances be cited.

In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were evicted from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled her baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed to strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. Said the father to the police: "Constant poverty had driven my wife insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, when we were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could not even make enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew ill and weak. My wife cried nearly all the time."

"So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to cope with the situation."- New York Commercial, January 11,1905.

In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get something to eat, modern man advertises as follows:

"Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will sell to physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right and title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, Examiner."

"Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday night and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said he had been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that he was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry he must be fed. Police judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days' imprisonment." -- San Francisco Examiner.

In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was found the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. Also was found his diary, from which the following extracts are made:

"March 3. -No chance of getting anything here. What will I do?
" March 7. -- Cannot find anything yet.
"March 8. -- Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day.
"March 9. -- My last quarter gone for room rent.
"March 10. -- God help me. Have only five cents left. Can get nothing to do. What next? Starvation or --? I have spent my last nickel to-night. What shall I do? Shall it be steal, beg, or die? I have never stolen, begged, or starved in all my fifty years of life, but now I am on the brink death seems the only refuge.
"March 11. -- Sick all day -- burning fever this afternoon. Had nothing to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my head. Good-by, all."


How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every morning. From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent out over the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a babe, eighteen months old, who earned by its labor fifty cents per week in a tenement sweat- shop.

"On a pile-of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue Station. Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room were the father, James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to eight years of age. The children gazed at the policeman much as ravenous animals might have done. They were famished, and there was not a vestige of food in their comfortless home." - New York Journal, January 2, 1902.

In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in the textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when the sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable dens, called "homes," after dark. Many receive no more than ten cents a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold water dashed in their faces. There are children six years of age who have already to their credit eleven months' work on the night shift. When they become sick, and are unable to rise from their beds to go to work, there are men employed to go on horseback from house to house, and cajole and bully them into arising and going to work. Ten per cent of them contract active consumption. All are puny wrecks, distorted, stunted, mind and body. Elbert Hubbard says of the child-laborers of the Southern cotton mills : --

"I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his weight. Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of pain it was. He did -- he did not know what it not reach for the money was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A physician who was with me said that they would all be dead probably in two years, and their places filled by others -- there were plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound -- no response. Medicine simply does not act -- nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged, and the child sinks into a stupor and dies."

So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It must be remembered that the instances given are instances only, but that they can be multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered that what is true of the United States is true of all the civilized world. Such misery was not true of the caveman. Then what has happened? Has the hostile environment of the caveman grown more hostile for his descendants? Has the caveman's natural efficiency of I for food-getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern man to one-half or one-quarter?

On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been destroyed. For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous enemies, the daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. Many of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man's fiercer enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. Modern man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails regretfully at the passing of the " big game," which he knows in the not distant future will disappear from the earth.

Nor since the day of the caveman has man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a thousand fold. Since the day of the caveman, matter has been mastered. The secrets of matter have been discovered. Its laws have been formulated. Wonderful artifices have been made, and marvellous inventions, all tending to increase tremendously man's natural efficiency of I in every food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in farming, mining, manufacturing, transportation, and communication.

From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the increase in efficiency for food and shelter-getting has been very great. But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand-worker of three generations ago has in turn been increased many times. Formerly it required 200 hours of human labor to place 100 tons of ore on a railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two hours of human labor is required to do the same task. The United States Bureau of Labor is responsible for the following table, showing the comparatively recent increase in man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency:



According to the same authority, under the best conditions for organization in farming, labor can produce 20 bushels of wheat for 66 cents, or 1 bushel for 3 1/3 cents. This was done on a bonanza farm of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day 4,500,000 men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would require the labor of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor Herzog, of Austria, says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of to-day, employed at socially useful labor, would be able to supply a population of 20,000,000 people with all the necessaries and small luxuries of life by working 1 1/2 hours per day.

This being so, matter being mastered, man's efficiency for food- and shelter-getting being increased a thousand fold over the efficiency of the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more miserably than lived the caveman? This is the question the revolutionist asks, and he asks it of the managing class, the capitalist class. The capitalist class does not answer it. The capitalist class cannot answer it.

If modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a thousand fold greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there 10,000,000 people in the United States to- day who are not properly sheltered and properly fed? If the child of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children working out their lives in the textile factories alone? If the child of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are there 1,752,187 child-laborers?

It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1320 millionnaires. The point, however, is not that the mass of man kind is miserable because of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to itself. Far from it. The point really is that the mass of mankind is miserable, not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist class, but for want of the wealth that was never created. This wealth was never created because the capitalist class managed too wastefully and irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, grasping madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but made the worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly.

In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the caveman, and that modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a thousand fold greater than the caveman's, no other solution is possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful.

With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already invented, a rational organization of production and distribution, and an equally rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers would not have to labor more than two or three hours per day to feed everybody, clothe everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and give a fair measure of little luxuries to everybody. There would be no more material want and wretchedness, no more children toiling out their lives, no more men and women and babes living like beasts and dying like beasts. Not only would matter be mastered, but the machine would be mastered. In such a day incentive would be finer and nobler than the incentive of to-day, which is the incentive of the stomach. No man, woman, or child would be impelled to action by an empty stomach. On the contrary, they would be impelled to action as a child in a spelling match is impelled to action, as boys and girls at games, as scientists formulating law, as inventors applying law, as artists and sculptors painting canvases and shaping clay, as poets and statesmen serving humanity by singing and by statecraft. The spiritual, intellectual, and artistic uplift consequent upon such a condition of society would be tremendous. All the human world would surge upward in a mighty wave.

This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, were all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told it of the opportunity, its scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence against it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of mankind to continue and to increase. In short, the capitalist class failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what it can do with the opportunity. "But the working-class is incapable," says the capitalist class. "What do you know about it?" the working-class replies. "Because you have failed is no reason that we shall fail. Furthermore, we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven millions of us say so. And what have you to say to that?"

And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of the working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument of the revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists remain. Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their capacity, and in their indictment and their argument, is a fact. Their constant growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy present-day society is a fact, as is also their intention to take possession of the world with all its wealth and machinery and governments. Moreover, it is a fact that the working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist class.

The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? What has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers' associations, injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries of the labor unions, clamor and combination for the open shop, bitter and shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat all reform child-labor bills, graft in every municipal council, strong lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of capitalist legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen's clubs, professional strike-breakers, and armed Pinkertons -- these are the things the capitalist class is dumping in front of the tide of revolution, as though, forsooth, to hold it back.

The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the revolution as it was blind in the past to its own God- given opportunity. It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling sordidly for material benefits.

No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the revolution that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to-day. Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of life by conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher oppressions of the working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, drives the working-class into revolution. Every broken strike in recent years, every legally plundered trades-union treasury, every closed shop made into an open shop, has driven the members of the working-class directly hurt over to socialism by hundreds and thousands. Show a workingman that his union fails and he becomes a revolutionist. Break a strike with an injunction or bankrupt a union with a civil suit, and the workingmen hurt thereby listen to the siren song of the socialist and are lost forever to the political capitalist parties.

Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no longer efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the Declaration of Independence and of the French Encyclopedists is scarcely apposite to-day. It does not appeal to the workingman who has had his head broken by a policeman's club, his union treasury bankrupted by a court decision, or his job taken away from him by a labor-saving invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear so glorious and constitutional to the workingman who has experienced a bull pen or been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. Nor are this particular workingman's hurt feelings soothed by reading in the newspapers that both the bull pen and the deportation were preeminently just, legal, and constitutional. "To hell, then, with the Constitution!" says he, and another revolutionist has been made -by the capitalist class.

In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. The capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom -- the things that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts with the fervor that arises out of the impulse toward good and which is essentially religious in its nature.

But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts and statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the workingman be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically demonstrate to him, that his condition will be bettered by the revolution. If the workingman be the higher type, moved by impulses toward right conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists offer him the things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous things that cannot be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down by dollars and cents. The revolutionist cries Out upon wrong and injustice, and preaches righteousness. And, most potent of all, he sings the eternal song of human freedom -a song of all lands and all tongues and all time.

Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of them are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the same old story of every perishing ruling class in the world's history. Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, and made soft by surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones clustered about the honey vats when the worker- bees spring upon them to end their rotund existence.

:President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, and recoils from seeing it. As he says: "Above all, we need to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity."

Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt maintains, is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is the preachment of the revolutionists. "Let the class wars in the industrial world continue," they say, "but extend the class war to the political world." As their leader, Eugene V. Debs, says: "So far as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist and no bad workingman. Every capitalist is your enemy and every workingman is your friend."

Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. And here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2000 revolutionists of this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 revolutionists; in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the President Roosevelt definition evidently flourishes and increases in the United States. Quite so, for it is the revolution that flourishes and increases.

Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear glimpse of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class does not heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry: "I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism never before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because never before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger lies in the obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists." And the capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, are perfecting their strikebreaking organization and combining more strongly than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all things to the trades- unions, -- the closed shop. In so far as this assault succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten its lease of life. It is the old, old story, over again and over again. The drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey vats.

Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude of the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And the American editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about it! The old "divide-up," "men-are-not- born-free-and-equal" propositions are enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the forge of human wisdom. Their feeble vaporings show no more than a schoolboy's comprehension of the nature of the revolution. Parasites themselves on the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class by moulding public opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey vats.

Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American editors. To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too great obloquy upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for here and there an occasional editor does see clearly -- and in his case, ruled by stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he thinks about it. So far as the science and the sociology of the revolution are concerned, the average editor is a generation or so behind the facts. He is intellectually slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by the majority, and prides himself upon his conservatism. He is an instinctive optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is. The revolutionist gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to be, is, but what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at all.

Now and then, rubbing his eyes vigorously, an editor catches a sudden glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, as, for instance, the one who wrote the following in the Chicago Chronicle: "American socialists are revolutionists. They know that they are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should appreciate the fact." A white-hot, brand-new discovery, and he proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, were revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all these years -shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, and stop us who can.

The time should be past for the mental attitude: "Revolution is atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution." Likewise should the time be past for that other familiar attitude: "Socialism is slavery. Sir, it will never be." It is no longer a question of dialectics, theories, and dreams. There is no question about it. The revolution is a fact. It is here now. Seven million revolutionists, organized, working day and night, are preaching the revolution -- that passionate gospel, the Brotherhood of Man. Not only is it a coldblooded economic propaganda, but it is in essence a religious propaganda with a fervor in it of Paul and Christ. The capitalist class has been indicted. It has failed in its management and its management is to be taken away from it. Seven million men of the working-class say that they are going to get the rest of the working-class to join with them and take the management away. The revolution is here, now. Stop it who can.

Sacramento River,
March, 1905.


Site maintained by Roy Tennant and Clarice Stasz, PhD.

From The International Bolshevik Tendency Website -Democrats, Cops and Screws: Agents of the Oppressors-Democrats, Cops and Screws-Lock Up Mehserle—Throw Away the Key!

Democrats, Cops and Screws: Agents of the Oppressors
Lock Up Mehserle—Throw Away the Key!

Since the murder of Oscar Grant by BART cop Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Day 2009, thousands of people have mobilized to demand "Justice for Oscar Grant" and oppose attempts to let Mehserle walk free after his conviction on the far lesser charge of "involuntary manslaughter."

Involuntary manslaughter usually carries a sentence of two to four years, but if a gun was used, the judge can add three to ten years to the sentence. Mehserle is a dangerous racist killer who should be locked up for life, but 14 years would be a lot better than what Judge Robert Perry, who conducted his trial, is probably intending to give him. Perry was responsible for the official cover-up of the LAPD Ramparts scandal in which more than 70 police officers were implicated for planting evidence, framing innocent people andtaking pay-offs from drug dealers while organizing robberies, beatings and shootings. Tony Pirone and Marysol Domenici, two other BART cops who were complicit in Grant's murder and withheld information during Mehserle's trial, also deserve long stretches in prison.

Outrage at this murder has come from many places, so it is no surprise that there are different ideas about how to take the struggle forward. We have to start by recognizing that responsibility for this crime goes beyond Mehserle, the BART police and the BART board. Oscar Grant's murder was a product of the routine functioning of the American social system and particularly the racist administration of "criminal justice." Responsibility for Oscar Grant's death is therefore shared by all those who materially support and perpetuate the system, including many of the local politicians who made a show of protesting Mehserle's crime.

While many innocent people like Oscar Grant have been killed by cops, no police officer has ever been jailed for murder in the State of California. The popularity of the slogan "I am Oscar Grant" reflects widespread awareness of the profound injustice of this racist system. There is no way justice for Oscar Grant can be achieved by reliance on institutions that exist to maintain and defend the status quo—or on those who run them.

To suppress the growing social tensions resulting from the decline of American capitalism over the last 30 years, ruling-class politicians (Democrat as well as Republican) have ramped up state repression and vastly expanded the police and prison system. In California between 1988 and 2008 the number of prison guards increased at four times the rate of other state agencies. In the 2009-2011 City of Oakland budget, the police department eats up an incredible 43 percent of the general fund, compared to a measly 2 percent for community development and human services. An Oakland cop's salary averages an astounding $162,000 a year.

It is obvious to tens of millions of working-class Americans that capitalism is unable to provide meaningful employment or meet the most elementary needs of the population for housing, health care and education. And in this racist system people of color and youth are always the hardest hit. Today the official unemployment rate for blacks stands at 15.6 percent (compared to 8.6 percent for whites) while more than 40 percent of black youth are unemployed. As the economy pushes more and more workers downwards and jobs dry up, the prison population is rising.

All of the Democratics running for election this November in Oakland are tied to law enforcement one way or another. Indeed, the majority of them are directly funded by the police and prison guards. Democratic Assemblyman Don Perata, a frontrunner in Oakland's mayoral race, has accepted $409,000 from the Prison Guards' Union since 2009 and has made it clear that he intends to increase the police budget. Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for governor, helped push through the "Police Officer's Bill of Rights" in the 1980s during his first term. This was cited by Mehserle to avoid speaking to BART internal affairs investigators following the murder. Not only has Brown been endorsed by organizations representing cops and screws, he has accepted $825,000 from them for campaign ads.

Oakland Councilmembers Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan are striking more critical poses with calls for increased community "oversight" of the police. But "community control" of the cops will never amount to more than a symbolic gesture, and neither Quan nor Kaplan have any serious intention of trying to rein in the police. Rather than openly talking about the reality of systemic racism, or the need to punish killer cops, they recycle fairy tales about police "serving and protecting" all members of the public equally. This is the kind of pledge of allegiance to the status quo that anyone who wants to pursue a career as a Democratic politician has to make.

Councilmember Desley Brooks, who has been closely associated with the Oscar Grant movement and was one of the main speakers for the "Mothers Taking a Stand" event in September, told protesters commemorating the first anniversary of Oscar's murder outside the Fruitvale BART station that "justice might not look like what you expect!" This amounted to a not-so-veiled appeal for trusting the BART board (which had provided the stage and sound equipment for the event) and accepting the decision engineered by a "justice" system that first moved the trial to Los Angeles and then put together a jury without even a single black on it.

Brooks, along with Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, Minister Keith Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and various other black clergy, co-signed an "Open Letter" prior to the demonstration at 14th and Broadway on 8 July, the day the verdict was announced, calling on citizens to "shut down outside agitators." This statement provided political cover for the cops to carry out the mostly random arrests of more than 80 people, including Oakland School Board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge.

No Democratic politician will tell the simple truth that any sort of real "Justice for Oscar Grant" can only be won outside a racist justice system which has long validated state-sanctioned murder. To be a member of the Democratic Party is to be a cog in a political machine committed to the maintenance of a social order based on the exploitation of the working class and the special oppression of black and brown workers who are segregated at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The role of the Democrats is to keep the lid on potential mass struggle by promoting the illusion that electoral politics—organized on the principle that every dollar is equal— can offer an avenue for ordinary people to achieve real change. Reliance on the Democrats will undermine any possibility of winning "Justice for Oscar Grant."

The police, as the front-line defenders of social inequality and capitalist privilege, are the natural enemies of workers and the oppressed. Blacks, other minorities and "illegal" immigrants face continuous intimidation, harassment and violence from cops and other agents of the state. Defenders of capitalism like to portray the police as neutral enforcers of "the law," but everyone knows that laws are written by politicians who are bought and paid for by big business. The role of cops during major labor disputes throughout American history has been to escort scabs, bust picket lines and even, in some cases, murder strikers. In the 1934 West Coast Maritime Strike that founded the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) the police killed seven people coast-wide, including Howard Sperry and Nicholas Bordoise in San Francisco.

In 2003, Oakland police fired wooden bullets and tear gas without warning at ILWU members and anti-war protesters at the Port of Oakland. It later came out that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center had been intercepting dockers' emails prior to the protest. A few weeks ago, under the guise of "national security," the FBI raided anti-war activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina, absurdly claiming that supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the Arab-American Action Network are "terrorists" because they solidarize with the Colombian FARC guerrillas and the Palestinians.

The bureaucratic leadership of the labor movement eagerly welcomes the affiliation of police "unions." The International Union of Police Associations has belonged to the AFL-CIO since 1979. In a 12 May 2009 letter to the Labor Council, the president of the San Francisco Police Officers' Assocation, reported that in the previous year his organization had donated $25,000 "to the labor community and members of the San Francisco Labor Council for everything ranging from golf tournaments to installation dinners."

The ILWU's San Francisco Local 10 Constitution stipulates that no cop can be admitted to the union. This is a policy that should be adopted by every self-respecting union: cops out of the labor movement! Local 10's initiative in launching today'sport shutdown and labor-community rally to demand justice for Oscar Grant provides a glimpse of the enormous impact a militant, politically-conscious labor movement could have in waging the struggle against racism and all other forms of social oppression.

Whatever sentence Mehserle gets on 5 November, it won't be enough to pay for his crime. Effective struggle against the racist social order that permits such outrages starts by breaking with the Democratic political agents who administer it, as well as the armed thugs who "serve and protect" it. A labor movement led by people tied to the ruling class will never be able to launch a serious struggle to advance the interests of its members, much less other victims of capitalist injustice.

In the end, the only way to secure justice for Oscar Grant and the thousands of others murdered by racist cops over the years is by breaking up the existing police force and all the rest of the capitalist apparatus of repression. This requires a social revolution to expropriate the ruling elites and establish a collectively-run, democratically-planned economy in which all important decisions are made, not by a tiny handful of ultra-wealthy individuals, but by workers' councils organized on the principle that those who labor should rule. The International Bolshevik Tendency is committed to the struggle to build a party capable of leading such a revolution and opening the way to establishing an egalitarian, socialist regime in every country on the planet.

Cops out of the the labor movement!
Break with the Democrats—
Build a revolutionary workers' party!

From The National Jericho Political Prisoner Defense Website- Memorials In Honor Of The Late Class-Warrior Marilyn Buck

Memorials for Marilyn Buck to be held
in NYC on Nov. 13, 2010 & the Bay Area on Nov. 7, 2010

Bay Area Memorial: Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010
4-7 at the First Unitarian Church on 14th Street in Oakland

NYC Memorial: Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010
Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Center
3940 Broadway @ 165th St., NY, NY
from 4:30 to 7:00 PM

In Memory and Honor of Marilyn Jean Buck

December 13, 1947 – August 3, 2010

Humanity bows its head in honor of the passing of a true people’s hero and warrior for peace, freedom, and justice. Marilyn Buck passed away Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at approximately 2:15 pm amongst comrades and friends.

Marilyn privately fought her cancer just as gallantly as she publicly fought against the cancers of oppression, exploitation, classism, and racism in a place called America. Freedom fighters, peace-loving people of the world, human rights activists, community folks, families, friends, and fellow prisoners, all salute you Marilyn. The people salute you! Your life has taught us strength, resistance against injustice, courage in the face of death, self-esteem, love for our neighbor and the underprivileged, compassion for the weak and downtrodden, solidarity amongst the races, leadership, and humility.

Our Movement, our national liberation struggles, our undergrounds and abovegrounds, our formations, our community programs, our collectives and organizations, and all the midnight oil ever burned, owes you nothing but our utmost appreciation, admiration, respect, prayers, and love. Rest in peace with hope from the other side that the torch you left will be passed on!

—JERICHO


followed by:

The 2nd Annual Freedom Dance
Party with a Purpose

Freedom Dance 2010 salutes six NY State Political Prisoners
with a special memorial tribute to our late comrade, freedom fighter and poet Marilyn Buck

NYS Political Prisoners/POWs:
Herman Bell
David Gilbert
Robert Seth Hayes
Abdullah Majid
Jalil Muntaqim
Sekou Odinga

Reception and Freedom Dance: 7 to 10:30 p.m.
Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Center
3940 Broadway, Manhattan @ 165th Street

*From The Citizen Soldier Website-US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers

Soldiers face charges over secret 'kill team' which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war

Chris McGreal
9 September 2010


Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.

According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army's criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to "toss a grenade at someone and kill them".

One soldier said he believed Gibbs was "feeling out the platoon".

Investigators said Gibbs, 25, hatched a plan with another soldier, Jeremy Morlock, 22, and other members of the unit to form a "kill team". While on patrol over the following months they allegedly killed at least three Afghan civilians. According to the charge sheet, the first target was Gul Mudin, who was killed "by means of throwing a fragmentary grenade at him and shooting him with a rifle", when the patrol entered the village of La Mohammed Kalay in January.

Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.

Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.

The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.

Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.

The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.

Two days later members of his platoon, including Gibbs and Morlock, accused him of "snitching", gave him a beating and told him to keep his mouth shut. The soldier reported the beating and threats to his officers and then told investigators what he knew of the "kill team".

Following the arrest of the original five accused in June, seven other soldiers were charged last month with attempting to cover up the killings and violent assault on the soldier who reported the smoking of hashish. The charges will be considered by a military grand jury later this month which will decide if there is enough evidence for a court martial. Army investigators say Morlock has admitted his involvement in the killings and given details about the role of others including Gibbs. But his lawyer, Michael Waddington, is seeking to have that confession suppressed because he says his client was interviewed while under the influence of prescription
drugs taken for battlefield injuries and that he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury.

"Our position is that his statements were incoherent, and taken while he was under a cocktail of drugs that shouldn't have been mixed," Waddington told the Seattle Times.

.
]

From The SteveLendmanBlog- Lynne Stewart Given "Fighter for Justice" Award

Lynne Stewart Given "Fighter for Justice" Award
by Stephen Lendman

Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 24 Oct 2010
once again she's honored
Lynne Stewart Given "Fighter for Justice" Award - by Stephen Lendman

Six previous articles highlighted the injustice, culminating in her November 19, 2009 internment at MCC-NY, 150 Park Row, New York, NY, prisoner number 53504-054. Later she'll be transfered to a federal prison to serve 10 years (unless reversed on appeal) for working honorably, ethically, and admirably with distinction for over three decades.

Access the most recent article on her and previous ones through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/darkness-in-america-lynne-stewarts

Though incarcerated, she's not forgotten and will honored at the Party for Socialism and Liberation's (PSL) November 13 and 14 National Conference on Socialism at the University of Southern California's (UCLA) Los Angeles campus. The program will feature alternatives to capitalism's destructive growth, especially in recent years.

Speakers and panel discussions will address US imperialism, class struggle in Africa, building a new workers movement, defending immigrant workers, confronting racism and bigotry, fighting the expanding police state, why socialism is necessary, the role of a revolutionary party for change, how to fight bankers and billionaires, and more.

In an October 15 letter to Lynne, PSL's Ian Thompson notified her of the award, saying:

"In our Nov. 13 evening panel, we are giving our first-ever PSL 'Fighters for Justice' awards to several people. We would like to honor you as an award recipient. Other(s include) political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and the Cuban Five, all unjustly incarcerated. Presenters will include former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. (He'll) present your award" because of his longtime close association with you.

"PSL is presenting you with this award for your decades of struggle and perseverance before and now during your unjust incarceration. Your unwavering defense of the most oppressed and exploited people resonate with working-class and poor people across the country and around the world."

PSL asked if she'd accept the award, and if so, send a written speech to be read on her behalf. Hundreds are expected to attend, highlighted by Ramsey Clark and other distinguished speakers, including community leaders, activists, and international solidarity members of the Filipino, Salvadoran, and Palestinian movements.

A Personal Note

In a just received personal note, Lynne explained that:

"Sometimes I feel like we're trying to move what is depicted on" her enclosed card, a photo of snow-capped mountains. "Other times, I feel that 'there ain't no high enough! I know we all wrestle with the same 'devils' - so many causes, so little time," and such obstacles to overcome.

She enclosed some items of interest, including about two other political prisoners, the Mississippi Scott sisters, bogusly sentenced in 1993 to life in prison for an alleged nonviolent crime involving $11. Access an article on them through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/scott-sisters-victimized-by-americ

She also mentioned Mumia "as they push him toward the trap door, and the FBI," persecuting activists who want change.

She explained she's in good health, wished she could do more like she's done throughout her entire professional life, then ended her moving way, saying,

Love Struggle!

Lynne

We won't forget her, now or ever, nor the many hundreds of other bogusly convicted political prisoners in America's gulag, the shame of the nation.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

From The SteveLendmanBlog-Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights

Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights
by Stephen Lendman

Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Oct 2010
his economic bill of rights
Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights - by Stephen Lendman

Ferdinand Lundberg's "Cracks in the Constitution" deconstructed what framers, in fact, created, men he equated with a Wall Street crowd, given their economic status and prominence as bankers, merchants, lawyers, politicians, judges, and overall wheeler-dealers. In 1787, they convened for their own interests, not the general welfare as most people believe.

As a result, they produced no "masterpiece of political architecture (falling far short of) one great apotheosis (bathed) in quasi-religious light," as Lundberg masterfully explained. His book, if not the Constitution, is an epic work, must reading about America's most important document, the Bill of Rights added belatedly in the first 10 Amendments, again not for reasons commonly believed.

They protected property owners, not ordinary people, who wanted:

-- free speech, press, religion, assembly and petition rights for their interests, not "The People;"

-- due process of law and speedy public trials for themselves if charged;

-- quartering troops in their homes or on their land prohibited;

-- protection from unreasonable searches and seizures;

-- the right to have state militias protect them;

-- the right to bear arms, but not the way the 2nd Amendment today is interpreted; and

-- and various other rights for them, privileged elites who, like today, lied, connived, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and pretty much operated as they wished for their own self-interest, law or no law.

Yet, the Constitution is hailed as the "supreme law of the land," including its 27 Amendments, the last one first proposed on September 25, 1789 (no typo), enacted over 200 years later on May 7, 1992, preventing congressional salaries from taking effect until the beginning of the next term.

Franklin Roosevelt's Proposed Economic Bill of Rights

On January 11, 1944, in his last State of the Union Address, Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights, saying the initial one "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." His solution: an "economic bill of rights," guaranteeing:

-- employment with a living wage;

-- freedom from unfair competition and monopolies;

-- housing;

-- medical care;

-- education; and

-- social security, overall what he provided inadequately in his first 11 years, except for measures like the 1935 Wagner Act letting workers, for the first time, bargain collectively on even terms with management, and the landmark Social Security Act, keeping millions of retirees, disabled, and qualified survivors from the ravages of poverty.

These benefits are fast eroding today, Obama administration neoliberal ideologues wanting social benefits slashed, and Social Security and Medicare privatized so Wall Street racketeers can pillage them for profit until nothing's left for the needy.

Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will recommend austerity measures during Congress' lame duck session. Legislation will likely follow, focusing heavily on Medicare and Social Security, gutting them over time, leaving millions high and dry. What Roosevelt proposed but couldn't implement, the entire Washington establishment plans to take away, cleverly so most people won't notice until it's too late to matter.

With WW II nearly won, Roosevelt stressed focusing the nation's energies and resources on finishing it, suggesting among other measures:

-- "A realistic tax law - which will tax all unreasonable profit," corporate and individual;

-- "A cost of food law" with floor and ceiling limits on prices; and

-- reenactment of the October 1942 stabilization statute, pertaining to prices, wages and salaries affecting the cost of living.

He continued saying:

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."

"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security can be established for all - regardless of station, race, or creed." He then listed what he meant, covering:

"Opportunity.

The right to a useful and remunerative job.

The right to a good education.

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.

Security.

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

The right of every family to a decent home.

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation."

Though partly implemented at best, they were positive recommendations, mirror opposite of policies under both parties since the 1980s, and Obama's proposed austerity at a time stimulus is desperately needed.

For example, the 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the GI Bill) provided college or vocational education for 7.8 million returning vets plus a year of unemployment compensation. In addition, 2.4 million got VA-backed low-interest, no down payment home loans at a time their average cost was under $5,000, enabling millions of families to afford them, many with government help.

Roosevelt called his proposal "security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these happiness and well-being" measures in the interest of democracy, humanity, fairness, justice, and a nation discharging its responsibilities for all its citizens equitably.

Today, these ideas are lost at a time of an unprecedented wealth gap, and officials ignoring essential needs by growing millions, on their own and out of luck because both major parties spurn them.

Instead they focus on imperial wars, handouts to bankers and other corporate favorites, repressive laws, and eroding freedoms, destroying them one at a time or in bunches, creating banana republic harshness in their place.

FDR's prescription was different, a patrician who gave back to save capitalism with policies mirror opposite of today's that will end up destroying it and America - its political and economic dominance, afterwards its military might when little money's left to fund it, then bankruptcy when it's gone, leaving only a short epitaph saying rest in peace.

Perhaps humanity will then exhale, absent America's belligerence and no shyness unleashing it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com


This work is in the public domain

From The Internationalist Group Website- On France:French Students and Workers Strike-May in October? The Spectre of a New ’68

French Students and Workers Strike
May in October? The Spectre of a New ’68

The Big Obstacle: Pro-Capitalist Union Misleaders and the Now-Reformist “Far Left”

A national “day of action” on Tuesday, October 12, brought 3.5 million French workers and youth into the streets to protest the conservative government’s bill to push back eligibility for retirement and pension benefits. It was the fourth day of nationwide strikes and marches against the pension law since the beginning of September. Although even more came into the streets this time, President Nicolas Sarkozy and his cabinet figured the demonstrations had run out of steam and they could go on to their next anti-working-class “reform.” Big mistake. Instead, worker-student protests continue to mount, along with some heavy-handed repression by the cops. By Friday, after several days of roiling student protests, a police “union” complained (with some exaggeration) of “scenes of urban guerrilla warfare” in cities around the country.

Strikes have continued on the railroads and at the country’s oil refineries. On Friday, riot police dispersed pickets at several fuel depots, only to see the last two refineries walk out in response. Several hundred service stations have run out of gas, while long lines of motorists are forming to fill up their tanks. The pipeline servicing the Orly and Roissy airports outside Paris closed down and then reopened, although where the aviation fuel is to come from is unclear. Meanwhile, the government is telling airlines to fill up their planes outside France. Ferries to the Mediterranean island of Corsica are not running. And starting Sunday night, the French truckers union called on its members to stage “operations escargot” (driving at a snail’s pace to tie up traffic on the main highways), blocking intersections with their rigs and other actions against the pension law everywhere.

A fifth mass mobilization was called for Saturday, October 16. The unions reported that 3 million people participated in 264 marches around France (325,000 in Paris), roughly the same as in the October 2 mobilization. Police estimates claimed that the numbers were slightly less than two weeks ago, but in any case it’s clear the mass protests have not let up. A sixth day of action has been called for Tuesday, October 19, the day before the Senate is scheduled to vote on the pension “reform.” This will likely be as large or larger than previous protests, as new sectors join in. So far, despite the radicalization of the protests, media propaganda about “violent” youth and tough talk from government ministers about forcing the law through no matter what, a large majority of the population “support” the strike action (52 percent in a recent poll) or “sympathize” with it (19 percent). But the key question is, what happens next? Some unions are hinting that they will pull out once the law is approved, in order to look “responsible.”

One “day of action” after another will not stop Sarkozy, nor will a few walkouts here and there. By endlessly repeating these tactics, union leaders are actually aiding the government in wearing down protest. What’s urgently needed is to mobilize the entire working class, private and public, in militant strike action to shut the country down, beginning with key sectors and leading quickly to a nationwide general strike until the anti-worker pension “reform” is dropped. But the attack on pensions is only part of the ruling-class offensive against working people. Students and youth are going into the streets as well to protest the unpaid internships, low wages, precarious jobs and massive unemployment they face. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants are demanding legalization, and the government’s racist attacks against the Romany people and French “travelers,” shutting down their camps and carrying out mass deportations, are a taste of the police-state repression it has in store for everyone. The power of the workers movement must be brought out to defend all the exploited and oppressed.

Students Unite with Workers in Struggle


High school students march in Paris against pension "reform" law, October 12. (Photo: Boris Horvat/AFP)


The last week marked a significant change in the protests as the struggle entered its decisive phase. Instead of one-day walkouts continuing strikes were called, notably on the rail system and at refineries. In additioin, students and youth mobilized for the first time in significant numbers. On October 12, there were walkouts at over 400 high schools and 90 were totally blockaded. More than 150,000 students participated in the demos. A popular sign read: “Youth toiling in the slave galleys, older people living in poverty, this isn’t the society we want.” In the universities there were assemblies of several hundred students to discuss what action to take. In succeeding days the number of schools “mobilized” rose to 1,000 as student protests spread around France.

“Carla, we’re like you, the head of state is screwing us too.” Paris, October 16.
(Photo: Libération)

The largest were in provincial cities including Toulouse (20,000 marchers), Rennes (7,000), Bordeaux (5,000), Orléans (2,000), Le Havre, Montpellier, Nîmes, Lens and elsewhere. In Paris, several thousand rallied outside the headquarters of the employers association (Medef). A lead banner said, “Neither kids nor puppets,” responding to government claims that they were too young to protest about a pension law and were being manipulated. Students’ signs read (in reference to Sarkozy’s model-wife Carla Bruni), “Carla, we’re like you, the head of state is screwing us too.” A favorite chant: “Sarkozy, you’re screwed, the youth are in the streets.” And: “Put youth to work, send oldsters to the cafés” (“Les jeunes au boulot, les vieux aux bistrots”). One protester’s sign put it personally: “Mom and Dad, I’ll get your right to retire at 60 for you.”

Government spokesmen complain about the “irresponsibility” of “bringing 15-year-olds into the streets” for “something that doesn’t concern them.” But students pointed out that as a result of the law, a million potential jobs will be eliminated, as older workers are forced to stay on, aggravating the astronomical (26 percent) youth unemployment. The government, media and trade unions all agree that if the students and youth go out, this fundamentally changes the battle, widening it into a general social conflict rather than a strictly union issue. They recall 2006, when after two months of student strikes, the right-wing government of Jacques Chirac was forced to withdraw the law for a lower minimum wage for youth (the CPE). Sarkozy remarked, “you have to watch them [the youth] like heating milk on the stove” (i.e., they may boil over). A Paris newspaper (Libération, 12 October) wrote: “Experience shows, when you say the youth are in the streets, you’re saying withdrawal of the law is in the cards.”

“Youth toiling in the slave galleys, older people living in poverty, this isn’t the society we want.” Youth demonstrate in Strasbourg, October 12.
(Photo: Frederick Florin/AFP)


Police responded to the youth mobilization with heavy-duty tactics in a number of cities. In Montreuil, in the working-class suburban district of Seine-St. Denis outside Paris, cops shot a 16-year-old high school student in the face with a flash-ball gun – a French anti-riot weapon that fires rubber bullets – breaking his cheekbones and detaching his eye from the retina. Several times in recent years, youths have lost an eye when cops shot them point-blank with flash-ball guns. This police provocation only angered the students more and spread the walkouts. A student leader pointed out that the more the government tells youths they don’t belong in the streets, the more they come out. The government poured oil on the fire by sending letters to parents telling them to keep their offspring from demonstrating. This, too, backfired. The main parent-teacher association, FCPE, issued a statement denouncing police running amok and calling for parents to join the student demonstrations to stand in the way of clashes with the “forces of order.”

Key to the Fight for Victory: Forge a Leninist-Trotskyst Workers Party


At present, “public opinion” is running heavily against Sarkozy. Three-quarters of the population is opposed to the pension “reform” and 54 percent said they wanted “the unions to organize a general strike as in 1995” to force the government to back down. On October 13, Le Monde headlined an article on its web site, “What’s needed is an insurrectional general strike,” quoting a retired woman trade-unionist. One recently publicized survey reported that a quarter of French youth agree that “it’s necessary to radically change the social order by revolutionary action” (up from 6 percent in 1990). So the “radicalization” of the struggle is not simply in terms of tactics. In the face of the most severe capitalist economic crisis since the 1930s – a new Depression, in fact – and the evident impotence of the usual trade-union protests, we are seeing renewed receptivity to calls for class struggle and even revolutionary agitation. This is what the ruling class and its labor lieutenants are deathly afraid of in the battle over pensions.

It will take more than massive strikes “like in 1995” to bring Sarkozy to his knees. In December of that year, a series of millions-strong mobilizations of public sector workers along with continuing walkouts by rail, metro, postal, gas, telephone and other public workers, brought France to the brink of a general strike. But the union tops were afraid to call it. Eventually, Prime Minister Alain Juppé dropped his “reform” of public sector pensions (which would raise the number of years service to 40) but not his attack on social security, which has led to years of cuts in France’s public health system. With its chants of “tous ensemble” (all out together), the 1995 struggle infused new spirit in a trade-union movement shaken by counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and East Europe. But it did not provide a revolutionary program to combat the bourgeois offensive. In 2003, Chirac was able to push through the rest of the Juppé Plan on public sector pensions, aided by the defection of the leadership of the CFDT union federation.

If 1995 doesn’t provide a model, no one in France, least of all government and trade-union leaders, can help recalling 1968 – particularly since the entry of large numbers of student youth onto the scene. Last week, as high-school protests spread, Olivier Besancenot, the young postal worker who ran for president on the ticket of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and is now (since the LCR dissolved) the main spokesman for the “New Anti-Capitalist Party” (NPA), issued a statement calling “For a New May ’68.” The reference to the 1968 student-worker revolt that brought France to the brink of revolution and sent shock waves around the world produced a chorus of yelps from supporters of the conservative government. But while the so-called “far left” races to catch up with the student-youth protesters, there are problems with this call. First and foremost, the pro-capitalist union bureaucracy stands in the way of any serious radicalization of the struggle. They’re looking for the exit, for a way out without losing face.

Many union leaders are privately worrying to the press about the participation of youth. Libération (16 October) quoted the head of one labor federation saying, “It’s a real pain to manage the youth … it will take some time to separate them.” A CGT leader remarked, “We didn’t ask them to come out,” but said it’s probably better they are there, while worrying about “security.” Another union leader complained of “things getting out of hand and the violence discrediting the movement, turning off public opinion.” And the more right-wing union tops, notably of the CFDT and UNSA, have hinted that once the law is passed by the Senate, “other forms of action” will be called for – “in other words, the end of the movement,” as Le Monde (17 October) put it. They may hesitate to break ranks; Jean-Claude Mailly of Force Ouvrière may invite youth into FO contingents; Bernard Thibault of the CGT and François Chérèque of the CFDT may do their unity dance; but ultimately the union bureaucracy will bow to the pressure of the bourgeoisie, for they are all committed to working in the framework of capitalism.


Students join with workers outside Renault auto factory at Billancourt, 17 May 1968.
(Photo: AP)


Meanwhile, the once-upon-a-time far left that came out of May ’68 has long-since become thoroughly reformist. In the recent protests, groups like Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle) and the NPA did not initially call for a general strike (LO still doesn’t), but only for massive participation in the marches. As students joined in this month, one of their main chants was for a “general strike until the law is withdrawn.” So now the NPA and unions it influences (notably Sud-Rail, Sud-Éducation and the Solidaires union federation) are calling for “extendable strikes until victory.” But what do they mean by “victory,” withdrawal of the law, or just some changes? When they’re feeling pressure from the students, they sometimes call for an “extendable general strike” (grève générale reconductible). In other words, one that isn’t limited to a single day, which amounts to a big parade combined with work stoppages in places where the unions are strong. But to call a general strike without a clear objective, voting daily on whether to continue, is to ask for defeat. Like the bureaucrats’ endless “days of action,” it’s a pressure tactic.

The kind of tame parades that have taken place repeatedly in the last year in France, Spain and particularly Greece are hardly general strikes, which as Leon Trotsky pointed out, pose the question of who is the master of the house, which class shall rule? Naturally, the reformists and pro-capitalist union bureaucrats have no desire to raise the struggle to that level, because they have no intention of fighting for power, for workers revolution. Thus everyone from the union tops to the “anti-capitalist” left are dead-set opposed to a real general strike, which they dismiss as “unrealistic,” “dreaming” (a “rêve générale,” a general dream) and the like. But the reformist ex-“far left” is caught in a bind: they are afraid to raise slogans too far out in front of what the CGT-FO-CFDT-UNSA union tops find acceptable, yet if they lag too far behind the students, they risk losing their potential recruits. So they try to find somewhere in between.

That hardly amounts to revolutionary leadership that can prepare people for the struggle that is posed. Instead, these tailist politics will “lead” protesters into a dead end. Even the bourgeois press knows perfectly well what should be, and isn’t being, done. An editorial in Libération (14 October) referred to the “phony strike,” pointing out that the union leaders are fighting against a bill but not calling for it to be withdrawn, that while the marches are huge the actual strikes are limited to a few sectors, not including some of the historically most militant. “One could imagine a ‘proxy’ strike, led by a minority but valiant vanguard” (meaning, militants could set up strike pickets that other workers would not cross). “Rail workers are ready, on paper, to open the way by blocking the rails. But they are not candidates to be kamikazes for the social movement.” (Rail workers are mainly organized in the CGT, influenced but no longer tightly controlled by the Communist Party, and the “far left” SUD-Rail.)

For this struggle to win a real and lasting victory, it is necessary to raise not just vague “anti-capitalist” demands but to put forward a transitional program leading toward socialist revolution. A serious struggle for a real general strike would call for the formation of elected strike committees, as a way to wrest control from the pro-capitalist union bureaucrats. Because of the division of the union movement into several competing labor federations, serious strikes often produce joint coordinating committees on the local or regional level. At the time of the last big truckers strike, Le Monde (5 November 1997) noted that in 1992, “the unions lost control of the movement to spontaneous coordinating committees and ‘jusque’au-boutists’” (those who want to “go all the way”). Strike committees elected by the ranks of all the federations as well as non-members would also be a real step toward industrial unionism.

To strengthen ties between labor and youth and mobilize the heavily immigrant working-class banlieues (suburbs), class-struggle trade-unionists should fight not only to stop the pension “reform” law, but also for a drastically shortened workweek, at no loss in pay, to provide jobs for all. They should fight the explosion of temporary jobs and “disposable” workers by demanding job security and equal rights for all workers, from the moment they begin working. And they should mobilize union power to demand an end to expulsions of the Roms; to block the destruction of their camps, including with workers defense guards; and to demand freedom of travel and full citizenship rights for all immigrants. A number of leaders of the CGT, CFDT and FO union federations as well as spokesmen for the NPA have signed a “citizens’ appeal” in defense of the Roms (which, however, upholds “republican security” and the “necessary respect for public order”). Yet on October 12, the same day that the National Assembly voted the racist Bresson immigration and nationality law , this was hardly (if at all) mentioned by the various union and far left groups in their leaflets and signs in the protest over the pension law.

A Libération article talked of elements of a “pre-revolutionary situation” today, and a quote from Lenin on the role of the youth in revolution was highlighted. But when a reformist like Besancenot of the NPA talks of a “new ’68,” in good part he is engaging in the old French sport of “épater le bourgeois” (throwing a scare into the bourgeoisie), as Baudelaire put it. In contrast, the former soixantehuitard (68er) Daniel Cohn-Bendit dumped cold water on talk of a new ’68, or even a general strike. Instead, “Danny the Green,” now a respectable deputy in the European parliament, called on the unions to organize “a Grenelle together with the left.” (In 1968, the Grenelle Agreement between the union tops and De Gaulle’s prime minister George Pompidou was massively rejected by the striking workers!) May 1968, when students joined with up to ten million workers in a general strike which went on for more than two weeks, is definitely a point of reference. The situation today is different in many ways, particularly coming in the middle of a deep capitalist economic crisis. But this only heightens the revolutionary potential. The real problem with this call is that May ’68 was defeated. The reformist Communist Party clambered on board the general strike, which it didn’t call and didn’t want, in order to put an end to the agitation, and the “far left” did not have the revolutionary program to fight them.

In 1968, rather than agitating for workers control and occupation of factories throughout the country, as Trotsky called for in the mid-1930s and as had already begun in mid-May, Ernest Mandel and his followers in the JCR (Revolutionary Communist Youth) joined with left social democrats in calling for “anti-capitalist structural reforms” and “self-management.” Other pseudo-Trotskyists such as the followers of Pierre Lambert abandoned the barricades at the height of struggle, and Lutte Ouvrière limited itself to the same-old, same-old of factory-based struggles, while lambasting students for “fighting in the streets”! (Today, LO’s main banner reads, “What a Parliament Decides Can Be Reversed in the Streets.” Yes, but how?) A genuinely communist leadership would be calling for a defensive general strike against the Sarkozy government’s attack while putting forward the perspective “a new May ’68 that goes all the way” to a struggle for power, for workers revolution. And key to that struggle is forging an authentically Leninist-Trotskyist workers party. ■

From The Blogosphere- The International Marxist Tendency Website- France: a general strike needed to defeat the government-The Struggle For Power Is Posed

France: a general strike needed to defeat the government

Written by Jorge Martín

Tuesday, 26 October 2010


On Friday, October 22, finally the French government managed to get the pensions reform passed through the Senate. The increasingly unpopular government of Sarkozy, faced with an unprecedented movement of strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, mass pickets and general assemblies, hoped that this, together with the beginning of the All Saints school holidays, would bring the mass movement to a halt. This does not seem to be happening, however.

With all opinion polls still showing 60 to 70% support for the strikes and blockades, and one of them suggesting that 59% of the population was in favour of the continuation of the movement even after the approval of the law, the trade union leaders have been forced to call for two more "national days of action", on Thursday, October 28, and Saturday, November 6.

However, there is a general mood in the movement that repeated days of action are no longer enough to force the government to retreat. Since the beginning of September there have been six days of action, three of which saw the participation of more than three million people in demonstrations all over the country. After the national day of action on October 12, with 3.5 million people on the streets, a number of sectors started indefinite strikes, notably the refinery workers and the railway workers. Despite the stubborn refusal of the national trade union leaders to call a general strike, section after the section of workers have joined a growing national movement whose focus has become the idea that only by bringing the economy to a halt can the government be defeated.

The continued strike of refinery workers has now reached a point where nearly half of the country's petrol stations are without fuel, and the figure is even higher in the West of the country and the Parisian region. As in any important strike movement, the workers have become aware of their own power. CGT shop steward at Total group, Marcel Croquefer, explains it this way: "We have become aware of our own weight, of our ability to organise decisive action." He also explains how they have become a focal point for the movement and have received solidarity from other groups of workers. Croquefer explains that solidarity is very positive but "at the same time, the more sectors join the strike, the stronger we will be".

The same sentiment is expressed in the statement of the National Federation of Chemical Workers of the CGT. While thanking all those who have shown solidarity, they explain that:

"We want to state clearly and once again that the best form of ‘solidarity’ is to spread and strengthen the strikes to other sectors of the economy. Only in this way we will be able, all together, to stop the dismantling of our social welfare system at the hands of the Medef and the government".

The refinery workers’ union of the CGT is to the left of the national leadership, refusing the idea of "social partnership" and remaining loyal to "class struggle". But it would be wrong to think that it is only the refinery workers who are part of this movement. The strike is continuing at the country's ports, preventing the unloading of crude oil at the country's main terminals. There are also road blockades organised by the lorry drivers, strikes of public transport in cities like Marseille and Toulouse, there were blockades at several airports last week, a continued strike of refuse collectors in Marseille, in state education, etc.

The strike of the energy workers, including stoppages at some of the country's nuclear power plants, has also had an important impact. According to official figures, on October 19, between 13 and 14 hours, France had to import 5,990 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to the production of 6 nuclear reactors.

A very interesting video of the blockade of the Toulouse airport on October 21, shows the mood amongst growing sections of the movement. "We have had plenty of demonstrations and Sarkozy doesn't listen - we must move on to something else... we need to blockade the economy... we need a general strike" seemed to be the common opinions of those present. The mass picket involving hundreds (perhaps up to 1,000) was composed of workers and trade union activists from the buses, Airbus, students, hospital workers, and many others, and had been decided and organised at the Interprofesional General Assembly on the previous day.

It is clear that some of the trade union leaders wanted to put an end to the movement, taking advantage of the fact that the law on "reform" of the pensions was going to be voted in the Senate on October 20. The massive scale of the demonstrations on October 19 prevented most of them from retreating. "Given the mood of the rank and file we cannot put an end to the movement", trade union leaders both from the CFDT and the CGT, explained, almost apologetically. However, instead of giving the movement a clear lead, calling for a general strike the only step that would make the movement stronger they called for yet another two "national days of action" on October 28 and November 6 (the latter on a Saturday). As a matter of fact the trade union leaders seemed to be more worried about "debordement" (being overtaken by the movement), than about giving the struggle a clear lead.

This left the movement without a clear direction, but despite that, stoppages, road blockades, strikes and all sorts of initiatives to maintain the movement strong developed at the initiative of the rank and file and local and regional trade union bodies. On the day when the Senate was supposed to pass the law, Wednesday 20, thousands of workers and students marched in Paris in two separate demonstrations, one called by the school student organisations, the other at the initiative of General Assemblies of railway workers, postal workers, and others. Both demonstrations attempted to reach the Senate building, but were stopped by anti-riot police. The main problem was that, lacking a call on the part of the national leadership, they did not have the necessary numbers.

The media has concentrated on the strikes at the refineries, but a report on Friday 22, spoke of nearly 250 industrial establishments in the private sector which had been affected by strikes and stoppages of one kind or another. In the North Pas-de-Calais region, where the CGT is to the left of the national leadership, 25 private sector factories have been on strike or suffered stoppages of varying duration. Many industrial areas around the country are only working partially, as trade union activists organise regular blockades and mass picketing.

The government keeps talking of a "minority of radicals holding the country to ransom" and the media hide the real extent of the strike. This is in contradiction with the statement of the Economics Minister that the movement is causing daily loses of between 200 and 400 million euro.

The port town of Le Havre is one of the epicentres of the movement, with mass demonstrations of tens of thousands and an indefinite blockade of the harbour. Here a daily inter-professional general assembly involving all sectors in struggle meets to share information and take decisions on the steps to be taken. The daily bulletin of the general assembly (Havre de Greve www.havredegreve.org) has listed all those factories and workplaces which were still part of the strike movement on Saturday, October 23: Total Raffinerie de Normandie, CIM (99%), Petrochemicals, SNCF (railways), Chevron, Centrale EDF (energy), Exxon, Foure Lagadec, Vinci, Ponticelli, Debris, Opteor, building workers, regional civil servants at Gonfreville, Gainneville, d'Harfleur , Konecranes, also Aircelle, lorry drivers, Renault Sandouville, France Télécom, Lafarge, Yara, etc.

The government has responded with violence and repression. There are now plenty of eyewitness reports and video evidence showing the presence of agent provocateurs at student demonstrations and orchestrating violence at demonstrations in general (see for instance this video). The CGT has denounced cases of plain-clothes police officers wearing CGT stickers or even CGT steward arm-bands playing a role in creating violent incidents during demonstrations. In order to defend their demonstration against provocateurs and anti-riot police, the last student demonstration was stewarded by trade unionists.

At the same time, realising the key role in the movement played by the strike at the refineries, the government has used violent and legal means to attempt to break the resolve of the workers. First they used the CRS anti-riot police to lift the blockades that were organised outside the main refineries and fuel depots by refinery workers with the support of trade union activists from other sectors. This soon became a game of cat and mouse. In one refinery the CRS opened the gates, only to realise that if the workers continued the strike the refinery would remain paralysed anyway. At another refinery, the barricades were removed by the CRS, but the trade union activists then proceeded to blockade a nearby roundabout, thus preventing any fuel from leaving the site.

Using emergency laws which are supposed to deal with cases of "national emergency" the government moved to "conscript" all workers at the Grandpuits refinery on Friday 21, after violently breaking up the picket line. With 430 workers, Grandpuits is the smallest of the six Total refineries in the country, but supplies 70% of the Ile-de-France region. In effect this means that workers are ordered to go back to work or else they face jail sentences. This is an unprecedented attack on the right to strike, which shows the truth contained in the Marxist analysis that the state (police, the laws, etc) is, in the last analysis, "armed bodies of men in defence of private property". The initial order forcing all workers back to work was subsequently revoked by a magistrate, only to be replaced by another ordering about 25% of the workforce back to work to cover "essential services".

The movement of the oil workers has also found an echo in Belgium. The socialist union ACOD, who organises the workers on the locks at the two main rivers Schelde and Leie, have threatened to block river transportation of fuel to France. Another socialist union, the FGTB, at the Total refinery in Feluy blocked the whole site today as it realised that it was being used to break the strike in France. A group of important socialist and Christian trade unionists, shop stewards and leaders, including some MPs of the Socialist Party and the Green Party, and the Socialist Party left wing SP.a Rood have called for the blocking of all transport to France which is intended to break the movement. On Thursday, October 28 they will organise a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Brussels. The Marxists of Vonk have played an important part in this initiative.

A statement of the FGTB on Monday 25, declared that they would go on strike at the Total Feluy refinery, which has seen increased production in the last few days, which the workers rightly interpret as a strike-breaking activity against their French class brothers and sisters. The union warned that they have witnessed an increase of 25 oil tankers a day and that unless production went back to normal levels they would stop work as of today, Tuesday 26.

The movement of the French workers has captured the imagination of millions of workers, youth and trade union activists all over the world. They can see the French workers taking a firm stand against attacks which are very similar to the ones they are suffering. An example of this is the call for a general strike in Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana for Tuesday, October 25. Clearly the reasons for the strike are particular to these French overseas territories (the rise in the prices of fuel, food, water and electricity), but they have also been inspired by the movement in France. This can be seen by the call by the UGTG for an indefinite strike of oil and refinery workers in Guadeloupe. In turn, many workers in France were inspired by the victorious 44-day general strike which paralysed Guadeloupe in 2009.

Despite violent repression and draconian legal measures on the part of the French government, on Monday, October 25, workers at the six Total refineries in the country voted to continue with their indefinite strike. Three other refineries voted the same way. At another three refineries belonging to Exxon Mobil, workers voted to put an end to the strike and resume production. According to a company spokesperson this was down to the "CFDT not playing the game anymore". As a matter of fact, CFDT national leader Chereque had made scandalous statements on France Inter, to the effect that "the right of people to free circulation" had to be guaranteed, and that the strikes and blockades of the refineries and fuel depots was "threatening to undermine the popularity of the movement". It has to be said however, that Chereque was only taking to its logical conclusion the wording which was already on the October 21 statement of the national Intersyndical (trade union alliance) to the effect that united initiatives should take into account "the respect for property and people".

In effect, the CFDT leadership would very much like to put an end to this movement, but after the massive show of force on October 19 they were forced to call for the two new days of action together with the CGT. The government, with its firm and intransigent stance, is also making the job of the trade union leaders more difficult. The trade union leaders are begging for the government to reopen negotiations, rather than demanding the outright withdrawal of the reform. The CGT leadership also uses the excuse of maintaining “trade union unity” in order to avoid an open call for a general strike, but when 60% of the population are in favour of a general strike this argument comes across as very hollow. The leader of the CFDT, Chereque, has stressed that he “does not put into question the legitimacy of Parliament” and that after the law is finally passed we will be in a “new stage”, and he has also made an appeal for negotiations with the bosses’ organisation MEDEF about “jobs for the youth and the old”, clearly preparing his own exit from the movement. CGT leader Thibault, however, cannot afford to be so open, since he is under pressure from the ranks of his own union, and so he has insisted that the “movement has not ended”, but adding that after the law has been passed, the movement “will have to take on new forms", and by this he clearly does not mean the calling of a general strike!

The danger in this situation is that the sectors which are on strike will grow tired and exhausted and the strike movement could fizzle out. As well as the three Exxon Mobil refineries which have voted to end the strike, the refuse collectors in Marseille have also voted an end to their strike at the request of their union FO. Some of the general assemblies of the railway workers over the weekend decided to continue the movement but to use other means which will hurt them less in their wages; for instance, instead of a 24-hour strike, to strike for an hour at the beginning and the end of each shift, thus causing maximum disruption. The CGT coordinator at the Total group explained the mood amongst the refinery workers: "We know that refineries weigh heavily in this movement, but we do not want to be the only ones to act in France".

The responsibility here is on the shoulders of the trade union leaders, particularly those of the CGT. The conditions could not be better for the development of a general strike which would bring the government to its knees and force a retreat on the pensions reform. There is massive and unprecedented public support for the movement, even despite the disruption caused. The approval rating of Sarkozy, now only 29%, is at its lowest level since his election in 2007. Strong links of solidarity have been built amongst the strikers in different sectors of the economy through the common picket lines and blockades, and basic coordination has been established in many towns and cities through inter-professional general assemblies. All that is missing is a leadership of the trade union movement which is up to the task.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 27, will see the final stage of the parliamentary proceedings for the approval of the pensions reform, and the government is already putting heavy stress on the question of the legality of the reform as a way of take legitimacy away from the movement. However, the anti-CPE struggle in 2006 managed to force the withdrawal of the "contract of first employment" after it had been approved by parliament. Incredibly, the trade union leaders have called for a national day of action for October 28, after the approval of the law. The student organisations have called for a national day of action for today, Tuesday 26, with demonstrations which could be joined by many workers.

The current movement of the French working class is an extraordinary confirmation of the power of the working class today. What is needed is a clear call for a general strike. If this does not come from above, the local and regional inter-professional general assemblies should link up at a departmental and also national level, through elected representatives, in order to give the movement a clear leadership. Despite all the obstacles that they face, the French workers have revolutionary traditions. This is the country of 1936 and 1968, as the comrades from La Riposte clearly point out, that is, a country with revolutionary traditions of a movement from below escaping the control of the trade union leaders. The last word has not yet been uttered.

Jorge Martín

See also an interesting picture gallery on boston.com with pictures from strikes and blockades around the country.

*From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America)- The Pathology of Renegacy by James P. Cannon (1940)

Click on the headline to link to the article described in the title.

Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League. A recent example of that linkage in this space was when I argued in this space that, for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, one must examine closely the fate of Marx’s First International, the generic socialist Second International, Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution-inspired Communist International, and Trotsky’s revolutionary successor, the Fourth International before one looks elsewhere for a centralized international working class organization that codifies the principle –“workers of the world unite.”

On the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I am speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that made up the organization under review, the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Beyond that there are several directions to go in but these are the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s. If I am asked, and I have been, this is the material that I suggest young militants should start of studying to learn about our common political forbears. And that premise underlines the point of the entries that will posted under this headline in further exploration of the early days, “the dog days” of the Socialist Workers Party.

Note: I can just now almost hear some very nice and proper socialists (descendents of those socialism for dentist-types) just now, screaming in the night, yelling what about Max Shachtman (and, I presume, his henchman, Albert Glotzer, as well) and his various organizational formations starting with the Workers party when he split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1940? Well, what about old Max and his “third camp” tradition? I said the Trotskyist tradition not the State Department socialist tradition. If you want to trace Marxist continuity that way, go to it. That, in any case, is not my sense of continuity, although old Max knew how to “speak” Marxism early in his career under Jim Cannon’s prodding. Moreover at the name Max Shachtman I can hear some moaning, some serious moaning about blackguards and turncoats, from the revolutionary pantheon by Messrs. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. I rest my case.

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