Friday, September 28, 2012

On The 63rd Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution-From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-Peasant War In China and the Proletariat(September 22, 1932)


<b>Click on the headline to link to the <i>Leon Trotsky Internet Archives</i>.
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<b>Markin comment from the American Left History blog (2006):
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<strong>THE PROPHET ARMED-1879-1921; THE PROPHET UNARMED-1921-1929; THE PROPHET OUTCAST-1929-1940, THREE VOLUMES, ISAAC DEUTSCHER. VERSO PRESS, LONDON, 2003. </strong>
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Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume biography of the great Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky although written over one half century ago remains the standard biography of the man. Although this writer disagrees , as I believe that Trotsky himself would have, about the appropriateness of the title of prophet and its underlying premise that a tragic hero had fallen defeated in a worthy cause, the vast sum of work produced and researched makes up for those basically literary differences. Deutscher, himself, became in the end an adversary of Trotsky’s politics around his differing interpretation of the historic role of Stalinism and the fate of the Fourth International but he makes those differences clear and in general they do not mar the work. I do not believe even with the eventual full opening of all the old Soviet-era files any future biographer will dramatically increase our knowledge about Trotsky and his revolutionary struggles. Moreover, as I have mentioned elsewhere in other reviews, while he has not been historically fully vindicated he is in no need of any certificate of revolutionary good conduct.

At the beginning of the 21st century when the validity of socialist political programs as tools for change is in apparent decline or disregarded as utopian it may be hard to imagine the spirit that drove Trotsky to dedicate his whole life to the fight for a socialist society. However, at the beginning of the 20th century he represented only the most consistent and audacious of a revolutionary generation of mainly Eastern Europeans and Russians who set out to change the history of the 20th century. It was as if the best and brightest of that generation were afraid, for better or worse, not to take part in the political struggles that would shape the modern world. As Trotsky noted elsewhere this element was missing, with the exceptions of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and precious few others, in the Western labor movement. Here are some highlights of Trotsky's life and politics culled from Deutscher's works that militant leftists should think about.

On the face of it Trotsky’s personal profile does not stand out as that of a born revolutionary. Born of a hard working, eventually prosperous, Jewish farming family in the Ukraine (of all places) there is something anomalous about his eventual political occupation. Always a vociferous reader, good writer and top student under other circumstances he would have found easy success, as others did, in the bourgeois academy, if not in Russia then in Western Europe. But there is the rub; it was the intolerable and personally repellant political and cultural conditions of Czarist Russia in the late 19th century that eventually drove Trotsky to the revolutionary movement- first as a ‘ragtag’ populist and then to his life long dedication to orthodox Marxism. As noted above, a glance at the biographies of Eastern European revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Martov, Christian Rakovsky, Bukharin and others shows that Trotsky was hardly alone in his anger at the status quo. And the determination to something about it.

For those who argue, as many did in the New Left in the 1960’s, that the most oppressed are the most revolutionary the lives of the Russian and Eastern European revolutionaries provide a cautionary note. The most oppressed, those most in need of the benefits of socialist revolution, are mainly wrapped up in the sheer struggle for survival and do not enter the political arena until late, if at all. Even a quick glance at the biographies of the secondary leadership of various revolutionary movements, actual revolutionary workers who formed the links to the working class , generally show skilled or semi-skilled workers striving to better themselves rather than the most downtrodden lumpenproletarian elements. The sailors of Kronstadt and the Putilov workers in Saint Petersburg come to mind. The point is that ‘the wild boys and girls’ of the street do not lead revolutions; they simply do not have the staying power. On this point, militants can also take Trotsky’s biography as a case study of what it takes to stay the course in the difficult struggle to create a new social order. While the Russian revolutionary movement, like the later New Left mentioned above, had more than its share of dropouts, especially after the failure of the 1905 revolution, it is notably how many stayed with the movement under much more difficult circumstances than we ever faced. For better or worst, and I think for the better, that is how revolutions are made.

Once Trotsky made the transition to Marxism he became embroiled in the struggles to create a unity Russian Social Democratic Party, a party of the whole class, or at least a party representing the historic interests of that class. This led him to participate in the famous Bolshevik/Menshevik struggle in 1903 which defined what the party would be, its program, its methods of work and who would qualify for membership. The shorthand for this fight can be stated as the battle between the ‘hards’ (Bolsheviks, who stood for a party of professional revolutionaries) and the ‘softs’ (Mensheviks, who stood for a looser conception of party membership) although those terms do not do full justice to these fights. Strangely, given his later attitudes, Trotsky stood with the ‘softs’, the Mensheviks, in the initial fight in 1903. Although Trotsky almost immediately afterward broke from that faction I do not believe that his position in the 1903 fight contradicted the impulses he exhibited throughout his career- personally ‘libertarian’, for lack of a better word , and politically hard in the clutch.

Even a cursory glance at most of Trotsky’s career indicates that it was not spent in organizational in-fighting, or at least not successfully. Trotsky stands out as the consummate free-lancer. More than one biographer has noted this condition, including his definitive biographer Isaac Deutscher. Let me make a couple of points to take the edge off this characterization though. In that 1903 fight mentioned above Trotsky did fight against Economism (the tendency to only fight over trade union issues and not fight overtly political struggles against the Czarist regime) and he did fight against Bundism (the tendency for one group, in this case the Jewish workers, to set the political agenda for that particular group). Moreover, he most certainly favored a centralized organization. These were the key issues at that time.

Furthermore, the controversial organizational question did not preclude the very strong notion that a ‘big tent’ unitary party was necessary. The ‘big tent’ German Social Democratic model held very strong sway among the Russian revolutionaries for a long time, including Lenin’s Bolsheviks. The long and short of it was that Trotsky was not an organization man, per se. He knew how to organize revolutions, armies, Internationals, economies and so on when he needed to but on a day to day basis no. Thus, to compare or contrast him to Lenin and his very different successes is unfair. Both have an honorable place in the revolutionary movement; it is just a different place.

That said, Trotsky really comes into his own as a revolutionary leader in the Revolution of 1905 not only as a publicist but as the central leader of the Soviets (workers councils) which made their first appearance at that time. In a sense it is because he was a freelancer that he was able to lead the Petrograd Soviet during its short existence and etch upon the working class of Russia (and in a more limited way, internationally) the need for its own organizations to seize state power. All revolutionaries honor this experience, as we do the Paris Commune, as the harbingers of October, 1917. As Lenin and Trotsky both confirm, it was truly a ‘dress rehearsal’ for that event. It is in 1905 that Trotsky first wins his stars by directing the struggle against the Czar at close quarters, in the streets and working class meeting halls. And later in his eloquent and ‘hard’ defense of the experiment after it was crushed by the Czarism reaction. I believe that it was here in the heat of the struggle in 1905 where the contradiction between Trotsky’s ‘soft’ position in 1903 and his future ‘hard’ Bolshevik position of 1917 and thereafter is resolved. Here was a professional revolutionary who one could depend on when the deal went down. (A future blog will review the 1905 revolution in more detail).

No discussion of this period of Trotsky’s life is complete without mentioning his very real contribution to Marxist theory- that is, the theory of Permanent Revolution. Although the theory is over one hundred years old it still retains its validity today in those countries that still have not had their bourgeois revolutions, or completed them. This rather simple straightforward theory about the direction of the Russian revolution (and which Trotsky later in the 1920’s, after the debacle of the Chinese Revolution, made applicable to what today are called 'third world’ countries) has been covered with so many falsehoods, epithets, and misconceptions that it deserves further explanation.

Why? Militants today must address the ramifications of the question what kind of revolution is necessary as a matter of international revolutionary strategy. Trotsky, taking the specific historical development and the peculiarities of Russian economic development as part of the international capitalist order as a starting point argued that there was no ‘Chinese wall’ between the bourgeois revolution Russian was in desperate need of and the tasks of the socialist revolution. In short, in the 20th century ( and by extension, now) the traditional leadership role of the bourgeois in the bourgeois revolution in a economically backward country, due to its subservience to international capitalist powers and fear of its own working class and plebian masses, falls to the proletariat. The Russian Revolution of 1905 sharply demonstrated the outline of that tendency especially on the perfidious role of the Russian bourgeoisie. The unfolding of revolutionary events in 1917 graphically confirmed this. The history of revolutionary struggles since then, and not only in ‘third world’ countries, gives added, if negative, confirmation of that analysis. (A future blog will review this theory of permanent revolution in more detail).

World War I was a watershed for modern history in many ways. For the purposes of this review two points are important. First, the failure of the bulk of the European social democracy- representing the masses of their respective working classes- to not only not oppose their own ruling classes’ plunges into war, which would be a minimal practical expectation, but to go over and directly support their own respective ruling classes in that war. This position was most famously demonstrated when the entire parliamentary fraction of the German Social Democratic party voted for the war credits for the Kaiser on August 4, 1914. This initially left the anti-war elements of international social democracy, including Lenin and Trotsky, almost totally isolated. As the carnage of that war mounted in endless and senseless slaughter on both sides it became clear that a new political alignment in the labor movement was necessary.

The old, basically useless Second International, which in its time held some promise of bringing in the new socialist order, needed to give way to a new revolutionary International. That eventually occurred in 1919 with the foundation of the Communist International (also known as the Third International). (A future blog will review the first years of the Communist International). Horror of horrors, particularly for reformists of all stripes, this meant that the international labor movement, one way or another, had to split into its reformist and revolutionary components. It is during the war that Trotsky and Lenin, not without some lingering differences, draw closer and begin the process of several years, only ended by Lenin’s death, of close political collaboration.

Secondly, World War I marks the definite (at least for Europe) end of the progressive role of international capitalist development. The outlines of imperialist aggression previously noted had definitely taken center stage. This theory of imperialism was most closely associated with Lenin in his master work Imperialism-The Highest Stage of Capitalism but one should note that Trotsky in all his later work up until his death fully subscribed to the theory. Although Lenin’s work is in need of some updating, to account for various technological changes and the extensions of globalization, holds up for political purposes. This analysis meant that a fundamental shift in the relationship of the working class to the ruling class was necessary. A reformist perspective for social change, although not specific reforms, was no longer tenable. Politically, as a general proposition, socialist revolution was on the immediate agenda. This is when Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution meets the Leninist conception of revolutionary organization. It proved to be a successful formula in Russia in October, 1917. Unfortunately, those lessons were not learned (or at least learned in time) by those who followed and the events of October, 1917 stand today as the only ‘pure’ working class revolution in history.

An argument can, and has, been made that the October Revolution could only have occurred under the specific condition of decimated, devastated war-weary Russia of 1917. This argument is generally made by those who were not well-wishers of revolution in Russia (or anywhere else, for that matter). It is rather a truism, indulged in by Marxists as well as by others, that war is the mother of revolution. That said, the October revolution was made then and there but only because of the convergence of enough revolutionary forces led by the Bolsheviks and additionally the forces closest to the Bolsheviks (including Trotsky’s Inter-District Organization) had prepared for these events by its entire pre-history. This is the subjective factor in history. No, not substitutionalism-that was the program of the Social Revolutionary terrorists, and the like- but if you like, revolutionary opportunism. I would be much more impressed by an argument that stated that the revolution would not have occurred without the presence of Lenin and Trotsky. That would be a subjective argument, par excellent. But, they were there.

Again Trotsky in 1917, like in 1905, is in his element speaking seemingly everywhere, writing, organizing (when it counts, by the way). If not the brains of the revolution (that role is honorably conceded to Lenin) certainly the face of the Revolution. Here is a revolutionary moment in every great revolution when the fate of the revolution turned on a dime (the subjective factor). The dime turned. (See blog dated April 18, 2006 for a review of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution).
One of the great lessons that militants can learn from all previous modern revolutions is that once the revolutionary forces seize power from the old regime an inevitable counterrevolutionary onslaught by elements of the old order (aided by some banished moderate but previously revolutionary elements, as a rule). The Russian revolution proved no exception. If anything the old regime, aided and abetted by numerous foreign powers and armies, was even more bloodthirsty. It fell to Trotsky to organize the defense of the revolution. Now, you might ask- What is a nice Jewish boy like Trotsky doing playing with guns? Fair enough. Well, Jewish or Gentile if you play the revolution game you better the hell be prepared to defend the revolution (and yourself), guns at the ready. Here, again Trotsky organized, essentially from scratch, a Red Army from a defeated, demoralized former peasant army under the Czar. The ensuing civil war was to leave the country devastated but the Red Army defeated the Whites. Why? In the final analysis it was not only the heroism of the working class defending its own but the peasant wanting to hold on to the newly acquired land he had just got and was in jeopardy of losing if the Whites won. But these masses needed to be organized. Trotsky was the man for the task.

Both Lenin’s and Trotsky’s calculation for the success of socialist revolution in Russia (and ultimately its fate) was its, more or less, immediate extension to the capitalist heartland of Europe, particularly Germany. While in 1917 that was probably not the controlling single factor for going forward in Russia it did have to come into play at some point. The founding of the Communist International makes no sense otherwise. Unfortunately, for many historical, national and leadership-related reasons no Bolshevik-styled socialist revolutions followed then, or ever. If the premise for socialism is for plenty, and ultimately as a result of plenty to take the struggle for existence off the human agenda and put other more creative pursues on the agenda, then Russia in the early 1920’s was not the land of plenty.

Neither Lenin, Trotsky nor Stalin, for that matter could wish that fact away. The ideological underpinnings of that fight center on the Stalinist concept of ‘socialism in one country’, that is Russia versus the Trostskyist position of the absolutely necessary extension of the international revolution. In short, this is the fights that historically happens in great revolutions- the fight against Thermidor (a term taken from the overthrow of Robespierre in 1794 by more moderate Jacobins). What counts, in the final analysis, are their respective responses to the crisis of the isolation of the revolution. The word isolation is the key. Do you turn the revolution inward or push forward? We all know the result, and it wasn’t pretty, then or now. That is the substance of the fight that Trotsky, if initially belatedly and hesitantly, led from about 1923 on under various conditions until the end of his life cut short by his assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940.

Although there were earlier signs that the Russia revolution was going off course the long illness and death of Lenin in 1924, at the time the only truly authoritative leader the Bolshevik party, set off a power struggle in the leadership of the party. This fight had Trotsky and the ‘pretty boy’ intellectuals of the party on one side and Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev (the so-called triumvirate)backed by the ‘gray boys’ of the emerging bureaucracy on the other. This struggle occurred against the backdrop of the failed revolution in Germany in 1923 and which thereafter heralded the continued isolation, imperialist blockade and economic backwardness of the Soviet Union for the foreseeable future.
While the disputes in the Russian party eventually had international ramifications in the Communist International, they were at this time fought out almost solely within the Russian Party. Trotsky was slow, very slow to take up the battle for power that had become obvious to many elements in the party. He made many mistakes and granted too many concessions to the triumvirate. But he did fight. Although later (in 1935) Trotsky recognized that the 1923 fight represented a fight against the Russian Thermidor and thus a decisive turning point for the revolution that was not clear to him (or anyone else on either side) then. Whatever the appropriate analogy might have been Leon Trotsky was in fact fighting a last ditch effort to retard the further degeneration of the revolution. After that defeat, the way the Soviet Union was ruled, who ruled it and for what purposes all changed. And not for the better.

In a sense if the fight in 1923-24 is the decisive fight to save the Russian revolution (and ultimately a perspective of international revolution) then the 1926-27 fight which was a bloc between Trotsky’s forces and the just defeated forces of Zinoviev and Kamenev, Stalin’s previous allies was the last rearguard action to save that perspective. That it failed nevertheless does not deny the importance of the fight. Yes, it was a political bloc with some serious differences especially over China and the Anglo-Russian Committee. But two things are important here One- did a perspective of a new party make sense at the time of the clear waning of the revolutionary tide in the country. No. Besides the place to look was at the most politically conscious elements, granted against heavy odds, in the party where whatever was left of the class-conscious elements of the working class were. As I have noted elsewhere in discussing the 1923 fight- that “Lenin levy” of raw recruits, careerists and just plain thugs to fatten up the Stalin-controlled Soviet bureaucracy was the key element in any defeat.
Still that fight was necessary. Hey, that is why we talk about it now. That was a fight to the finish. After that the left opposition, or elements of it, were forever more outside the party- either in exile, prison or dead. As we know Trotsky went from expulsion from the party in 1927 to internal exile in Alma Ata in 1928 to external exile to Turkey in 1929. From there he underwent further exiles in France, Norway, and Mexico when he was finally felled by a Stalinist assassin. But no matter when he went he continued to struggle for his perspective. Not bad for a Jewish farmer’s son from the Ukraine.

The last period of Trotsky’s life spent in harrowing exiles and under constant threat from Stalinist and White Guard threats- in short, on the planet without a visa-was dedicated to the continued fight for the Leninist heritage. It was an unequal fight, to be sure, but he waged it and was able to form a core of revolutionaries to form a new international. That that effort was essentially militarily defeat by fascist or Stalinist forces during World War II does not take away from the grandeur of the attempt. He himself stated that he felt this was the most important work of his life- and who would challenge that assertion. But one could understand the frustrations, first the harsh truth of his analysis in the 1930's of the German debacle, then in France and Spain. Hell a lesser man would have given up. In fact, more than one biographer has argued that he should have retired from the political arena to, I assume, a comfortable country cottage to write I do not know what. But, please reader, have you been paying attention? Does this seem even remotely like the Trotsky career I have attempted to highlight here? Hell, no.

Many of the events such as the disputes within the Russian revolutionary movement, the attempts by the Western Powers to overthrow the Bolsheviks in the Civil War after their seizure of power and the struggle of the various tendencies inside the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International discussed in the book may not be familiar to today's audience. Nevertheless one can still learn something from the strength of Trotsky's commitment to his cause and the fight to preserve his personal and political integrity against overwhelming odds. As the organizer of the October Revolution, creator of the Red Army in the Civil War, orator, writer and fighter Trotsky was one of the most feared men of the early 20th century to friend and foe alike. Nevertheless, I do not believe that he took his personal fall from power as a world historic tragedy. Read these volumes for more insights.
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Leon Trotsky Peasant War In China and the Proletariat(September 22, 1932)

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Written: September 22, 1932. First Published: The Militant, October 15, 1932, Pages 2-3; copy provided by Bolerium Books, San Francisco, California. Translated: The Militant. Republished: Fourth International, Vol.11 No.1, January-February 1950, pp.23-27. Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters. Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Dear Comrades: After a long delay, we received your letter of June 15. Needless to say we were overjoyed by the revival and the renascence of the Chinese Left Opposition, despite the most ferocious police persecutions it had endured. Our irreconcilable attitude toward the vulgar democratic Stalinist position on the peasant movement has, of course, nothing in common with a careless or passive attitude toward the peasant movement itself. The manifesto of the International Left Opposition that was issued two years ago and that evaluated the peasant movement in the southern provinces of China declared: “The Chinese revolution, betrayed, defeated, exhausted, shows that it is still alive. Let us hope that the time when it will again lift its proletarian head is not far off.” Further on it says: “The vast flood of peasant revolts can unquestionably provide the impulse for the revival of political struggle in the industrial centres. We firmly count on it.” Your letter testifies that under the influence of the crisis and the Japanese intervention, against the background of the peasant war, the struggle of the city workers is burgeoning once again. In the manifesto we wrote about this possibility with necessary caution: “Nobody can foretell now whether the hearths of the peasant revolt can keep a fire burning through the whole long period of time which the proletarian vanguard will need to gather its own strength, bring the working class into the fight, and co-ordinate its struggle for power with the general offensive of the peasants against their most immediate enemies.” At the present time it is evident that there are substantial grounds for expressing the hope that, through a correct policy, it will be possible to unite the workers’ movement, and the urban movement in general, with the peasant war; and this would constitute the beginning of the third Chinese revolution. But in the meantime this still remains only a hope, not a certainty. The most important work lies ahead. In this letter I want to pose only one question which seems to me, at least from afar, to be the most important and acute. Once again I must remind you that the information at my disposal is altogether insufficient, accidental, and disjointed. I would indeed welcome any amplification and correction. The peasant movement has created its own armies, has seized great territories, and has installed its own institutions. In the event of further successes—and all of us, of course, passionately desire such successes—the movement will become linked up with the urban and industrial centres and, through that very fact it will come face to face with the working class. What will be the nature of this encounter? Is it certain that its character will be peaceful and friendly? At first glance the question might appear to be superfluous. The peasant movement is headed by Communists or sympathizers. Isn’t it self-evident that in the event of their coming together the workers and the peasants must unanimously unite under the Communist banner? Unfortunately the question is not at all so simple. Let me refer to the experience of Russia. During the years of the civil war the peasantry in various parts of the country created its own guerrilla detachments, which sometimes grew into full-fledged armies. Some of these detachments considered themselves Bolshevik, and were often led by workers. Others remained non-party and most often were led by former non-commissioned officers from among the peasantry. There was also an “anarchist” army under the command of Makhno. So long as the guerrilla armies operated in the rear of the White Guards, they served the cause of the revolution. Some of them were distinguished by exceptional heroism and fortitude. But within the cities these armies often came into conflict with the workers and with the local party organizations. Conflicts also arose during encounters of the partisans with the regular Red Army, and in some instances they took an extremely painful and sharp character. The grim experience of the civil war demonstrated to us the necessity of disarming peasant detachments immediately after the Red Army occupied provinces which had been cleared of the White Guards. In these cases the best, the most class-conscious and disciplined elements were absorbed into the ranks of the Red Army. But a considerable portion of the partisans strived to maintain an independent existence and often came into direct armed conflict with the Soviet power. Such was the case with the anarchist army of Makhno, entirely kulak in spirit. But that was not the sole instance; many peasant detachments, which fought splendidly enough against the restoration of the landlords, became transformed after victory into instruments of counter-revolution. Regardless of their origin in each isolated instance—whether caused by conscious provocation of the White Guards, or by tactlessness of the Communists, or by an unfavourable combination of circumstances—the conflicts between armed peasants and workers were rooted in one and the same social soil: the difference between the class position and training of the workers and of the peasants. The worker approaches questions from the socialist standpoint; the peasant’s viewpoint is petty bourgeois. The worker strives to socialize the property that is taken away from the exploiters; the peasant seeks to divide it up. The worker desires to put palaces and parks to common use; the peasant, insofar as he cannot divide them, inclines to burning the palaces and cutting down the parks. The worker strives to solve problems on a national scale and in accordance with a plan; the peasant, on the other hand, approaches all problems on a local scale and takes a hostile attitude to centralized planning, etc. It is understood that a peasant also is capable of raising himself to the socialist viewpoint. Under a proletarian rgime more and more masses of peasants become re-educated in the socialist spirit. But this requires time, years, even decades. It should be borne in mind that in the initial stages of revolution, contradictions between proletarian socialism and peasant individualism often take on an extremely acute character. But after all aren’t there Communists at the head of the Chinese Red armies? Doesn’t this by itself exclude the possibility of conflicts between the peasant detachments and the workers’ organizations? No, that does not exclude it. The fact that individual Communists are in the leadership of the present armies does not at all transform the social character of these armies, even if their Communist leaders bear a definite proletarian stamp. And how do matters stand in China? Among the Communist leaders of Red detachments there indubitably are many declassed intellectuals and semi-intellectuals who have not gone through the school of proletarian struggle. For two or three years they live the lives of partisan commanders and commissars; they wage battles, seize territories, etc. They absorb the spirit of their environment. Meanwhile the majority of the rank-and-file Communists in the Red detachments unquestionably consists of peasants, who assume the name Communist in all honesty and sincerity but who in actuality remain revolutionary paupers or revolutionary petty proprietors. In politics he who judges by denominations and labels and not by social facts is lost. All the more so when the politics concerned is carried out arms in hand. The true Communist party is the organization of the proletarian vanguard. But we must not forget that the working class of China has been kept in an oppressed and amorphous condition during the last four years, and only recently has it evinced signs of revival. It is one thing when a Communist party, firmly resting on the flower of the urban proletariat, strives through the workers to lead a peasant war. It is an altogether different thing when a few thousand or even tens of thousands of revolutionists, who are truly Communists or only take the name, assume the leadership of a peasant war without having serious support from the proletariat. This is precisely the situation in China. This acts to augment to an extreme the danger of conflicts between the workers and the armed peasants. In any event, one may rest assured there will be no dearth of bourgeois provocateurs. In Russia, in the period of civil war, the proletariat was already in power in the greater part of the country, the leadership of the struggle was in the hands of a strong and tempered party, the entire commanding apparatus of the centralized Red Army was in the hands of the workers. Notwithstanding all this, the peasant detachments, incomparably weaker than the Red Army, often came into conflict with it after it victoriously moved into peasant guerrilla sectors. In China the situation is radically different and moreover completely to the disadvantage of the workers. In the most important regions of China the power is in the hands of bourgeois militarists; in other regions, in the hands of leaders of armed peasants. Nowhere is there any proletarian power as yet. The trade unions are weak. The influence of the party among the workers is insignificant. The peasant detachments, flushed with victories they have achieved, stand under the wing of the Comintern. They call themselves “the Red Army,” i.e., they identify themselves with the armed forces of the Soviets. What results consequently is that the revolutionary peasantry of China, in the person of its ruling stratum, seems to have appropriated to itself beforehand the political and moral capital which should by the nature of things belong to the Chinese workers. Isn’t it possible that things may turn out so that all this capital will be directed at a certain moment against the workers? Naturally the peasant poor, and in China they constitute the overwhelming majority, to the extent they think politically, and these comprise a small minority, sincerely and passionately desire alliance and friendship with the workers. But the peasantry, even when armed, is incapable of conducting an independent policy. Occupying in daily life an intermediate, indeterminate, and vacillating position, the peasantry at decisive moments can follow either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. The peasantry does not find the road to the proletariat easily but only after a series of mistakes and defeats. The bridge between the peasantry and the bourgeoisie is provided by the urban petty bourgeoisie, chiefly by the intellectuals, who commonly come forward under the banner of socialism and even communism. The commanding stratum of the Chinese “Red Army” has no doubt succeeded in inculcating itself with the habit of issuing commands. The absence of a strong revolutionary party and of mass organizations of the proletariat renders control over the commanding stratum virtually impossible. The commanders and commissars appear in the guise of absolute masters of the situation and upon occupying cities will be rather apt to look down from above upon the workers. The demands of the workers might often appear to them either inopportune or ill-advised. Nor should one forget such “trifles” as the fact that within cities the staffs and offices of the victorious armies are established not in the proletarian huts but in the finest city buildings, in the houses and apartments of the bourgeoisie; and all this facilitates the inclination of the upper stratum of the peasant armies to feel itself part of the “cultured” and “educated” classes, in no way part of the proletariat. Thus in China the causes and grounds for conflicts between the army, which is peasant in composition and petty bourgeois in leadership, and the workers not only are not eliminated but on the contrary, all the circumstances are such as to greatly increase the possibility and even the inevitability of such conflicts; and in addition the chances of the proletariat are far less favourable to begin with than was the case in Russia. From the theoretical and political side the danger is increased many times because the Stalinist bureaucracy covers up the contradictory situation by its slogan of “democratic dictatorship” of workers and peasants. Is it possible to conceive of a snare more attractive in appearance and more perfidious in essence? The epigones do their thinking not by means of social concepts, but by means of stereotyped phrases; formalism is the basic trait of bureaucracy. The Russian Narodniks used to accuse the Russian Marxists of “ignoring” the peasantry, of not carrying on work in the villages, etc. To this the Marxists replied: “We will arouse and organize the advanced workers and through the workers we shall arouse the peasants.” Such in general is the only conceivable road for the proletarian party. The Chinese Stalinists have acted otherwise. During the revolution of 1925-27 they subordinated directly and immediately the interests of the workers and the peasants to the interests of the national bourgeoisie. In the years of the counter-revolution they passed over from the proletariat to the peasantry, i.e., they undertook that role which was fulfilled in our country by the SRs when they were still a revolutionary party. Had the Chinese Communist Party concentrated its efforts for the last few years in the cities, in industry, on the railroads; had it sustained the trade unions, the educational clubs and circles; had it, without breaking off from the workers, taught them to understand what was occurring in the villages—the share of the proletariat in the general correlation of forces would have been incomparably more favourable today. The party actually tore itself away from its class. Thereby in the last analysis it can cause injury to the peasantry as well. For should the proletariat continue to remain on the sidelines, without organization, without leadership, then the peasant war even if fully victorious will inevitably arrive in a blind alley. In old China every victorious peasant revolution was concluded by the creation of a new dynasty, and subsequently also by a new group of large proprietors; the movement was caught in a vicious circle. Under present conditions the peasant war by itself, without the direct leadership of the proletarian vanguard, can only pass on the power to a new bourgeois clique, some “left” Kuomintang or other, a “third party,” etc., etc., which in practice will differ very little from the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek. And this would signify in turn a new massacre of the workers with the weapons of “democratic dictatorship.” What then are the conclusions that follow from all this? The first conclusion is that one must boldly and openly face the facts as they are. The peasant movement is a mighty revolutionary factor insofar as it is directed against the large landowners, militarists, feudalists, and usurers. But in the peasant movement itself are very powerful proprietary and reactionary tendencies, and at a certain stage it can become hostile to the workers and sustain that hostility already equipped with arms. He who forgets about the dual nature of the peasantry is not a Marxist. The advanced workers must be taught to distinguish from among “communist” labels and banners the actual social processes. The activities of the “Red armies” must be attentively followed, and the workers must be given a detailed explanation of the course, significance, and perspectives of the peasant war; and the immediate demands and the tasks of the proletariat must be tied up with the slogans for the liberation of the peasantry. On the bases of our own observations, reports, and other documents we must painstakingly study the life processes of the peasant armies and the rgime established in the regions occupied by them; we must discover in living facts the contradictory class tendencies and clearly point out to the workers the tendencies we support and those we oppose. We must follow the interrelations between the Red armies and the local workers with special care, without overlooking even the minor misunderstandings between them. Within the framework of isolated cities and regions, conflicts, even if acute, might appear to be insignificant local episodes. But with the development of events, class conflicts may take on a national scope and lead the revolution to a catastrophe, i.e., to a new massacre of the workers by the peasants, hoodwinked by the bourgeoisie. The history of revolutions is full of such examples. The more clearly the advanced workers understand the living dialectic of the class interrelations of the proletariat, the peasantry, and the bourgeoisie, the more confidently will they seek unity with the peasant strata closest to them, and the more successfully will they counteract the counter-revolutionary provocateurs within the peasant armies themselves as well as within the cities. The trade-union and the party units must be built up; the advanced workers must be educated, the proletarian vanguard must be brought together and drawn into the battle. We must turn to all the members of the official Communist Party with words of explanation and challenge. It is quite probable that the rank-and-file Communists who have been led astray by the Stalinist faction will not understand us at once. The bureaucrats will set up a howl about our “underestimation” of the peasantry, perhaps even about our “hostility” to the peasantry. (Chernov always accused Lenin of being hostile to the peasantry.) Naturally such howling will not confuse the Bolshevik-Leninists. When prior to April 1927 we warned against the inevitable coup d’tat of Chiang Kai-shek, the Stalinists accused us of hostility to the Chinese national revolution. Events have demonstrated who was right. Events will provide a confirmation this time as well. The Left Opposition may turn out to be too weak to direct events in the interests of the proletariat at the present stage. But we are sufficiently strong right now to point out to the workers the correct road and, in the development of the class struggle, to demonstrate to the workers our correctness and political insight. Only in this way can a revolutionary party gain the confidence of the workers, only in this way will it grow, become strong, and take its place at the head of the popular masses. Postscript, September 26, 1932 In order to express my ideas as clearly as possible, let me sketch the following variant which is theoretically quite possible. Let us assume that the Chinese Left Opposition carries on in the near future widespread and successful work among the industrial proletariat and attains the preponderant influence over it. The official party, in the meantime, continues to concentrate all its forces on the “Red armies” and in the peasant regions. The moment arrives when the peasant troops occupy the industrial centres and are brought face to face with the workers. In such a situation, in what manner will the Chinese Stalinists act? It is not difficult to foresee that they will counterpose the peasant army to the “counter-revolutionary Trotskyists” in a hostile manner. In other words, they will incite the armed peasants against the advanced workers. This is what the Russian SRs and the Mensheviks did in 1917; having lost the workers, they fought might and main for support among the soldiers, inciting the barracks against the factory, the armed peasant against the worker Bolshevik. Kerensky, Tsereteli, and Dan, if they did not label the Bolsheviks outright as counter-revolutionists, called them either “unconscious aides” or “involuntary agents” of counter-revolution. The Stalinists are less choice in their application of political terminology. But the tendency is the same: malicious incitement of the peasant, and generally petty-bourgeois, elements against the vanguard of the working class. Bureaucratic centrism, as centrism, cannot have an independent class support. But in its struggle against the Bolshevik-Leninists it is compelled to seek support from the right, i.e., from the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie, counterposing them to the proletariat. The struggle between the two Communist factions, the Stalinists and the Bolshevik-Leninists, thus bears in itself an inner tendency toward transformation into a class struggle. The revolutionary development of events in China may draw this tendency to its conclusion, i.e., to a civil war between the peasant army led by the Stalinists and the proletarian vanguard led by the Leninists. Were such a tragic conflict to arise, due entirely to the Chinese Stalinists, it would signify that the Left Opposition and the Stalinists ceased to be Communist factions and had become hostile political parties, each having a different class base. However is such a perspective inevitable? No, I don’t think so at all. Within the Stalinist faction (the official Chinese Communist Party) there are not only peasant, i.e., petty-bourgeois tendencies but also proletarian tendencies. It is extremely important for the Left Opposition to seek to establish connections with the proletarian wing of the Stalinists by presenting to them the Marxist evaluation of “Red armies” and the interrelations between the proletariat and the peasantry in general. While maintaining its political independence, the proletarian vanguard must be ready always to assure united action with revolutionary democracy. While we refuse to identify the armed peasant detachment with the Red army as the armed power of the proletariat and have no inclination to shut our eyes to the fact that the Communist banner hides the petty-bourgeois content of the peasant movement, we, on the other hand, take an absolutely clear view of the tremendous revolutionary-democratic significance of the peasant war. We teach the workers to appreciate its significance and we are ready to do all in our power in order to achieve the necessary military alliance with the peasant organizations. Consequently our task consists not only in preventing the political-military command over the proletariat by the petty-bourgeois democracy that leans upon the armed peasant, but in preparing and ensuring the proletarian leadership of the peasant movement, its “Red armies” in particular. The more clearly the Chinese Bolshevik-Leninists comprehend the political events and the tasks that spring from them, the more successfully will they extend their base within the proletariat. The more persistently they carry out the policy of the united front in relation to the official party and the peasant movement led by it, the more surely will they succeed not only in shielding the revolution from a terribly dangerous conflict between the proletariat and the peasantry and in ensuring the necessary united action between the two revolutionary classes, but also in transforming their united front into the historical step toward the dictatorship of the proletariat.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The King Of The Skee Ball World


Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for skee ball.

Peter Paul Markin comment:

I have plenty of my own carnival and amusement park stories to tell, and will, but today I am giving my space over to Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, king hell king of the North Adamsville schoolboy night and my best friend in those days. Every once in a while these days we connect and rekindle old lies and other assorted tales and some, including this one, just cry out to be twice told. So here is Frankie straight up, Frankie in his own voice, and his story about how he became a skee addict. The time of this story is just before I linked up with him in middle school after the Markin family moved across town from Adamsville proper, the old North Adamsville middle school (then called junior high school). Other stories, later stories, I was there as an eye witness so I can trust them, a little anyway, this one though seems kind of well Frankie-like so let him take responsibility for telling it.

Francis Xavier Riley comment:

Walking on tiptoes its seemed, it always seemed, I entered Playland not much of a name by today’s hyped-up standards for any fly-by-night operation but then an enchanted castle in my youthful skinny dreams, at least at night when one did not notice the daytime noticeable missing slats on one of the outside walls or the desperately needed painting, maybe two coats, inside and out, or the angry smell of the refuge left behind by the who spent and lost, like the angry skimpy cheapjack winnings were going to change somebody's whole life around.

Yah, so I entered, my solemn entry, quietly as I eyed (or spied) the doings and adjust my hearing to the ear-splitting sounds of twenty (or more) pinball machines getting plenty of play. Some guy, some older guy, meaning over sixteen and allowed to play the pinball machines that we younger ones could only watch (and wait for our sixteen turn), slender, sleek, slinky girlfriend hanging from his side is on a roll at one of the machines, Madame LaRue’s machine from the look of it. That’s the one with the full-busted, vivacious women (maybe lusty is better, but all of this is mere refection on innocent, or almost innocent dreams) looking back from the point total/games remaining total area (or whatever it is called), urging the player on and on, like they were the prize and not the twenty extra games that you “win” by beating some score. This guy, this guy on a roll is working that old lady of a machine like crazy, this guy is a pro, because he knows just how to sway those hips of his to get his points, and I notice that his sweetie is alternating between looking at that old pinball hitting the banks as it rolls down the chute, and those swaying hips. All this, of course, had only subterranean meaning then, I would get hip to the thing when I had my own sixteen sweetie, and was hoping, hoping against hope that she was checking out my own wobblier swaying hips. Yah, Playland was nothing but sexual tension in the air from the “get-go”, if you knew the signal, that’s what drove rationale guys to place their honor and their manhood on the line for those extra games. But that was later, now it was all chaste, my chaste, and for all I knew we could have been in church.

Sure the place had sex, if you understood that in the widest sense but it also had strictly kids’ stuff, stuff virile eleven and twelve year old boys like me wouldn’t give the time of day to stuff, like stick-a-dime-in-the-machine and “ride” the wild bronco, or donkey, or whatever. Or, get this, put your dimes in the machine to “win” a prize if you can successfully navigate this crane mechanism and hold it long enough to get to the chute that opens up and gives you the prize. Or step on some weight machine and get your fortune ticket, or at another get your name placed on a metal I.D. tag, or farther on get pictures of your favorite cowboy actors, or other favorites by inserting coin in machine. Or, and this is strictly for lamesters, crank out your dough on one of the bubblegum machines. See what I mean, strictly kids’ stuff.

Then I moseyed (yah, that’s what I did, I moseyed, I swear) around the back and be-still my heart I was, in fact, in church because there are the skee ball lanes. Now I have been in any number of amusement parks, carnivals, county fairs, and the like, from back-county fair Freiburg, Maine to New York's Coney Island to the California Santa Monica pier, and sometimes it is called skee ball and in other places it is called skeet ball. Hey, they are both the same. At least every place that I have ever been, under either name they have had the same set-up. You don’t know skee ball? Seriously? No, sure you do. It’s kind of like bowling, poor man’s bowling, I guess. You put your dime (at the time) in and down a chute come ten small wooden (sometimes ceramic) balls. That’s the bowling-like part. The lane is tilted up with a bump barrier that leads into a bulls-eye type target area made up of different values (10, 20, 30, 50, obviously the higher the value the harder the shot) and you have to get your hand-held small ball into the hole to score points. The more points the bigger the prize (at some point), although you need very high point totals to win anything beyond gee-gads. What this game is though, and this is probably the first attraction reason why I fell, and fell hard for the game, was beyond a certain degree of eye-hand coordination you can be an un-coordinated, clumsy, hit your head on everything, stumble on everything kind of boy and still do pretty well.

Yah, sure, that sure-fire, low-level skill idea may have been the first reason, maybe, that I fell for skee ball, but think about it, I was an eleven year old boy and while sex, eleven year old ideas about it anyway, were not uppermost in my mind, and I didn’t then quite have it figured about girls, or rather about their charms overcoming their incessant giggles, their scent, that bah soap fresh scent, was in the air. So, maybe, I would have played a few games here and there, and dropped it as too easy, too kids’ stuff, or too boring like me and every other kid did with lots of things, and moved on to, oh, archery, let’s say. But you know there has to be a woman, or really a girl, come into this story somewhere, else why bother to tell the story in the first place. There is plenty about carnivals and amusement parks to describe without bringing women in, right? And certainly no one is going to hold their breath for more than six seconds over the mysteries of skee ball, straight up. At least I hope that‘s the case.

Okay, to the story. Yah, it was a dame, a dame, well, maybe, a mini-dame let’s say that led me to a life of skees. And it wasn’t intentional, or at least I don’t think so, but reflecting back on it now you never know. See, after a while, whenever we went to Playland, or rather to the beach where Playland was, I bowed out of going on rides, playing the odd-ball carny-type games like putting a quarter down on a number and have some barker spin a wheel for fame and fortune or trying to hit milk bottles to win a prize, or throwing darts at balloons, or, well, you get it, I was single-mindedly devoted to skees. After six or seven times I got good at it, or at least figured out the torque angle on the thing that got you to the bigger point circles in the target area. Yah, yah, I know this is not rocket science or even close but it was a small victory to an awkward-gaited kid.

Now skee then, and now too probably, is not exactly a game that world-beating pinball wizards (or video game masters-of-the-universe today) would even give an off-hand tumble. Nor would girls who were crazy for pinball wizard guys, with their swaying hips and all. But, maybe, just maybe, kind of awkward, wayward eleven or twelve year old girls might, mightn’t they? Well, that idea, that possibility is what drives this story. I was minding my own skee business when this twist (girl, although I didn’t call them twists then that came later when I became king of the corner boy schoolboy night and had to keep things snappy to keep guys like Markin amused, just girls) came up to a skee lane a couple of lanes over (no waiting in skee-world), put her money in and starts playing. I don’t know exactly which one it was but either on her second or third roll she went “crazy” and rolled the ball so hard that it bounced over into my lane. Naturally, skee master of the universe that I was got miffed, no more than miffed. She came over to apologize and I could see that she really was sorry-so what are you going to do, right?

Now in the universe of female beauty, even eleven or twelve year old female beauty, this girl, this Mary Beth when she told me her name later, was nothing but middling, and that may be giving her the best of it. But here is the thing and I picked up on it right when she came over to offer her apologies, she had this very winning, very winning smile. Well, like I say what are you going to do. Obviously this maiden in distress needed a little help in the skee department and before I could offer her some tips she boldly asked me if couldn’t, pretty please, pretty please, please help her with her game. Well, yah, what are you going to do, right.

So naturally we go back to her lane and, after showing her one of my moves on the target, I got behind her a little to show her the right way to do it. Whee! I probably had been closer to a girl before, dancing, or some quick-artist petting party kiss thing but this was the first time that I seriously noticed that girls had curves, curves that kind of fit nicely together. And she noticed that I noticed too because she did not back away, or anything like that. But, come on now, I was a serious skee man and so after showing her the ropes I excused myself, and head back to my own lane. A couple of minutes later after she had finished her game she came over to my lane and offered me her coupons (these coupons automatically came up after your game and gave you the appropriate amount based on your score. You later redeemed them for prizes, etc.) and said that she wouldn’t be using them. And, get this, she also said, and I give an exact quote here, “Wasn’t it too bad that I couldn’t be good enough at skee like you to win a prize and go home happy.”

Yah, I know, I know, I know now the oldest trick in the book. But then, well I did try to help her with her game and maybe she could learn something by watching me, and she had those curves and all. So naturally, I was compelled to win a little trinket for her. And so I was off to do battle. I will say having sweet Mary Beth at my side inspired me and I scored pretty, pretty well. Well, enough in skee world language to win her a lucky rabbit’s foot key chain. Pretty good, right. She thought so, and was so delighted by her prize that she said she would keep it forever and wouldn’t I like to go for a walk down to the sea wall and talk. Well, she had my head spinning, for sure, but like I said before I was eleven and didn’t have the girl thing, the girl charm thing, quite figured out then. I said I needed to keep playing to hone my skills but maybe some other time. She said yes, in a voice a little hurt now that I think about it, some other time.

I went to those skee lanes plenty of times later when I wised up about girls and their charms, hoping, looking to see an awkward girl with curves and a rabbit’s foot key chain dangle named Mary Beth but I never saw her again. But maybe, just maybe, that is why I still roll skee.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Étienne Cabet 1853-The Situation in Iowa

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.

Markin comment:

I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.

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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!

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Étienne Cabet 1853-The Situation in Iowa

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Source: Etienne Cabet, Situation dans l'Iowa au 15 Octobre 1853. Paris, 1853;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2005.


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The three wagons sent last September 26, transporting to the Icarian commune of Iowa the fourth expedition, arrived at the establishment on October 10, left the 16th and returned to Nauvoo the 28th. The news they brought was in all regards satisfactory and increased the ardor of the community. Here are the reports received along with extracts from a few letters.

Report from the small colony in Iowa to the large colony of Nauvoo
Adams Country, October 15, 1853

Dear Citizens:

Since the departure of our brothers we are actively occupied with making hay. We will continue until September 1, the date until which we believe we have sufficient provisions.

Around that time we fell sick one after the other: Louviers suffered from a sun stroke that caused us to fear for his life; several among us have fevers, which paralyzes us in our labors.

Citizens Marchal and Gobel, and Citizens Connefray, Sauge, Gobel, Busque, Vidal, and Mirault were the only ones spared. Those in good shape are working at the building of a kitchen, of a cellar for our vegetables, a dairy, and a second cellar for our dairy products.

Marchal has baked a batch of bricks. He was going to make another, as well as some lime, when he was struck down by fever.

Vidal made us a bread oven, and chimneys for our houses, half with baked bricks and half with dry bricks.

Our heating is assured for the winter, which makes us quite happy.

Our animals are in very good shape: we have suffered no losses. We were forced to kill one of our calves, though this was a great sacrifice for us, but the health of our friends demanded this and we didn’t hesitate to do it. Know well that we consider our herd as a thing not to be touched except in case of absolute necessity, which, we hope, will not often arrive.

We have planted 10 acres of wheat and rye. We would have planted more but we weren’t able to find seeds. It has grown well and beautiful.

Our corn harvest was quite good. We hope to have between 3-4,000 bushels, and a hundred bushels of potatoes.

The bean production was good. We ate of it all summer and we still have several bushels after having taken the seeds neeeded for next year. We have a quantity of vegetables of all kinds.

We have begun to extract stone. Marchal’s opinion is that it will be good for lime. It is four miles from our habitations.

We know of a spot where it is easy to extract sand.

We have made cart furrows across a great extent of land in order to guarantee from fire a portion of our woods and to assure pasturage for our animals.

Roy has put up the saw and he is convinced it will go well. Several Americans have come to ask us to saw their wood: we will do this if it is to our advantage.

It remains to us to construct before winter a hen house to shelter a hundred of our hens, a stable for our milk cows, and a small log-house [in English in the original] to smoke ham.

We can only attribute the cause of our illnesses to the drought, the extreme heat, and the need to work under the baking sun.

Our illnesses have not in any way modified our opinion as to the salubriousness of the country. Nevertheless, there are a few sanitary labors easy to be done along the banks of the small river. We will do this as soon as possible.

The general health is beginning to be reestablished; there are still a few convalescents and some with fevers. These physical sufferings of our friends have not at all altered their resolution and perseverance.

The more we march the more we see that the spot we occupy can suffice to meet the needs of the community, and that it can grow here.

The most perfect harmony reigns among us.

This report is signed by:

The director: Krisniger, farmer
The interim secretary, Briere, cobbler.

Martinet, carpenter, left from Nauvoo July 3, writes:

... Finally, after 16 days of walking we arrived at our voyage’s goal. The next day we visited the area, and we were happy to see beautiful plains and especially, much lovely wood.

From the sketch I sent you, you know my opinion of our establishment. We are on a height, facing onto a river, more or less as we are at Nauvoo, with this difference that the river here is to our north.

We live soberly, as all colonists must do at the beginning. In the morning we eat cornmeal soup and fresh cheese; at noon potatoes and beans; the evening ham or something else, with this fresh cornbread.

The two female citizens who are here don’t have café au lait. They live like us, but all of this will progressively improve by our labors.

Busque, tailor and cook, writes to Couloy (the younger):

Like every countryside in America through which we've passed, the country is not in the least enchanting, but it breathes peace and promises us abundance. It seems to change the dispositions of men, for here everyone takes an equal or common part. One feels at home and that you are working for yourself. When something lacks one easily does without, and without complaining. There are countries where a terrific cornbread is made. Well here, with our barrels full of wheat meal we eat cornbread, and we would have liked to eat it till next year because wheat is too expensive. And all of this without any effort and of our own free will, without our leadership asking it of us. So you see that in this regard we are making progress.

Those who like to eat well can say: It’s not surprising that 14 people fell sick there, but we can judge better than those who are far away, and we don’t think that food had anything to do with it. It should be noted that when we fell sick we had no more cornmeal and we were eating wheat bread.

We attribute our fevers to several causes. In the first instance the new country had to be cleared; then there was an extreme drought, and finally a few swamps had to be purified.

I'm not a connaiseur of soil but after the season we had if it wasn’t good we would have had nothing. Nevertheless, though our harvest wasn’t abundant we are quite satisfied with our production.

As concerns me personally, I am a cook. I was even the best baker until the arrival of the accursed Blanch, who has come to take my job. I have nevertheless preserved some partisans and there is talk of returning me to my functions. I don’t know how this will turn out. If I get my bakery back I'll let you know by telegraph.

Conefray, blacksmith, writes to his wife:

I can give you my opinion of our situation. I have traversed all of our possessions and if we can preserve them our position is better than that which we had in Texas. (Conefray is a member of the first vanguard that went to Texas in 1848.) What is more, we have a small river that, despite the summer drought, has not ceased to flow at the same level since the day we arrived here (July 19).

We have an excellent spring, which will meet our needs even if we became more numerous. A basin was built there where the female citizens go to wash.

We have hazelnut trees from which I harvested a small bag of nuts that Louvier will give to Agathe. I won’t tell you more; the reports we approved give all the details.

Vidal, mason and plasterer, also writes to his wife:

I don’t need to tell you how much I want top see you. But though I know you are a resolute woman I must warn you that we will have much pain and privation to put up with, though we will already be in better shape next year. Don’t think that this is said as a complaint or to frighten you, rather it’s so you can say to those who want to pretty up the picture that you have to wait for the wheat to be ripe before cutting it!

You ask for many details of our colony. I can only repeat to you the report approved by all. Our harmony is spoken of there: this is a word often written and which usually exists only on paper, but I can assure you that here it is in action. We are all in agreement and all have the love of the common good. There are never quarrels or criticisms of the leadership or management. We don’t have meetings where we discuss at length the means of living well, rather they are filled with work projects and the distribution of products.

Since we are far from all centers we sometimes lack certain provisions. Everyone puts up with privations without complaining or grumbling.

In telling you that society can prosper in this place I am doing nothing but repeating what all the letters from here must be saying.

Mirault, joiner, writes to Bloudeau:

Since the day we arrived here I haven’t had a moment to spare. Nevertheless I have profited from my Sundays to see the woods and plains. The woods are more beautiful than I thought. Most is of red oak with a bit of white oak. The lime trees are beautiful and there are many of them, and it’s the same for black walnut.

The river runs alongside the woods, and since it is always at the same level we all think that we can set a mill up there.

I think that there’s nowhere the Society could place itself where the woods or the view would be more beautiful.

You speak to me about hazel nuts, my dear Blondeau. They are profuse here and I regret that I can’t send any to your children, but I dedicate my hours of rest to hunting for ducks for our sick ones.

Uttenweler, carter, writes to his wife:

You won’t regret coming here. I can assure you that the countryside is beautiful and that I'm very happy here. I went about for two days in order to see everything, but the fields are so vast that I haven’t yet seen anything.

I my opinion we'll have enough wood to establish ourselves here and make something beautiful.

As for agriculture, it’s as our friends said: good land and soil. We can plant here everything we want. Corn and potatoes will come in abundance. As for wheat, that which we harvested grew well and looks good.

As for the calves, we can have thousands of them.

I kiss you a thousand times and I ask you to tell père Cabet that I want you to come join me next summer.

Finally, the Director Krisinger ends his later by saying:

In summary, what I can tell you is that I see here a happy future and prosperity for our Society here where we are established.

These are the reports sent to us from Iowa. The letters written by those who are there, either to their wives or their friends in Nauvoo are in agreement in considering their position agreeable, and the soil as good. Those who went there with the wagons and returned speak in the same way. All of this gives us hope for complete success.

Cabet

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin - From The “Ancient Dreams, Dreamed” Sketches -Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing


From The Pen Of 
 




 

 

Do you need to know about all the little Markin family trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Seal Rock end of Adamsville Beach that I have threatened to talk about when I mentioned in the last sketch how I   “sold out” to my mother for a little Kennedy’s Deli home-style potato salad? Trips, that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Yah, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my two brothers, one a little younger the other a little older than me) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.

 

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There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “ chicken" run.

 

And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.

 

No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color” to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just had a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother the one who always would say “ask your father. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.

 

Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression, World War II survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean.

 

Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Adamsville, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” in Boston too that you could see on a clear day from Adamsville Beach, although I don’t know for sure on that, and maybe in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities” should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style un-hip, un-mourned, un-cool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.

 

Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.

 

As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles, and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street, “up-town” North Adamsville if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.

 

It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer at, and sneer at big time, at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it was, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.

 

I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy “bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think?

 

So let me tell you about this one time, this one summer time, August I think, maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back seat. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.

 

This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem, or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects” sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Adamsville Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor & Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.

 

We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (a.k.a. soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Yah, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel, because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Adamsville Beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the big steaming aluminum kettle already.

 

All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenager and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official” procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?

 

And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable- “who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects,” Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccupping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely-tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out every time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out everything we could with us.

 

Ma, then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort, ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…

 

Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Adamsville.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged-out mama. Well, the long and short of it was, have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II? If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon, we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh yah, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.

 

Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.

From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-"What Defense Policy For Revolutionaries" ("Young Spartacus" May-June 1973)

Markin comment on this series:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
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What Defense Policy For Revolutionaries?, Young Spartacus May-June 1973

The decline of U.S. economic hegemony and the resultant economic chaos has meant intensified capitalist attacks on the labor and radical movements. Facing an increasing inability to provide the minimal democratic and economic rights of working people and oppressed minorities, the American capitalist class has pursued a dual offensive: governmental legislation to curb the power of the trade-union movement and tie it more closely to the state machinery, combined with persecution of the left to forestall any resurgence of even the reformist social-protest movement of the 1960's. Central to the ruling-class policy is to forestall the growth of any organized left oppositions in the labor movement. While the radical students, women's liberation-ists and black nationalists who typified 1960's radicalism lacked the social strength to seriously threaten capitalist rule, the current growth of the left in the labor movement poses a much greater potential threat. The gross violation of democratic rights in the Watergate affair indicates the Nixon regime's contempt for the formalities of bourgeois democracy, a contempt that will be violently amplified in dealing with an actual left threat. The strategy to defeat ruling-class attacks on the labor and radical movements must be based on an examination of the historic experience of the working-class movement.

The International Red Aid

In the early 1920's, the Communist International (CI) organized the Inter-nation Red Aid as a broad defense organization of working-class militants. While the CI rejected bourgeois-democratic illusions and idealizations, it recognized the need to defend the democratic gains of the bourgeois revolutions and proletarian struggle as an integral part of the class struggle. Lenin summarized the communist perspective toward democratic struggles:

"It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy."
—Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 133

The International Red Aid was also an application of the united-front policy of the CI under Lenin and Trotsky, which proposed joint action of workers' Organizations over specific and concrete tasks. The united front was designed to unite the working class against capitalist attacks and in doing so create an arena in which the Communist parties, retaining full freedom to criticize other participants, could counterpose their program to the social-democratic misleadership in order to "set the base against the top." The slogan of the united front was "March Separately, Strike Together."

The International Labor Defense (ILD), the American affiliate of the International Red Aid, led the campaign to defend Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom Mooney, C.E. Ruthenberg, imprisoned Wobblies and numerous strike efforts.

unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy."
—Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 133

The International Red Aid was also an application of the united-front policy of the CI under Lenin and Trotsky, which proposed joint action of workers' Organizations over specific and concrete tasks. The united front was designed to unite the working class against capitalist attacks and in doing so create an arena in which the Communist parties, retaining full freedom to criticize other participants, could counterpose their program to the social-democratic misleadership in order to "set the base against the top." The slogan of the united front was "March Separately, Strike Together."
The International Labor Defense (ILD), the American affiliate of the International Red Aid, led the campaign to defend Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom Mooney, C.E. Ruthenberg, imprisoned Wobblies and numerous strike efforts.

In a period of sharp class struggle, the ILD utilized all legal rights, seeking support from professional petty-bourgeois forces, while always emphasizing the importance of mass working-class action. It welcomed support from all quarters, but refused to politically compromise itself in order to gain support from non-proletarian elements. James P. Cannon, National Secretary of the ILD until his expulsion from the CP in 1928 for Trotskyism, summarized this policy in writing on the Sacco and Vanzetti case:

"Our policy is the policy of the class struggle. It puts the center of gravity in the protest movement of the workers of America and the world. It puts all faith in the power of the masses and no faith whatever in the justice of the courts. While favoring all possible legal proceedings, it calls for agitation, publicity, demonstrations—organized protest on a national and international scale. It calls for unity and solidarity of all workers on this burning issue, regardless of conflicting views on other questions.... The other policy is the policy of 'respectability,'... of ridiculous illusions about 'justice' from the courts of the enemy. It relies mainly on legal proceedings. It seeks to blur the issue of the class struggle. It shrinks from the 'vulgar and noisy' demonstrations of the militant workers and throws the mud of slander on them. It tries to represent the martyrdom of Sacco and Vanzetti as an 'unfortunate' error which can be rectified by the 'right' people proceeding in the 'right' way. The objective of this policy is a whitewash of the courts of Massachusetts and clemency for Sacco and Vanzetti, in the form of a commutation to life imprisonment for a crime of which the world knows they are innocent." —"Who Can Save Sacco and Vanzetti?" Labor Defender, January 1927
This was the consistent policy of the CI throughout its early years. The ILD never blurred the nature of the capitalist state or bourgeois justice; its policy was "class against class, “combatting


The Policy Of Social Fascism

In conjunction with the consolidation of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, the world-historic defeat of the Chinese proletariat in 1927 and the internal Soviet need for rapid agricultural collectivization, the CI's political line switched in 1928 to the policy of the "third period." The Stalinist CI claimed the social-democratic parties were more of a threat to the proletariat than ascending fascism, labeling them "social fascists" and rejecting joint defense against the fascist threat. This policy, which amounted to a refusal to challenge the social-demo¬cratic arch-betrayers' hegemony over the German working class, allowed Hitler to rise to power without a shot being fired. "Social fascism" became the guiding theory of the ILD, which rejected the defense of democratic rights and united fronts because this would "create illusions. “Breaking with the tradition of its earlier years, the ILD often ignored legal work, romanticizing the use of non-professional workers' self-defense in the courts. This foolish ultra-leftism allowed many courageous workers, unversed in court procedure and legal jargon, to be sent to jail, compliments of "Communist" advice.
During the Scottsboro defense, the ILD refused the support of the NAACP, another "social-fascist" outfit. Instead, the ILD posed the "united front from below"—unity of the CP, CP front groups and local unions somehow untainted by their "social-fascist" leaderships [see, for example, Scottsboro Boys National Bureau Letter, No. 1, 1932, p. 4j.

The "Social-Fascists " Become the Great Defenders of Democracy

Recoiling empirically from a policy which had resulted in the destruction of the German labor movement, the CI dumped "social fascism" but, in typical Stalinist fashion, embraced a symmetrically disastrous line having nothing in common with the Leninist policy of the united front. At the 7th World Congress, Georgi Dimitrov formulated the policy of the popular front—a. strategic alliance with the social democrats and the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie to defend bourgeois democracy against the fascist onslaught.

Marxists recognize that bourgeois democracy is simply one form of the dictatorship of capital, which is, however, forced to preserve some limited democratic rights which are vital to the self-organization of the proletariat. The working class thus has an interest in the defense of bourgeois-democratic rights against fascism and bonapartism, but not at the expense of tying itself politically to the bourgeoisie and subordinating its own organizations to bourgeois leadership. Thus, Marxists may call for limited blocs with the representatives of bourgeois democracy (e.g., the suppression of the Kornilov assault on the bourgeois Kerensky regime) but at all times seek the independent mobilization of the working class through its own organizations and under its own slogans. These tactical