From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-The Road Forward, Damn

He (and his buddy, Friedrich, but let’s just keep it as he and save the parsing out of credits to literary agents, skeptics, revisionists, and sworn enemies, left and right, or to some Freudian psychoanalyst who will put some sexual shape on the thing and will get it all balled up anyway) said struggle. He, when asked by some wooden-headed journalist big city newspaper, maybe the London Times but don’t hold me to the exact paper but do hold me to the accuracy of the quote, looking for some fashionable and titillating quote, “What is?” answered struggle, class struggle (although on the news- printed titillating page it came out as mere struggle to avoid upsetting the Mayfair swells and their hangers-on who were a little skittish about threats to their empire in the making). The town was abuzz, no aflame, over that one, worse than when he connected the dots with those wobbly old greying Chartist boys who had raised holy hell a few decades back and kept king cotton from union with their beloved lion.

So struggle, class struggle it was (and is). He said, from his 19^th century lonely graveside a head sculpture emblazoned hair flowing stern visage above his lot, and a head above his generation’s candor, push back, push back hard against, part one, Vietnam, and those who vouched for that war in somebody’s name, not mine or his. He said part two, the Vietnam push back part connects with that seemingly long time ago push back struggle to break out of “project boy” shames, and stark inequalities of not keeping up with the Joneses, or not fast enough anyway, and father hurts, and mother rages against unfortunate fates, food for tables and clothes for backs worries, and endless mother father hurts. He said, part three, mix the Vietnam push back, the empire push back learned later, painfully learned, the father hurt push backs and the tribune of the people push back (the hard part in no push back America, at least not too much push back) and maybe just maybe history will take a left turn, a sharp left turn. Parting, ghost shades parting, he whispered do not get mixed-message tied up with their politics, that McGovern do-good juggernaut but organize from the base and then strike the match, when it is time for such matters.

He said some other stuff too, stuff said fast, faster than the part one, two, three stuff. He said stay with your people, the wretched of the earth, whom you have abandoned (hell, he didn’t know it was really run away from, run hard away from with Jack Kennedy/Bobby Kennedy, hell, Hubert dreams of forty years, a pension, a gold watch and whatever could be stolen along the way in the “service” of the people). He said it would not be easy. Hell, he didn’t know the half of it. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people, with those gold-flecked dreams of yours. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. Damn, he was right.

He said look for a sign. He said, although he did not put it this way exactly, the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy, again. He said it again and again and would not let it, or me, rest. He said what is struggle. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1871, he said it in 1917, and he was ghost dream saying it in 1972. What a cranky, crazy old guy to disturb Peter Paul’s sleep, huh.

*****
Struggle. But where to start as Peter Paul sat, book in hand, Leon Trotsky’s “History Of The Russian Revolution,” down on a yogurt-spooned 1972 green painted bench on the Charles River near Harvard Square. Having devoured the “Communist Manifesto,” “Class Struggle In France,” “Critique Of The Gotha Programme,” “What Is To Be Done?”,and a few off-hand commentaries on them he was pushing for some sense of how to beat the monster. Beat the monster straight up. For just that Charles River bench seat minute he knew that he had to get beyond books but that books and struggle would be the combination to the golden age. Damn that old guy and his progeny too. Damn them for the heavy task they bequeathed to us ill-prepared descendants.

And for leaving us bends in the road, serious bends, fatal bends. Peter Paul told me how he have done his fair share of kicking one Professor Irving Howe, the late social -democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around back then and a guy who was supposed to know some stuff about Marxism or socialism when he was trying to figure the road to follow out. [I, on the other hand always appreciated Howe’s literary criticism and thought he had some things to say about politics too before he got indistinguishable from, say right-wing “National Review’s” William Buckley-JLB] But as this is, as is oft-quoted, a confessional age, Peter Paul had a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about his connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it took to write the comments up he said he would call an armed truce with the shades of the professor. Here is what he had to say:

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent." The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read later left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro." I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his definitive Howe biography noted that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent," at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was supposed to be an independent 'socialist' magazine.

Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was, not exactly aware then of the basis of the divide between them, very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water, or rather some that said one was closer to solving those project and father hurts than the other.

Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Marxist world view. But after some 150 plus years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution," a section called "On Dual Power.” I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars against social-democratic accommodation - the truce is over.

 

From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-Break from the Two Parties of Wall Street! Vote Jill Stein for President

Click on the headline to link to the"Socialist Alternative (CWI)" website.

Markin comment:

I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.

*************

Published by SocialistAlternative.org Read online at: www.SocialistAlternative.org/news/article10.php?id=1959
Break from the Two Parties of Wall Street! Vote Jill Stein for President
Oct 13, 2012 SocialistAlternative.org
Over a billion dollars will be spent on the 2012 Presidential election, smashing all previous records. This mountain of corporate cash ensures that whoever is elected, Obama or Romney, the interests of the super-rich and Wall Street will be represented. That's why Socialist Alternative is calling for a break from two parties of the 1% and for the creation of new, broad party to provide a fighting voice for working people. In this election, we are urging a vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party for president, in order to register the strongest possible protest vote against the two-party system. We don't agree with those who preach patience, who tell us every election that “now is not the time” and that we must support the “lesser evil.” In fact, it is during elections, when the attention of the entire nation is focused on politics, that serious fighters for the 99% must raise their voices the loudest against the lies and manipulations of the corporate politicians. We cannot stand aside and allow the debate to be dominated by Obama and Romney. That means putting up the strongest possible challenge to Wall Street's political monopoly in this election, both on the streets and at the ballot box. Overcoming restrictive, anti-democratic ballot access laws, Jill Stein will appear on the ballots of at least 85% of voters this November. While not a socialist, Stein stands clearly on the side of working people on every key issue facing our country. She refuses corporate donations and has used her campaign to support the struggles of ordinary people fighting injustice. Despite a near complete black-out in the corporate media and the undemocratic refusal to allow her in the debates, a recent CNN poll already showed Stein with 2% support. This makes her the highest-profile left candidate this election, with the potential to attract over a million voters disgusted with the two parties. Her campaign provides a glimpse of what would be possible if our social movements, especially the unions, broke from the Democrats and united into a broad left political challenge. Obama's Betrayals After all the “hope” and “change” of Obama’s campaign in 2008, he has given literally trillions of dollars in bailouts to the same big banks that helped trigger this economic crisis in the first place. Meanwhile, those same banks kick millions of Americans out of their homes. Obama continues the “war on terrorism” and is expanding the assault on civil liberties. Union rights have been dismantled and social services have been cut by both Democrats and Republicans. Young people face mass unemployment, low wage jobs, rising tuition and debt. While Romney and Ryan’s extreme rhetoric is understandably scary for working people and the oppressed, the sick logic of lesser-evilism, of support for Obama and the Democrats, only hamstrings social movements from effectively fighting back. Neither party represents the interests of workers or the oppressed. Neither party will reject the profit-maximizing logic of the capitalist system or the interests of Wall Street. While the Democrats give lip service the interests of workers and oppressed communities, once in power they carry out the agenda of big business. Every serious struggle reveals the Democrats' corporate character. From the Chicago teachers strike to the growing fight against foreclosures, when ordinary people stand up they find both parties united against them. When movement leaders preach support for the very same politicians who are attacking our communities, it only serves to confuse, demoralize, and demobilize our struggles. Yet history shows that only mass struggle wins real change. Students in Quebec have the lowest tuition in North America. Why? Because they organize mass strike movements and street protests when faced with tuition increases. Everything regular people have won in this country, has been fought for with strikes, direct action, and mass protests, from women’s right to vote to the end of segregation to the weekend and 8-hour workday. When movements get caught up in the illusion that allying themselves with the Democrats is the most “realistic” route to success, they end up lowering their demands to what is acceptable to big business. But especially in this era of capitalist crisis, there is no room for even these band-aid reforms. To succeed, our struggles need to challenge the capitalist system, the root cause of the problems we face. Capitalism is a system of exploitation that concentrates resources and influences in the hands of the wealthy elite at the expense of the vast majority of the public and the environment. In order to guarantee jobs, a good standard of living, environmental cleanup and an end to discrimination, we need a different system. Democratic socialism, including public ownership of the top 500 corporations, could ensure a better future. Achieving a new system will require a mass movement. To challenge this system and win real improvements we to need a new political party for working people. A party with democratic decision-making that is involved in movements, that doesn’t take corporate donations, and has support from fighting unions and community groups. More and more people are disgusted with corporate domination. The Occupy movement clearly revealed the political vacuum on the left. While this huge potential has mostly been squandered, small examples show what is possible. In Seattle the dynamic campaign of Kshama Sawant, Socialist Alternative's candidate running for State Representative against the Democratic Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp, is shaking up Seattle politics and shifting the debate to the left. J

From Boston Socialist Alternative- The Socialist Struggle For Women's Liberation

In Boston- From The Women's Liberation Front

In Boston -The Sturggle Against AIPAC- Defend The Palestinian People!

From Occupy Boston

At Harvard University- Support This Case

A MODEST LABOR PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS IN THE 2012 ELECTIONS.

IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.

FORGET DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS - BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

In the summer of 2006 I originally wrote the following commentary (used in subsequent election cycles and updated a little for today’s purpose) urging the recruitment of independent labor militants as write-in candidates for the mid-term 2006 congressional elections based on a workers party program. With the hoopla already in full gear for the 2012 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftists to use the 2012 campaign to further our propagandistic fight for a workers’ party that fights for a workers government.

A Modest Proposal-Recruit, Run Independent Labor Militants In The 2012 Elections

All “anti-parliamentarian”, “anti-state”, “non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Barcelona Uprising, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois government of a bourgeois state. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades with us when the time comes.

As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2012 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Afghanistan (and unfinished business in Iraq and threats to Iran), immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti -same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design.’ And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and the other smaller bourgeois parties have a monopoly on the public square?

I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives, or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives or not compromise themselves in any untoward manner. You, in any case, get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that this crowd. This writer presents a five point program (you knew that was coming, right?) that labor militants can run on. As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.

1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!

The quagmire in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iran) is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.

But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the “popular front” days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere fight for this position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yes, those 'progressive Democrats') who almost unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. War President Barack Obama desperately needs to be opposed by labor militants. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.

2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less a family can live on the minimum wage (now $7/hr. or so). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s; go a long way to turning the conditions of labor around.

3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with anti-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2012 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But so be it.

4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.

The Donkeys, Elephants and other smaller bourgeois parties have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers’ party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans!

5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT. THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS.

We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.

Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yes, with my tongue in my cheek after all my dental bills, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is however you formulate it you have got to fight for it.

Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES.

From The Pen Of Vladimir Lenin- Lessons Of The Moscow Uprising (1906)

Click on the headline to link to the  “Lenin Internet Archives.”

Markin comment from the American Left History blog:

DVD REVIEW

LENIN-VOICE OF THE REVOLUTION, A&E PRODUCTION, 2005

Every militant who wants to fight for socialism, or put the fight for socialism back on the front burner, needs to  come to terms with the legacy of Vladimir Lenin and his impact on 20th century revolutionary thought. Every radical who believes that society can be changed by just a few adjustments needs to address this question as well in order to understand the limits of such a position. Thus, it is necessary for any politically literate person of this new generation to go through the arguments both politically and organizationally associated with Lenin’s name. Before delving into his works a review of his life and times would help to orient those unfamiliar with the period. Obviously the best way to do this is read one of the many biographies about him. There is not dearth of such biographies although they overwhelmingly tend to be hostile. But so be it. For those who prefer a quick snapshot view of his life this documentary, although much, much too simply is an adequate sketch of the highlights of his life. It is worth an hour of your time, in any case.

The film goes through Lenin's early childhood, the key role that the execution of older brother Alexander for an assassination attempt on the Czar played in driving him to revolution, his early involvement in the revolutionary socialist movement, his imprisonment and various internal and external exiles, his role in the 1905 Revolution, his role in the 1917 Revolution, his consolidation of power through the Bolshevik Party and his untimely death in 1924. An added feature, as usual in these kinds of films, is the use of ‘talking heads’ who periodically explain what it all meant. I would caution those who are unfamiliar with the history of the anti-Bolshevik movement that three of the commentators, Adam Ulam, Richard Daniels and Robert Conquest were ‘stars’ of that movement at the height of the anti-Soviet Cold War. I would also add that nothing presented in this biography, despite the alleged additional materials available with the ‘opening’ of the Soviet files, that has not been familiar for a long time.

*********
V. I. Lenin

Lessons of the Moscow Uprising

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Published:Proletary, No. 2, August 29, 1906. Published according to the Proletary text.
Source:Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1965, Moscow, Volume 11, pages 171-178.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup:R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2000). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text• README

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The

publication of the book Moscow in December 1905 (Moscow, 1906) could not have been more timely. It is an urgent task of the workers’ party to assimilate the lessons of the December uprising. Unfortunately, this book is like a barrel of honey spoilt by a spoonful of tar: most interesting material—despite its incompleteness—and incredibly slovenly, incredibly trite conclusions. We shall deal with these conclusions on another occasion^[1]; at present we shall turn our attention to the burning political question of the day, to the lessons of the Moscow uprising.

The principal forms of the December movement in Moscow were the peaceful strike and demonstrations, and these were the only forms of struggle in which the vast majority of the workers took an active part. Yet, the December action in Moscow vividly demonstrated that the general strike, as an independent and predominant form of struggle, is out of date, that the movement is breaking out of these narrow bounds with elemental and irresistible force and giving rise to the highest form of struggle—an uprising.
In calling the strike, all the revolutionary parties, all the Moscow unions recognised and even intuitively felt that it must inevitably grow into an uprising. On December 6 the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies resolved to“strive to transform the strike into an armed uprising”. As a matter of fact, however, none of the organisations were prepared for this. Even the Joint Council of Volunteer Fighting Squads^[2]spoke (on December 9!) of an uprising as of something remote, and it is quite evident that it had no hand in or control of the street fighting that took place. The organisations failed to keep pace with the growth and range of the movement.
The strike was growing into an uprising, primarily as a result of the pressure of the objective conditions created after October. A general strike could no longer take the government unawares: it had already organised the forces of counter-revolution, and they were ready for military action. The whole course of the Russian revolution after October, and the sequence of events in Moscow in the December days, strikingly confirmed one of Marx’s profound propositions: revolution progresses by giving rise to a strong and united counter-revolution, i.e., it compels the enemy to resort to more and more extreme measures of defence and in this way devises ever more powerful means of attack.^[3]
December 7 and 8: a peaceful strike, peaceful mass demonstrations. Evening of the 8th: the siege of the Aquarium.^[4]The morning of the 9th: the crowd in Strastnaya Square is attacked by the dragoons. Evening: the Fiedler building^[5]is raided. Temper rises. The unorganised street crowds, quite spontaneously and hesitatingly, set up the first barricades.
The 10th: artillery fire is opened on the barricades and the crowds in the streets. Barricades are set up more deliberately, and no longer in isolated cases, but on a really mass scale. The whole population is in the streets; all the main centres of the city are covered by a network of barricades. For several days the volunteer fighting units wage a stubborn guerrilla battle against the troops, which exhausts the troops and compels Dubasov^[6]to beg for reinforcements. Only on December 15 did the superiority of the government forces become complete, and on December 17 the Semyonovsky Regiment^[7]crushed Presnya District, the last stronghold of the uprising.
From a strike and demonstrations to isolated barricades. From isolated barricades to the mass erection of barricades and street fighting against the troops. Over the heads of the organisations, the mass proletarian struggle developed from a strike to an uprising. This is the greatest historic gain the Russian revolution achieved in December 1905; and like all preceding gains it was purchased at the price of enormous sacrifices. The movement was raised from a general political strike to a higher stage. It compelled the reaction to goto the limit in its resistance, and so brought vastly nearer the moment when the revolution will also go to the limit in applying the means of attack. The reaction cannot go further than the shelling of barricades, buildings and crowds. But the revolution can go very much further than the Moscow volunteer fighting units, it can go very, very much further in breadth and depth. And the revolution has advanced far since December. The base of the revolutionary crisis has become immeasurably broader—the blade must now be sharpened to a keener edge.
The proletariat sensed sooner than its leaders the change in the objective conditions of the struggle and the need for a transition from the strike to an uprising. As is always the case, practice marched ahead of theory. A peaceful strike and demonstrations immediately ceased to satisfy the workers; they asked: What is to be done next? And they demanded more resolute action. The instructions to set up barricades reached the districts exceedingly late, when barricades were already being erected in the centre of the city. The workers set to work in large numbers, but even this did not satisfy them; they wanted to know: what is to be done next?— they demanded active measures. In December, we, the leaders of the Social-Democratic proletariat, were like a commander-in-chief who has deployed his troops in such an absurd way that most of them took no active part in the battle. The masses of the workers demanded, but failed to receive, instructions for resolute mass action.
Thus, nothing could be more short-sighted than Plekhanov’s view, seized upon by all the opportunists, that the strike was untimely and should not have been started, and that “they should not have taken to arms”. On the contrary, we should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that it was impossible to confine things to a peaceful strike and that a fearless and relentless armed fight was necessary. And now we must at last openly and publicly admit that political strikes are inadequate; we must carry on the widest agitation among the masses in favour of an armed uprising and make no attempt to obscure this question by talk about “preliminary stages”, or to befog it in any way. We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.
Such is the first lesson of the December events. Another lesson concerns the character of the uprising, the methods by which it is conducted, and the conditions which lead to the troops coming over to the side of the people. An extremely biased view on this latter point prevails in the Right wing of our Party. It is alleged that there is no possibility of fighting modern troops; the troops must become revolutionary. Of course, unless the revolution assumes a mass character and affects the troops, there can be no question of serious struggle. That we must work among the troops goes without saying. But we must not imagine that they will come over to our side at one stroke, as a result of persuasion or their own convictions. The Moscow uprising clearly demonstrated how stereotyped and lifeless this view is. As a matter of fact, the wavering of the troops, which is inevitable in every truly popular movement, leads to a real fight for the troops whenever the revolutionary struggle be comes acute. The Moscow uprising was precisely an example of the desperate, frantic struggle for the troops that takes place between the reaction and the revolution. Dubasov himself declared that of the fifteen thousand men of the Moscow garrison, only five thousand were reliable. The government restrained the waverers by the most diverse and desperate measures: they appealed to them, flattered them, bribed them, presented them with watches, money, etc.; they doped them with vodka, they lied to them, threatened them, confined them to barracks and disarmed them, and those who were suspected of being least reliable were removed by treachery and violence. And we must have the courage to confess, openly and unreservedly, that in this respect we lagged be hind the government. We failed to utilise the forces at our disposal for such an active, bold, resourceful and aggressive fight for the wavering troops as that which the government waged and won. We have carried on work in the army and we will redouble our efforts in the future ideologically to “win over” the troops. But we shall prove to be miserable pedants if we forget that at a time of uprising there must also be a physical struggle for the troops.
In the December days, the Moscow proletariat taught us magnificent lessons in ideologically “winning over” the troops, as, for example, on December 8 in Strastnaya Square, when the crowd surrounded the Cossacks, mingled and fraternised with them, and persuaded them to turn back. Or on December 10, in Presnya District, when two working girls, carrying a red flag in a crowd of 10,000 people, rushed out to meet the Cossacks crying: “Kill us! We will not surrender the flag alive!” And the Cossacks were disconcerted and galloped away, amidst the shouts from the crowd: “Hurrah for the Cossacks!” These examples of courage and heroism should be impressed forever on the mind of the proletariat.
But here are examples of how we lagged behind Dubasov. On December 9, soldiers were marching down Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street singing theMarseillaise, on their way to join the insurgents. The workers sent delegates to meet them. Malakhov himself galloped at breakneck speed towards them. The workers were too late, Malakhov reached them first. He delivered a passionate speech, caused the soldiers to waver, surrounded them with dragoons, marched them off to barracks and locked them in. Malakhov reached the soldiers in time and we did not, although within two days 150,000 people had risen at our call, and these could and should have organised the patrolling of the streets. Malakhov surrounded the soldiers with dragoons, whereas we failed to surround the Malakhovs with bomb-throwers. We could and should have done this; and long ago the Social-Democratic press (the oldIskra^[8]) pointed out that ruthless extermination of civil and military chiefs was our duty during an uprising. What took place in Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street was apparently repeated in its main features in front of the Nesvizhskiye Barracks and the Krutitskiye Barracks, and also when the workers attempted to“withdraw” the Ekaterinoslav Regiment, and when delegates were sent to the sappers in Alexandrov, and when the Rostov artillery on its way to Moscow was turned back, and when the sappers were disarmed in Kolomna, and so on. During the uprising we proved unequal to our task in the fight for the wavering troops.

The December events confirmed another of Marx’s profound propositions, which the opportunists have forgotten, namely, that insurrection is an art and that the principal rule of this art is the waging of a desperately bold and irrevocably determined offensive.^[9] We have not sufficiently assimilated this truth. We ourselves have not sufficiently learned, nor have we taught the masses, this art, this rule to attack at all costs. We must make up for this omission with all our energy. It is not enough to take sides on the question of political slogans; it is also necessary to take sides on the question of an armed uprising. Those who are opposed to it, those who do not prepare for it, must be ruthlessly dismissed from the ranks of the supporters of the revolution, sent packing to its enemies, to the traitors or cowards; for the day is approaching when the force of events and the conditions of the struggle will compel us to distinguish between enemies and friends according to this principle. It is not passivity that we should preach, not mere “waiting” until the troops “come over”. No! We must proclaim from the house tops the need for a bold offensive and armed attack, the necessity at such times of exterminating the persons in command of the enemy, and of a most energetic fight for the wavering troops.
The third great lesson taught by Moscow concerns the tactics and organisation of the forces for an uprising. Military tactics depend on the level of military technique. This plain truth Engels demonstrated and brought home to all Marxists.^[10]Military technique today is not what it was in the middle of the nineteenth century. It would be folly to contend against artillery in crowds and defend barricades with revolvers. Kautsky was right when he wrote that it is high time now, after Moscow, to review Engels’s conclusions, and that Moscow had inaugurated “new barricade tactics”.^[11]These tactics are the tactics of guerrilla warfare. The organisation required for such tactics is that of mobile and exceedingly small units, units of ten, three or even two persons. We often meet Social-Democrats now who scoff whenever units of five or three are mentioned. But scoffing is only a cheap way of ignoring thenew question of tactics and organisation raised by street fighting under the conditions imposed by modern military technique. Study carefully the story of the Moscow uprising, gentlemen, and you will understand what connection exists between “units of five” and the question of “new barricade tactics”.
Moscow advanced these tactics, but failed to develop them far enough, to apply them to any considerable extent, to a really mass extent. There were too few volunteer fighting squads, the slogan of bold attack was not issued to the masses of the workers and they did not apply it; the guerrilla detachments were too uniform in character, their arms and methods were inadequate, their ability to lead the crowd was almost undeveloped. We must make up for all this and we shall do so by learning from the experience of Moscow, by spreading this experience among the masses and by stimulating their creative efforts to develop it still further. And the guerrilla warfare and mass terror that have been taking place throughout Russia practically without a break since December, will undoubtedly help the masses to learn the correct tactics of an uprising. Social-Democracy must recognise this mass terror and incorporate it into its tactics, organising and controlling it of course, subordinating it to the interests and conditions of the working-class movement and the general revolutionary struggle, while eliminating and ruthlessly lopping off the“hooligan” perversion of this guerrilla warfare which was so splendidly and ruthlessly dealt with by our Moscow comrades during the uprising and by the Letts during the days of the famous Lettish republics.^[12]
There have been new advances in military technique in the very recent period. The Japanese War produced the hand grenade. The small-arms factories have placed automatic rifles on the market. Both these weapons are already being successfully used in the Russian revolution, but to a degree that is far from adequate. We can and must take advantage of improvements in technique, teach the workers’ detachments to make bombs in large quantities, help them and our fighting squads to obtain supplies of explosives, fuses and automatic rifles. If the mass of the workers takes part in uprisings in the towns, if mass attacks are launched on the enemy, if a determined and skilful fight is waged for the troops, who after the Duma, after Sveaborg and Kronstadt are wavering more than ever—and if we ensure participation of the rural areas in the general struggle—victory will be ours in the next all-Russian armed uprising.
Let us, then, develop our work more extensively and set our tasks more boldly, while mastering the lessons of the great days of the Russian revolution. The basis of our work is a correct estimate of class interests and of the requirements of the nation’s development at the present juncture. We are rallying, and shall continue to rally, an increasing section of the proletariat, the peasantry and the army under the slogan of overthrowing the tsarist regime and convening a constituent assembly by a revolutionary government. As hitherto, the basis and chief content of our work is to develop the political understanding of the masses. But let us not forget that, in addition to this general, constant and fundamental task, times like the present in Russia impose other, particular and special tasks. Let us not become pedants and philistines, let us not evade these special tasks of the moment, these special tasks of the given forms of struggle, by meaningless references to our permanent duties, which remain unchanged at all times and in all circumstances.
Let us remember that a great mass struggle is approaching. It will be an armed uprising. It must, as far as possible, be simultaneous. The masses must know that they are entering upon an armed, bloody and desperate struggle. Contempt for death must become widespread among them and will ensure victory. The onslaught on the enemy must be pressed with the greatest vigour; attack, not defence, must be the slogan of the masses; the ruthless extermination of the enemy will be their task; the organisation of the struggle will become mobile and flexible; the wavering elements among the troops will be drawn into active participation. And in this momentous struggle, the party of the class-conscious proletariat must discharge its duty to the full.

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Notes

[1]See pp. 189-93 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]The Joint Council of Volunteer Fighting Squads was formed in Moscow at the end of October 1905. It was created at the outset for the practical struggle against the Black Hundreds but it was kept in existence during the December uprising. It included representatives of the volunteer squads of the Moscow Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., the Moscow group of Social-Democrats, the Moscow committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and also of the volunteer squads bearing the names “Free District”,“University”, “Typographical” and“Caucasian”. The S.-R.-Menshevik majority of the Joint Council was responsible for disorganising its activity; during the days of the December armed uprising it lagged behind the revolutionary events and was incapable of acting as the operational general staff of the uprising.

[3]Lenin cites the proposition put forward by Marx in hisClass Struggles in France, 1848 to 1860 (see Marx and Engels,Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1958, p. 139).

[4]During the evening of December 8 (21), 1905, soldiers and police cordoned off the “Aquarium” garden (at the Sadovo-Triumfalnaya Square) where a crowded meeting was being held in the theatre. Thanks to the selfless efforts of the workers’ volunteer squads guarding the meeting, bloodshed was avoided; those who possessed arms were enabled to escape through a broken fence, but the other participants in the meeting who went out through the gate were searched, beaten up and in many cases arrested.

[5]The Fiedler school building (at Chistiye Prudy) was regularly used for party meetings. During the evening of December 9 (22), 1905, when a meeting was being held there, it was surrounded by troops. The participants in the meeting, mostly members of volunteer squads, refused to surrender and barricaded themselves in the building. The troops opened fire using artillery and machine-guns. During the destruction of the building more than 30 persons were killed or wounded; 120 were arrested.

[6]Dubasov, F. V. (1845-1912)—Governor-General of Moscow in 1905-06, who directed the suppression of the armed uprising of the Moscow workers in December 1905.

[7]Semenovtsy—soldiers of the Semenovsky Guards Regiment who were sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow in December 1905 to suppress the uprising of the Moscow workers.

[8]Iskra (The Spark)—the first all-Russian illegal Marxist revolutionary newspaper. It was founded by Lenin in 1900, and it played a decisive part in building the Marxist revolutionary party of the Russian working class. After the Party, at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in 1903, had split into a revolutionary (Bolshevik) wing and an opportunist (Menshevik) wing, Iskra passed into the hands of the Mensheviks and became known as the “new”Iskra in contrast to Lenin’s old Iskra.

[9]This refers to Engels’s Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany, 1848 (New York Daily Tribune, 18.IX. 1852) which was published in 1851-52 as a series of articles in the newspaper New York Daily Tribune over the signature of Marx, who originally intended to write them but, being preoccupied with his economic researches, handed over the task to Engels. In writing the articles Engels constantly consulted Marx, who also read them through, before they were sent to the press. Not until 1913, as a result of the publication of the correspondence between Marx and Engels, did it become known that the work had been written by Engels.

[10]Engels expounded this proposition on a number of occasions in his works, notably in Anti-Dühring.

[11]Lenin deals with this in more detail in his work “The Russian Revolution and the Tasks of the Proletariat” (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 141-42).

[12]In December 1905 various Lettish towns were seized by armed detachments of insurgent workers, agricultural labourers and peasants. Guerrilla war against the tsarist troops began. In January 1906 the uprising in Latvia was suppressed by punitive expeditions under tsarist generals.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Mimi’s Glance, Circa 1963

 

 

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Doris Troy performing her 1963 classic Just One Look.

CD Review

The Rock and Roll Era: 1963, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989

“Mimi Murphy knew two things, she needed to keep moving, and she was tired, tired as hell of moving, of the need, of the self-imposed need, to keep moving ever since that incident five years ago with her seems like an eternity ago sweet long gone motorcycle boy, Pretty James Preston. Poor Pretty James and his needs, no, his obsessions with that silly motorcycle, that English devil’s machine, that Vincent Black Lightning that caused him more anguish than she did. And she gave him plenty to think about as well before the end. How she tried to get him to settle down a little, just a little, but what was a sixteen old girl, pretty new to the love game, totally new, but not complaining to the sex game, and his little tricks to get her in the mood for that, and forget the settle down thing. Until the next time.

Maybe, if you were from around North Adamsville way, or maybe just Boston, you had heard about Pretty James, Pretty James Preston and his daring exploits back in about 1967 and 1968. Those got a lot of play in the newspapers for months before the end. Before that bank job, the one where as Pretty James used to say all the time, he cashed his check. Yes, the big Granite City National Bank branch in Braintree heist that he tried to pull all by himself, with Mimi as stooge look-out. She had set him up for that heist, or so she thought. No, she didn’t ask him to do it but she got him thinking, thinking about settling down just a little and he needed a big score, not the penny ante gas station and mom and pop variety store robberies that kept them in, as he also said, coffee and cakes but a big payday and then off to Mexico, maybe Sonora, and a buy into the respectable and growing drug trade.

And he almost, almost, got away clean that fatal day, that day when she stood across the street, a forty-five in her purse just in case he needed it for a final getaway. But he never made it out the door. Some rum brave security guard tried to uphold the honor of his profession and started shooting nicking Pretty James in the shoulder. Pretty James responded with a few quick blasts and felled the copper. That action though slowed down the escape enough for the real coppers to respond and blow Pretty James away. Dead, DOA, done. Her sweet boy Pretty James.

According to the newspapers a tall, slender red-headed girl about sixteen had been seen across the street from the bank just waiting, waiting according to the witness, nervously. The witness had turned her head when she heard the shots from the bank and when she looked back the red-headed girl was gone. And Mimi was gone, and long gone before the day was out. She grabbed the first bus out of Braintree headed to Boston where eventually she wound up holed up in a high-end whorehouse doing tricks to make some moving dough. And she had been moving ever since, moving and eternally hate moving. Now, for the past few months, she had been working nights as a cashier in the refreshment stand at the Olde Saco Drive-In Theater to get another stake to keep moving. She had been tempted, a couple of times, to do a little moon-lighting in a Portland whorehouse that a woman she had worked with at her last job, Fenner’s Department Store where she modeled clothes for the rich ladies, had told her about to get a quick stake but she was almost as eternally tired at that prospect as in moving once again.

Then one night Josh came in. Came in for popcorn and a Sprite she remembered, although she did not remember on that busy summer night what the charge was. He kind of looked her over quickly, very quickly but she was aware that he looked her over and, moreover, he was aware that she knew that he had looked her over. The look though was not the usual baby, baby come on look, but a thoughtful look like he could see that she had seen some woes and, well, what of it. Like maybe he specialized in fixing busted-up red-heads, or wanted to. She knew she wasn’t beautiful but she had a certain way about her that certain guys, guys from motorcycle wild boy Pretty James Boy to kind of bookish college guys like this one, wanted to get next to. If she let them. And she hadn’t, hadn’t not since Pretty James. But she confessed to herself, not without a girlish blush, that she had in the universe of looks and peeks that make up human experience looked him over too. And then passed to the next customer and his family of four burgeoning tray-full order of hot dogs, candy, popcorn and about six zillion drinks.

A couple of nights later, a slow night for it was misting out keeping away the summer vacation families that kept the drive-in hopping before each show and at intermission, a Thursday night usually slow anyway before the Friday change of the double-feature, Josh came in again at intermission. This time out of nowhere, without a second’s hesitation, she gave him a big smile when he came to the register with his now familiar popcorn and Sprite. He didn’t respond, or rather he did not respond right away because right behind him there were a couple of high school couples who could hardly wait to get their provisions and get back to their fogged-up car and keep it fogged up. They passed by him and hurried out the door.

Just then over the refreshment stand loudspeaker that played records as background music to keep the unruly crowds a little quiet while they waited for their hamburgers and hot dogs came the voice of Doris Troy singing her greatest hit, Just One Look. Then he broke into a smile, a big smile like he was thinking just that thought that very minute, looked up at the clock, looked again, and looked a third time without saying a word, She gave him a slight flirty smile and said eleven o’clock and at exactly eleven o’clock he was there to meet her. Maybe she thought as they went out the refreshment stand door she would not have to keep moving, eternally moving after all.

A couple of fretful months later one nigh Mimi slipped out the back door of her rooming house over on Atlantic Avenue and Josh never heard from her again. Josh figured that after telling him about Pretty James one lonesome whiskey-drinking night she had to move, keep moving tired or not.”   

 

Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “The Kiss of Death”-

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir classic, Kiss of Death.

DVD Review

Kiss of Death, Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1947

Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda,The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because, in addition to those attributes mentioned above, they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh yah, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kiss of Death, is under that latter category.

But hold on though. Although the plot line is thin, mainly about a middle level career con gone wrong once again who, to save his kids from a fatherless and motherless future (mother having committed suicide), decides to play ball with the law. Thus, chump Nick Bianco (played pretty well by Victor Mature, given what he had to work with) turned stoolie, rat, fink, turncoat and the other ten thousand names for such a wrong gee and the rest of the plot hangs on that idea. Say idea being that it is not good business (and for all I know, maybe, unethical, unethical in the criminal code of conduct, although my own very small youthful experience is that it is "every man for himself") to turn stoolie, especially if the price of “freedom” is to tangle, tango, or whatever with one Tommy Udo. No way, no how, not for anything.

And that is what saves this thing as a crime noir classic, the performance of Richard Widmark as psycho-killer for hire Tommy Udo. Everything about him from minute one says wrong gee, don’t mess. I knew such hard boys, maybe not as hard as Tommy but as a pale reflection corner boy who watched as “Red”Riley chain-whipped a guy near to death just for passing by his corner where he was not welcome in my growing up working class neighborhood I knew, second hand at least, their “style.” Although, needless to say, Nick will mess (Tommy has threatened his kids and his new honey after all) just like eventually the serious outlaw motorcycle boy Pretty James Preston (Vincent Black Lightning no less from Britain no less not some Harley hog or Indian chopper) put even Red Riley out of commission when he just looked, looked longingly, maybe just a second too long at his sweet long-legged red-haired baby, Mimi Murphy.

Yes, although I was only a babe then I will give a retroactive vote to Richard Widmark for that 1947 Oscar he won for best supporting actor. There have been a lot of scary psycho-killers that have come down the pike since then but I would not, and would not advise others, to tangle with this guy. Or Pretty James Preston, who eventually got waylaid by the coppers trying to pull a bank heist single-handedly, if you see his ghost around. And you would too. Kudos.

From The Bradley Manning Support Network

The Latest From The Partisan Defense Committee

From The Pages Of The Communist International- In Honor Of The 93rd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (1919) Appeal To The International Proletariat (1921)

Click on the headline to link to the "Communist International  Internet Archives."

Markin comment from the American Left History blog (2007) :</strong>

BOOK REVIEW

‘LEFT-WING’ COMMUNISM-AN INFANTILE DISORDER, V.I. LENIN, UNIVERSITY PRESS OF THE PACIFIC, CALIFORNIA, 2001

 An underlying premise of the Lenin-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was that success there would be the first episode in a world-wide socialist revolution. While a specific timetable was not placed on the order of the day the early Bolshevik leaders, principally Lenin and Trotsky, both assumed that those events would occur in the immediate post-World War I period, or shortly thereafter. Alas, such was not the case, although not from lack of trying on the part of an internationalist-minded section of the Bolshevik leadership.

Another underlying premise, developed by the Leninists as part of their opposition to the imperialist First World War, was the need for a new revolutionary labor international to replace the compromised and moribund Socialist International (also known as the Second International) which had turned out to be useless as an instrument for revolution or even of opposition to the European war. The Bolsheviks took that step after seizing power and established the Communist International (also known as the Comintern or Third International) in 1919. As part of the process of arming that international with a revolutionary strategy (and practice) Lenin produced this polemic to address certain confusions, some willful, that had arisen in the European left and also attempted to instill some of the hard-learned lessons of the Russian revolutionary experience in them.

The Russian Revolution and after it the Comintern in the early heroic days, for the most part, drew the best and most militant layers of the working class and radical intellectuals to their defense. However, that is not the same as drawing experienced Bolsheviks to that defense. Many militants were anti-parliamentarian or anti-electoral in principle after the sorry experiences with the European social democracy. Others wanted to emulate the old heroic days of the Bolshevik underground party or create a minority, exclusive conspiratorial party. Still others wanted to abandon the reformist bureaucratically-led trade unions to their then current leaderships, and so on.   Lenin’s polemic, and it nothing but a flat-out polemic against all kinds of misconceptions of the Bolshevik experience, cut across these erroneous ideas like a knife. His literary style may not appeal to today’s audience but the political message still has considerable application today. At the time that it was written no less a figure than James P. Cannon, a central leader of the American Communist Party, credited the pamphlet  with straightening out that badly confused movement (Indeed, it seems every possible political problem Lenin argued against in that pamphlet had some following in the American Party-in triplicate!). That alone makes it worth a look at.

I would like to highlight one point made by Lenin that has currency for leftists today, particularly American leftists. At the time it was written many (most) of the communist organizations adhering to the Comintern were little more than propaganda groups (including the American Party). Lenin suggested one of the ways to break out of that isolation was a tactic of critical support to the still large and influential social democratic organizations at election time. In his apt expression- to support those organizations "like a rope supports a hanging man". 

However, as part of my political experiences in America  around election time I have run into any number of ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ who have turned  Lenin’s concept on its head. How? By arguing that militants needed to ‘critically support’ the Democratic Party (who else, right?) as an application of the Leninist criterion for critical support. No, a thousand times no. Lenin’s specific example was the reformist British Labor Party, a party at that time (and to a lesser extent today) solidly based on the trade unions- organizations of the working class and no other. The Democratic Party in America was then, is now, and will always be a capitalist party. Yes, the labor bureaucrats and ordinary workers support it, finance it, drool over it but in no way is it a labor party. That is the class difference which even sincere militants have broken their teeth on for at least the last seventy years. And that, dear reader, is another reason why it worthwhile to take a peek at this book.

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V. I. Lenin

Appeal To The International Proletariat^[1]

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Written: 2 August, 1921
First Published: Pravda No. 172, August 6, 1921; Published according to the Pravda text collated with the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 32, page 502
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\HTML Markup:David Walters & R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

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Several gubernias in Russia have been hit by a famine whose proportions are apparently only slightly less than those of the 1891 calamity.

It is the painful aftermath of Russia’s backwardness and of seven years of war, first, the imperialist, and then, the Civil War, which was forced upon the workers and peasants by the landowners and capitalists of all countries.
We need help. The Soviet Republic of workers and peasants expects this help from the working people, the industrial workers and the small farmers.
The mass of both the former and the latter are themselves oppressed by capitalism and imperialism everywhere, but we are convinced that they will respond to our appeal, despite their own hard condition caused by unemployment and the rising cost of living.
Those who have suffered from capitalist oppression all their lives will understand the position of the workers and peasants of Russia, they will grasp or, guided by the instinct of working and exploited people, will sense the need of helping the Soviet Republic, whose lot it was to be the first to undertake the hard but gratifying task of overthrowing capitalism. That is why the capitalists of all countries are revenging themselves upon the Soviet Republic; that is why they are planning a fresh campaign, intervention, and counter-revolutionary conspiracies against it.
All the greater, we trust, will be the vigour and the self-sacrifice with which the workers and the small labouring farmers of all countries will help us.

N. Lenin

August 2, 1921

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Endnotes

[1] Lenin’s Appeal to the International Proletariat in connection with the famine which hit almost 33 million people in the Volga area and South Ukraine met with a broad response among the working people of all countries. An “Ad hoc Foreign Committee for Assistance to Russia” was set up on the initiative of the Comintern in August 1921. French revolutionary trade unions called on the workers to contribute a day’s earnings for the famine stricken population of Russia. Henri Barbusse and Anatole France played an active part in organising assistance, and the latter contributed to the fund the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 1921. About one million francs were collected in France. Czechoslovakia contributed 7,5 million korunas in cash and 2 million korunas’ worth of food; the German Communist Part collected 1.3 million marks in cash and I million marks’ worth of food; Dutch Communists collected 100,000 guilders; the Italians, about 1 million liras; the Norwegians, 100,000 krones; the Austrians, 3 million krones; the Spaniards, 50,000 marks; the Poles, 9 million marks; the Danes, 500,000 marks, etc. By December 20, 1921, Communist organisations had bought 312,000 poods of food and collected 1 million gold rubles. The organisations of the Amsterdam International bought 85,625 poods of food and collected 485,000 gold rubles.