From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-The Struggle For The Communist League-On The History of the Communist League (1885)

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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Markin comment:

This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.

Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League

A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)

Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"

Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."

The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.

Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."

The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.

The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.

The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.

Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."

The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.

Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
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Frederick Engels

On The History of the Communist League

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First Published: Nov 12-26, 1885 in Sozialdemokrat;
Source: Marx and Engels Selected Works, Volume 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1970;
Transcribed by: zodiac@io.org.


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London
October 8, 1885

With the sentence of the Cologne Communists in 1852, the curtain falls on the first period of the independent German workers’ movement. Today this period is almost forgotten. Yet it lasted from 1836 to 1852 and, with the spread of German workers abroad, the movement developed in almost all civilized countries. Nor is that all. The present-day international workers’ movement is in substance a direct continuation of the German workers’ movement of that time, which was the first international workers’ movement of all time, and which brought forth many of those who took the leading role in he International Working Men’s Association. And the theoretical principles that the Communist League had inscribed on its banner in the Communist Manifesto of 1847 constitute today the strongest international bond of the entire proletarian movement of both Europe and America.

Up to now there has been only one source for a coherent history of that movement. This is the so-called Black Book, The Communist Conspiracies of the Nineteenth Century, by Wermuth and Stieber, Erline, two parts, 1853 and 1854. This crude compilation, which bristles with deliberate falsifications, fabricated by two of the most contemptible police scoundrels of our century, today still serves as the final source for all non-communist writings about that period.

What I am able to give here is only a sketch, and even this only in so far as the League itself is concerned; only what is absolutely necessary to understand the Revelations. I hope that some day I shall have the opportunity to work up the rich material collected by Marx and myself on the history of that glorious period of the youth of the international workers’ movement.

* In 1836 the most extreme, chiefly proletarian elements of the secret democratic-republican Outlaws’ League, which was founded by German refugees in Paris in 1834, split off and formed the new secret League of the Just. The parent League, in which only sleepy-headed elements à la Jakobus Venedey were left, soon fell asleep altogether; when in 1840 the police scented out a few sections in Germany, it was hardly even a shadow of its former self. The new League, on the contrary, developed comparatively rapidly. Originally it was a German outlier of the French worker-Communism, reminiscent of Babouvism and taking shape in Paris at about this time; community of goods was demanded as the necessary consequence of “equality”. The aims were those of the Parisian secret societies of the time: half propaganda association, half conspiracy, Paris, however, being always regarded as the central point of revolutionary action, although the preparation of occassional putsches in Germany was by no means excluded. But as Paris remained the decisive battleground, the League was at that time actually not much more than the German branch of the French secret societies, especially the Societe des saisons led by Blanqui and Barbes, with which a close connections was maintained. The French went into action on May 12, 1839; the sections of the League marched with them and thus were involved in the common defeat.

Among the Germans arrested were Karl Schapper and Heinrich Bauer; Louis Philippe’s government contented itself with deporting them after a fairly long imprisonment. Both went to London. Schapper came from Weilburg in Nassau and while a student of forestry at Giessen in 1832 was a member of the conspiracy organized by Georg Buchner; he took part in the storming of the Frankfort constable station on April 3, 1833, escaped abroad and in February 1834 joined Mazzini’s march on Savoy. Of gigantic stature, resolute and energetic, always ready to risk civil existence and life, he was a model of the professional revolutionist that played an important role in the thirties. In spite of a certain sluggishness of thought, he was by no means incapable of profound theoretical understanding, as is proved by his development from “demagogue” to Communist, and he held then all the more rigidly to what he had once come to recognize. Precisely on that account his revolutionary passion sometimes got the better of understanding, but he always afterwards realized his mistake and openly acknowledged it. He was fully a man and what he did for the founding of the German workers’ movement will not be forgotten.

Heinrich Bauer, from Franconia, was a shoemaker; a lively, alert, witty little fellow, whose little body, however, also contained much shrewdness and determination.

Arrived in London, where Schapper, who had been a compositor in Paris, now tried to earn his living as a teacher of languages, they both set to work gathering up the broken threads and made London the centre of the League. They were joined over here, if not already earlier in Paris, by Joseph Moll, a watchmaker from Cologne, a medium-sized Hercules — how often did Schapper and he victoriously defend the entrance to a hall against hundreds of onrushing opponents! — a man who was at least the equal of his two comrades in energy and determination, and intellectually superior to both of them. Not only was he a born diplomat, as the success of his numerous trips on various mission proved; he was also more capable of theoretical insight. I came to know all three of them in London in 1843. There were the first revolutionary proletarians whom I met, and however far apart our views were at that time — for I still owned, as against their narrow-minded equalitarian Communism [by equalitarian Communism I understand, as stated, only that Communism which bases itself exclusively or predominantly on the demand for equality], a goodly does of just as narrow-minded philosophical arrogance — I shall never forget the deep impression that these three real men made upon me, who was then still only wanting to become a man.

In London, as in a lesser degree in Switzerland, they had the benefit of freedoms of association and assembly. As early as February 7, 1840, the legally functioning German Workers’ Educational Association, which still exists, was founded. This Association served the League as a recruiting ground for new members, and since, as always, the Communists were the most active and intelligent members of the Association, it was a matter of course that its leadership lay entirely in the hands of the League. The League soon had several communities, or, as they were then still called, “lodges”, in London. The same obvious tactics were followed in Switzerland and elsewhere. Where workers’ associations could be founded, they were utilized in like manner. Where this was forbidden by law, one joined choral societies, athletic clubs, and the like. Connections were to a large extent maintained by members who were continually travelling back and forth; they also, when required, served as emissaries. In both respects the League obtained lively support through the wisdom of the governments which, by resorting to deportation, converted any objectionable worker — and in nine cases our of ten he was a member of the League — into an emissary.

The extent to which the restored League was spread was considerable. Notably in Switzerland, Weitling, August Becker (a highly gifted man who, however, like so many Germans, came to grief because of innate instability of character) and others created a strong organization more or less pledged to Weitling’s communist system. This is not the place to criticize the Communism of Weitling. But as regards its significance as the first independent theoretical stirring of the German proletariat, I still today subscribe to Marx’s words in the Paris Vorwarts of 1844:

“Where could the (German) bourgeoisie — including its philosophers and learned scribes — point to a work relating to the emancipation of the bourgeoisie — its political emancipation — comparable to Weitlings’ Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom? If one compares the drab mealy-mouthed mediocrity of German political literature with this immeasurable and brilliant debut of the German workers, if one compares these gigantic children’s shoes of the proletariat with the dwarf proportions of the worn-out political shows of the bourgeoisie, one must prophesy an athlete’s figure for this Cinderella.”

This athlete’s figure confronts us today, although still far from being fully grown.

Numerous sections existed also in Germany; in the nature of things they were of a transient character, but those coming into existence more than made up for those passing away. Only after seven years, at the end of 1846, did the police discover traces of the League in Berlin (Mentel) and Magdeburg (Beck), without being in a position to follow them further.

In Paris, Weitling, who was still there in 1840, likewise gathered the scattered elements together again before he left for Switzerland.

The tailors formed the central force of the League. German tailors were everywhere: in Switzerland, in London, in Paris. In the last-named city, German was so much the prevailing tongue in this trade that I was acquainted there in 1846 with a Norwegian tailor who had travelled directly by sea from Trondhjem to France and in the space of eighteen months had learned hardly a word of French but had acquired an excellent knowledge of German. Two of the Paris communities in 1847 consisted predominantly of tailors, one of cabinetmakers.

After the centre of gravity had shifted from Paris to London, a new feature grew conspicuous: from being German, the League gradually became international. In the workers’ society there were to be found, besides German and Swiss, also members of all those nationalities for whom German served as the chief means of communication with foreigners, notably, therefore, Scandinavians, Dutch, Hungarians, Czechs, Southern Slavs, and also Russians and Alsatians. In 1847 the regular frequenters included a British grenadier of the Guards in uniform. The society soon called itself the Communist Workers’ Educational Association, and the membership cards bore the inscription “All Men Are Brothers”, in at least twenty languages, even if not without mistakes here and there. Like the open Association, so also the secret League soon took on a more international character; at first in a restricted sense, practically through the varied nationalities of its members, theoretically through the realization that any revolution to be victorious must be a European one. One did not go any further as yet; but the foundations were there.

Close connections were maintained with the French revolutionists through t he London refugees, comrades-in-arms of May 12, 1839. Similarly with the more radical Poles. The official Polish emigres, as also Mazzini, were, of course, opponents rather than allies. The English Chartists, on account of the specific English character of their movement, were disregarded as not revolutionary. The London leaders of the League came in touch with them only later, through me.

In other ways, too, the character of the League had altered with events. Although Paris was still — and at that time quite rightly — looked upon as the mother city of the revolution, one had nevertheless emerged from the state of dependence on the Paris conspirators. The spread of the League raised its self-consciousness. It was felt that roots were being struck more and more in the German working class and that these German workers were historically called upon to be the standard-bearers of the workers of the North and East of Europe. In Weitling was to be found a communist theoretician who could be boldly placed at the side of his contemporary French rivals. Finally, the experience of May 12th had taught us that for the time being there was nothing to be gained by attempts at putsches. And if one still continued to explain every event as a sign of the approaching storm, if one still preserved intact the old, semi-conspiratorial rules, that was mainly the fault of the old revolutionary defiance, which had already begun to collide with the sounder views that were gaining headway.

However, the social doctrine of the League, indefinite as it was, contained a very great defect, but one that had its roots in the conditions themselves. The members, in so far as they were workers at all, were almost exclusively artisans. Even in the big metropolises, the man who exploited them was usually only a small master. The exploitation of tailoring on a large scale, what is now called the manufacture of ready-made clothes, by the conversion of handicraft tailoring into a domestic industry working for a big capitalist, was at that time even in London only just making it appearance. On the one hand, the exploiters of these artisans was a small master; on the other hand, they all hoped ultimately to become small masters themselves. In addition, a mass of inherited guild notions still clung to the German artisan at that time. The greatest honor is due to them, in that they, who were themselves not yet full proletarians but only an appendage of the petty bourgeoisie, an appendage which was passing into the modern proletariat and which did not yet stand in direct opposition to the bourgeoisie, that is, to big capital — in that these artisans were capable of instinctively anticipating their future development and of constituting themselves, even if not yet with full consciousness, the party of the proletariat. But it was also inevitable that their old handicraft prejudices should be a stumbling block to them at every moment, whenever it was a question of criticizing existing society in detail, that is, of investigating economic facts. And I do not believe there was a single man in the whole League at that time who had ever read a book on political economy. But that mattered little; for the time being “equality”, “brotherhood” and “justice” helped them to surmount every theoretical obstacle.

Meanwhile a second, essentially different Communism was developed alongside that of the League and of Weitling. While I was in Manchester, it was tangibly brought home to me that the economic facts, which have so far played no role or only a contemptible one in the writing of history, are, at least in the modern world, a decisive historical force; that they form the basis of the origination of the present-day class antagonisms; that these class antagonisms, in the countries where they have become fully developed, thanks to large-scale industry, hence especially in England, are in their turn the basis of the formation of political parties and of party struggles, and thus of all political history. Marx had not only arrived at the same view, but had already, in the Deutsche-Französische Jahrbücher (1844), generalized it to the effect that, speaking generally, it is not the state which conditions and regulates the civil society at all, but civil society which conditions and regulates the state, and, consequently, that policy and its history are to be explained from the economic relations and their development, and not vice versa. When I visited Marx in Paris in the summer of 1844, our complete agreement in all theoretical fields became evident and our joint work dates from that time. When, in the spring of 1845, we met again in Brussels, Marx had already fully developed his materialist theory of history in its main features form the above-mentioned basis and we now applied ourselves to the detailed elaboration of the newly-won mode of outlook in the most varied directions.

This discovery, which revolutionized the science of history and, as we have seen, is essentially the work of Marx — a discovery in which I can claim for myself only a very insignificant share — was, however, of immediate importance for the contemporary workers’ movement. Communism among the French and Germans, Chartism among the English, now no longer appeared as something accidental which could just as well not have occurred. These movements now presented themselves as a movement of the modern oppressed class, the proletariat, as the more or less developed forms of its historically necessary struggle against the ruling class, the bourgeoisie; as forms of the class struggle, but distinguished from all earlier class struggles by this one thing, that the present-day oppressed class the proletariat, cannot achieve its emancipation without at the same time emancipating society as a whole from division into classes and, therefore, from class struggles. And Communism now no longer meant the concoction, by means of the imagination, of an ideal society as perfect as possible, but insight into the nature, the conditions and the consequent general aims of the struggle waged by the proletariat.

Now, we were by no means of the opinion that the new scientific results should be confided in large tomes exclusively to the “learned” world. Quite the contrary. We were both of us already deeply involved in the political movement, and possessed a certain following in the educated world, especially of Western Germany, and abundant contact with the organized proletariat. It was our duty to provide a scientific foundation for our view, but it was equally important for us to win over the European and in the first place the German proletariat to our conviction. As soon as we had become clear in our own minds, we set about the task. We founded a German workers’ society in Brussels and took over the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, which served us as an organ up to the February Revolution. We kept in touch with the revolutionary section of the English Chartists through Julian Harney, the editor of the central organ of the movement, The Northern Star, to which I was a contributor. We entered likewise into a sort of cartel with the Brussels democrats (Marx was vice-president of the Democratic Society) and with the French social-democrats of the Réforme, which I furnished with news of the English and German movements. In short, our connections with the radical and proletarian organizations and press organs were quite what one could wish.

Our relations with the League of the Just were as follows: The existence of the League was, of course, known to us; in 1843 Schapper had suggested that I join it, which I at that time naturally refused to do. But we not only kept up our continuous correspondence with the Londoners but remained on still closer terms with Dr Ewerbeck, then the leader of the Paris communities. Without going into the League’s internal affairs, we learnt of every important happening. On the other hand, we influenced the theoretical views of the most important members of the League by word of mouth, by letter and through the press. For this purpose we also made us of various lithographed circulars, which we dispatched to our friends and correspondents throughout the world on particular occasions, when it was a question of the internal affairs of the Communist Party in process of formation. In these, the League itself sometimes came to be dealt with. Thus, a young Westphalian student, Hermann Kriege, who went to America, came forward there as an emissary of the League and associated himself with the crazy Harro Harring for the purpose of using the League to turn South America upside down. He founded a paper in which, in the name of the League, he preached an extravagant Communism of love dreaming, based on “love” and overflowing with love. Against this we let fly with a circular that did not fail of its effect. Kriege vanished from the League scene.

Later, Weitling came to Brussels. But he was no loner the naive young journeyman-tailor who, astonished at his own talents, was trying to clarify in his own mind just what a communist society would look like. He was now the great man, persecuted by the environs on account of his superiority, who scented rivals, secret enemies and traps everywhere — the prophet, driven from country to country, who carried a recipe for the realization of heaven on earth ready-made in his pocket, and who was was possessed with the idea that everybody intended to steal it from him. He had already fallen out with the members of the League in London; and in Brussels, where Marx and his wife welcomed him with almost superhuman forbearance, he also could not get along with anyone. So he soon afterwards went to America to try out his role of prophet there.

All these circumstance contributed to the quiet revolution that was taking place in the League, and especially among the leaders in London. The inadequacy of the previous conception of Communism, both the simple French equalitarian Communism and that of Weitling, became more and more clear to them. The tracing of Communism back to primitive Christianity introduced by Weitling — no matter how brilliant certain passages to be found in his Gospel of Poor Sinners — had resulted in delivering the movement in Switzerland to a large extent into the hands, first of fools like Albrecht, and then of exploiting fake prophets like Kuhlmann. The “true Socialism” dealt in by a few literary writers — a translation of French socialist phraseology into corrupt Hegelian German, and sentimental love dreaming (see the section on German of “True” Socialism in the Communist Manifesto — that Kriege and the study of the corresponding literature introduced in the League was found soon to disgust the old revolutionaries of the league, if only because of its slobbering feebleness. As against the untenability of the previous theoretical views, and as against the practical aberrations resulting therefrom, it was realized more and more in London that Marx and I were right in our new theory. This understanding was undoubtedly promoted by the fact that among the London leaders there were now two men who were considerably superior to those previously mentioned in capacity for theoretical knowledge: the miniature painter Karl Pfander from Heilbronn and the tailor Georg Eccarius from Thuringia.

[Engels footnote: Pfander died about eight years ago in London. he was a man of peculiarly fine intelligence, witty, ironical and dialectical. Eccarius, as we know, was later for many years Secretary of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association, in the General Council of which the following old League members were to be found, among others: Eccarius, Pfander, Lessner, Lochner, Marx and myself. Eccarius subsequently devoted himself exclusively to the English trade union movement.]

It suffices to say that in the spring of 1847 Moll visited Marx in Brussels and immediately afterwards me in Paris, and invited us repeatedly, in the name of his comrades, to enter the League. He reported that they were as much convinced of the general correctness of our mode of outlook as of the necessity of freeing the League from the old conspiratorial traditions and forms. Should we enter, we would be given an opportunity of expounding our critical Communism before a congress of the League in a manifesto, which would then be published as the manifesto of the League; we would likewise be able to contribute our quota towards the replacement of the obsolete League organization by one in keeping with the new times and aims.

We entertained no doubt that an organization within the German working class was necessary, if only for propaganda purposes, and that this organization, in so far as it would not be merely local in character, could only be a secret one, even outside Germany. Now, there already existed exactly such an organization in the shape of the League. What we previously objected to in this League was now relinquished as erroneous by the representatives of the League themselves; we were even invited to co-operate in the work of reorganization. Could we say no? Certainly not. Therefore, we entered the League; Marx founded a League community in Brussels from among our close friends, while I attended the three Paris communities.

In the summer of 1847, the first league Congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. Whatever remained of the old mystical names dating back to the conspiratorial period was now abolished; the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a Central Committee and a Congress, and henceforth called itself the “Communist League”.

“The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old, bourgeois society based on class antagonisms and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property”

— thus ran the first article. The organization itself was thoroughly democratic, with elective and always removable boards. This alone barred all hankering after conspiracy, which requires dictatorship, and the League was converted — for ordinary peace times at least — into a pure propaganda society. These new Rules were submitted to the communities for discussion — so democratic was the procedure now followed — then once again debated at the Second Congress and finally adopted by the latter on December 8, 1847. They are to be found reprinted in Wermuth and Stieber, vol.I, p.239, Appendix X.

The Second Congress took place during the end of November and beginning of December of the same year. Marx also attended this time and expounded the new theory in a fairly long debate — the congress lasted at least ten days. All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto. This was done immediately afterwards. A few weeks before the February Revolution it was sent to London to be printed. Since then it has travelled round the world, has been translated into almost all languages and today still serves in numerous countries as a guide for the proletarian movement. In place of the old League motto, “All Men Are Brothers”, appeared the new battle cry, “Working Men of All Countries, Unite!” which openly proclaimed the international character of the struggle. Seventeen years later this battle cry resounded throughout the world as the watchword of the International Working Men’s Association, and today the militant proletariat of all countries has inscribed it in its banner.

The February Revolution broke out. The London Central Committee functioning hitherto immediately transferred its powers to the Brussels leading circle. But this decision came at a time when an actual state of siege already existed in Brussels, and the Germans in particular could no longer assemble anywhere. We were all of us just on the point of going to Paris, and so the new Central Committee decided likewise to dissolve, to hand over all its powers to Marx and to empower him immediately to constitute a new Central Committee in Paris. Hardly had the five persons who adopted this decision (March 3, 1848) separated, before police forced their way into Marx’s house, arrested him and compelled him to leave for France the following day, which was just where he was wanting to go.

In Paris we all soon came together again. There the following document was drawn up and signed by all the members of the new Central Committee. It was distributed throughout Germany and many a one can still learn something from it even today:

Demands of the Communist Party in Germany
The whole of Germany shall be declared a single indivisible republic.
Representatives of the people shall be paid so that workers also can sit in the parliament of the German people.
Universal arming of the people.
The estates of the princes and other feudal estates, all mines, pits, etc., shall be transformed into state property. On these estates, agriculture is to be conducted on a very large scale and with the most modern scientific means for the benefit of all society.
Mortgages on peasant holdings shall be declared state property; interest on such mortgages shall be paid by the peasants to the state.
In the districts where tenant farming is developed, land rent or farming dues shall be paid to the state as a tax.
All means of transport: railway, canals, steamships, roads, post, etc., shall be taken over by the state. They are to be converted into state property and put at the disposal of the non-possessing class free of charge.
Limitation of the right of inheritance.
Introduction of a steeply graded progressive taxation and abolition of taxes on consumer goods.
Establishment of national workshops. The state shall guarantee a living to all workers and provide for those unable to work.
Universal free elementary education.
It is in the interest of the German proletariat, of the petite Bourgeoisie and peasantry, to work with all possible energy to put the above measures through. For only by their education can the millions in Germany, who up to now have been exploited by a small number of people and whom it will be attempted to keep in further subjection, get their rights and the power that are their due as the producers of all wealth.

The Committee: Karl Marx, Karl Schapper, H. Bauer, F. Engels, J. Moll, W. Wolff

At that time the craze for revolutionary legions prevailed in Paris. Spaniards, Italians, Belgians, Dutch, Poles and Germans flocked together in crowds to liberate their respective fatherlands. The German legion was led by Herwegh, Bornsted, Bornstein. Since immediately after the revolution all foreign workers not only lost their jobs but in addition were harassed by the public, the influx into these legions was very great. the new government saw in them a means of getting rid of foreign workers and granted them l'etape du soldat, that is, quarters along their line of march and a marching allowance of 50 centimes per day up to the frontier, whereafter the eloquent Lamartine, the Foreign Minister who was so readily moved to tears, quickly found an opportunity of betraying them to their respective governments.

We opposed this playing with revolution in the most decisive fashion. To carry an invasion, which was to import the revolution forcibly from outside, into the midst of the ferment then going on in Germany, meant to undermine the revolution in Germany itself, to strengthen the governments and to deliver the legionnaires — Lamartine guaranteed for that — defenceless into the hands of the German troops. When subsequently the revolution was victorious in Vienna and Berlin, the legion became all the more purposeless; but once begun, the game was continued.

We founded a German communist club, in which we advised the workers to keep away from the legion and to return instead to their homes singly and work there for the movement. Our old friend Flocon, who had a seat in the Provisional Government, obtained for the workers sent by us the same travel facilities as had been granted to the legionnaires. In this way we returned three or four hundred workers to Germany, including the great majority of the League members.

As could easily be foreseen, the League proved to be much too weak a lever as against the popular mass movement that had now broken out. Three-quarters of the League members who had previously lived abroad had changed their domicile by returning to their homeland; their previous communities were thus to a great extent dissolved and they lost all contact with the League. One part, the more ambitious among them, did not even try to resume this contact, but each one began a small separate movement on his own account in his own locality. Finally, the conditions in each separate petty state, each province and each town were so different that the League would have been incapable of giving more than the most general directives; such directives were, however, much better disseminated through the press. In short, from the moment when the causes which had made the secret League necessary ceased to exist, the secret League as such ceased to mean anything. But this could least of all surprise the persons who had just stripped this same secret League of the last vestige of its conspiratorial character.

That, however, the League had been an excellent school for revolutionary activity was now demonstrated. On the Rhine, where the Neue Rheinische Zeitung provided a firm centre, in Nassau, in Rhenish Hesse, etc., everywhere members of the League stood at the head of the extreme democratic movement. The same was the case in Hamburg. In South Germany the predominance of petty-bourgeois democracy stood in the way. In Breslau, Wilhelm Wolff was active with great success until the summer of 1848; in addition he received a Silesian mandate as an alternate representative in the Frankfort parliament. Finally, the compositor Stephan Born, who had worked in Brussels and Paris as an active member of the League, founded a Workers’ Brotherhood in Berlin which became fairly widespread and existed until 1850. Born, a very talented young man, who, however, was a bit too much in a hurry to become a political figure, “fraternized” with the most miscellaneous ragtag and bobtail in order to get a crowd together, and was not at all the man who could bring unity into the conflicting tendencies, light into the chaos. Consequently, in the official publications of the association the views represented in the Communist Manifesto were mingled hodge-podge with guild recollections and guild aspirations, fragments of Louis Blanc and Proudhon, protectionism, etc.; in short, they wanted to please everybody [allen alles sein]. In particular, strikes, trade unions and producers’ co-operatives were set going and it was forgotten that above all it was a question of first conquering, by means of political victories, the field in which alone such things could be realized on a lasting basis. When, afterwards, the victories of the reaction made the leaders of the Brotherhood realize the necessity of taking a direct part in the revolutionary struggle, they were naturally left in the lurch by the confused mass which they had grouped around themselves. Born took part in the Dresden uprising in May, 1849 and had a lucky escape. But, in contrast to the great political movement of the proletariat, the Workers’ Brotherhood proved to be a pure Sonderbund [separate league], which to a large extent existed only on paper and played such a subordinate role that the reaction did not find it necessary to suppress it until 1850, and its surviving branches until several years later. Born, whose real name was Buttermilch, has not become a big political figure but a petty Swiss professor, who no longer translates Marx into guild language but the meek Renan into his own fulsome German.

With June 13, 1849, the defeat of the May insurrections in Germany and the suppression of the Hungarian revolution by the Russians, a great period of the 1848 Revolution came to a close. But the victory of the reaction was as yet by no means final. A reorganziation of the scattered revolutionary forces was required, and hence also of the League. The situation again forbade, as in 1848, any open organization of the proletariat; hence one had to organize again in secret.

In the autumn of 1849, most of the member of the previous central committees and congresses gathered again in London. The only ones still missing were Schapper, who was jailed in Wiesbaden but came after his acquittal, in the spring of 1850, and Moll, who, after he had accomplished a series of most dangerous missions and agitational journeys — in the end he recruited mounted gunners for the Palatinate artillery right in the midst of the Prussian army in the Rhine Province — joined the Besancon workers’ company of Willich’s corps and was killed by a shot in the head during the encounter at the Murg in front of the Rotenfels Bridge. On the other hand, Willich now entered upon the scene. Willich was one of those sentimental Communists so common in Western Germany since 1845, who on that account alone was instinctively, furtively antagonistic to our critical tendency. More than that, he was entirely the prophet, convinced of his personal mission as the predestined liberator of the German proletariat and as such a direct claimant as much to political as to military dictatorship. Thus, to the primitive Christian Communism previously preached by Weitling was added a kind of communist Islam. However, the propaganda of this new religion was for the first time being restricted to the refugee barracks under Willich’s command.

Hence, the League was organized afresh; the Address of march 1850 was issued and Heinrich bauer sent as an emissary to Germany. The Address, composed by Marx and myself, is still of interest today, because petite-bourgeois democracy is even now the party which must certainly be the first to come to power in Germany as the savior of society from the communist workers on the occasion of the next European upheaval now soon due (the European revolutions, 1815, 1830, 1848-52, 1870, have occurred at intervals of 15 to 18 years in our century). Much of what is said there is, therefore, still applicable today. Heinrich Bauer’s mission was crowned with complete success. The trusty little shoemaker was a born diplomat. He brought the former members of the League, who had partly become laggards and partly were acting on their own account, back into the active organization, and particularly also the then leaders of the Workers’ Brotherhood. The League began to play the dominant role in the workers’, peasants’ and athletic associations to a far greater extent than before 1848, so that the next quarterly address to the communities, in June 1850, could already report that the student Schurz from Bonn (later on American ex-minister), who was touring Germany in the interest of petty-bourgeois democracy, “had found all fit forces already in the hands of the League”. The League was undoutbedly the only revolutionary organization that had any significance in Germany.

But what purpose this organization should serve depended very substantially on whether the prospects of a renewed upsurge of the revolution were realized. And in the course of the year 1850 this became more and more improbable, indeed impossible. The industrial crisis of 1847, which had paved the way for the Revolution of 1848, had been overcome; a new, unprecedented period of industrial prosperity had set in; whoever had eyes to see and used them must have clearly realized that the revolutionary storm of 1848 was gradually spending itself.

“With this general prosperity, in which the productive forces of bourgeois society develop as luxuriantly as is at all possible within bourgeois relationships, there can be no talk of a real revolution. Such a revolution is only possible in the periods when both these factors, the modern productive forces and the bourgeois productive forms, come in collision with each other. The various quarrels in which the representatives of the industrial factions of the continental party of order now indulge and mutually compromise themselves, far from providing the occassion for new revolutions are, on the contrary, possible only because the basis of the relationships is momentarily so secure and, what the reaction does not know, so bourgeois. From it all attempts of the reaction to hold up bourgeois development will rebound just as certainly as all moral indignation and all enthusiastic proclamations of the democrats”.

Thus Marx and I wrote in the “Revue of May to October 1850” in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Politisch-okonomische Revue, Nos.V and VI, Hamburg, 1850, p.153.

This cool estimation of the situation, however, was regarded as heresy among many persons, at a time when Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Mazzini, Kossuth and, among the lesser German lights, Ruge, Kinkel, Gogg and the rest of them crowded in London to form provisional governments of the future not only for their respective fatherlands but for the whole of Europe, and when the only still still necessary was to obtain the requisite money from America as a loan for the revolution to realize at a moment’s notice the European revolution and the various republics which went with it was a matter of course. Can anyone be surprised that a man like Willich was taken in by this, that Schapper, acting on his old revolutionary impulse, also allowed himself to be fooled, and that the majority of the London workers, to a large extent refugees themselves, followed them into the camp of the bourgeois-democratic artificers of revolution? Suffice it to say that the reserve maintained by us was not to the mind of these people; one was to enter into the game of making revolutions. We most decidedly refused to do so. A split ensued; more about this is to be read in the Revelations. Then came the arrest of Nothjung, followed by that of Haupt, in Hamburg. The latter turned traitor by divulging the names of the Cologne Central Committee and being slated as the chief witness in the trial; but his relatives had no desires to be thus disgraced and bundled him off to Rio de Janerio, where he later established himself as a businessman and in recognition of his services was appointed first Prussian and then German Consul General. He is now again in Europe.

[Engels footnote: Schapper in London at the end of the sixties. Willich took part in the American Civil War with distinction; he became Brigadier-General and was shot in the chest during the battle of Murfreesboro (Tennessee) but recovered and died about ten years ago in America. Of the other persons mentioned above, I will only remark that Heinrich Bauer was lost track of in Australia, and that Weitling and Ewerbeck died in America.]

For a better understanding of the Revelations, I give the list of the Cologne accused:

(1) P. G. Roser, cigarmaker; (2) Heinrich Burgers, who later died a progressive deputy to the Landtag; (3) Peter Nothjung, tailor, who died a few years ago a photographer in Breslau; (4) W. J. Reiff; (5) Dr. Hermann Becker, now chief burgomaster of Cologne and member of the Upper House; (6) Dr. Roland Daniels, physician, who died a few years after the trial as a result of tuberculosis contracted in prison; (7) Karl Otto, chemist; (8) Dr. Abraham Jacoby, now physician in New York; (9) Dr. I. J. Klein, now physician and town councillor in Cologne; (10) Ferdinand Freiligrath, who, however, was at that time already in London; (11) I. L. Ehrhard, clerk; (12) Friedrich Lessner, tailor, now in London.

After a public trail before a jury lasting from October 4 to November 12, 1852, the following were sentenced for attempted high treason: Roser, Burgers and Nothjung to six, Reiff, Otto and Becker to five, and Lessner to three years’ confinement in a fortress; Daniels, Klein, Jacoby and Ehrhard were acquitted.

With the Cologne trial the first period of the German communist workers’ movement comes to an end. Immediately after the sentence we dissolved our League; a few months later the Willich-Schapper separate league was also laid to eternal rest.

* A whole generation lies between then and now. At that time Germany was a country of handicraft and of domestic industry based on hand labor; now it is a big industrial country still undergoing continual industrial transformation. At that time one had to seek out one by one the workers who had an understanding of their position as workers and of their historico-economic antagonism to capital, because this antagonism itself was only just beginning to develop. Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations. Bismarck is the arbiter of Europe beyond the frontiers of Germany, but within them there grows daily more threatening the athletic figure of the German proletariat that Marx foresaw already in 1844, the giant for whom the cramped imperial edifice designed to fit the philistine is even now becoming inadequate and whose mighty stature and broad shoulder are growing until the moment comes when by merely rising from his seat he will shatter the whole structure of the imperial constitution into fragments. And still more. The international movement of the European and American proletariat has become so much strengthened that not merely its first narrow form — the secret League — but even its second, infinitely wider form — the open International Working Men’s Association — has become a fetter for it, and that the simple feeling of solidarity based on the understanding of the identity of class position suffices to create and to hold together one and the same great party of the proletariat among the workers of all countries and tongues. The doctrine which the League represented from 1847 to 1852, and which at that time could be treated by the wise philistines with a shrug of the shoulders as the hallucinations of utter madcaps, as the secret doctrine of a few scattered sectarians, has now innumerable adherents in all civilized countries of the world, among those condemned to the Siberian mines as much as among the gold diggers of California; and the founder of this doctrine, the most hated, most slandered man of his time, Karl Marx, was, when he died, the ever-sought-for and ever-willing counsellor of the proletariat of both the old and the new world.

From The "American Left History" Archives-OBAMA ‘THE CHARMA’ AND THE BABY-BOOMERS (2007)

OBAMA ‘THE CHARMA’ AND THE BABY-BOOMERS

 

COMMENTARY

 

CHANGING OF THE GUARD, WELL OKAY-BUT ON WHAT PROGRAM?

 

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

 

It has been several weeks now since Illinois Senator Barack Obama announced his candidacy to run for President of the United States on the Democratic Party ticket. Some readers might have expected that I would drop everything to comment on this development as soon as that candidacy was announced, especially as here we have a serious (and ‘clean’) black candidate who moreover has challenged the political pretensions of baby-boomers, my generation.

 

Let us be clear on this, I actually agree with the Senator that it is time for newer, younger leadership to assert itself and not wait until the last grave of the last boomer is covered over before new voices can be heard on the political scene. And I offer as specimens #1 and #2 the two most recent presidents, Bush and Clinton, baby-boomers both, as prime evidence for the bankruptcy of the conventional bourgeois politics. Every rationale person should go screaming into the night at the thought that another Clinton (or Bush, what about Jeb?) will be taking her apparently alternating dynastic place in the White House.

 

I have noted, sarcastically, elsewhere that my parent’s generation, the generation that went through childhood in the Depression of the 1930’s and fought World War II, has been misnamed “the  greatest generation” for basically being quiet (in the 1950’s and 1960’s when it was time to scream like hell). Unfortunately the boomer generation has also long ago given up the ghost of whatever dreams animated our youth and made the 1960’s and early 1970’s a time-‘when to be alive was very heaven’. Some got tired, some burned out, some copped out and a few, very few, of us are left to tell the tale.  Well, for what it is worth we made every error in the book of social change, there were excesses to be sure and most certainly we  were defeated politically not only by the likes of one Richard M. Nixon but by ‘wannabes’ from my generation like the Bushes and Clintons who offered more of the same old politics.            

 

But, hold on a minute. If Senator Obama wants to lead a new ‘children’s crusade’ against the current boomer establishment I want to know one thing and that is what is your program? Call me jaded but his campaign is very long on dreamy talk and very short on a program that addresses the key needs for working people-education, living wages, defense of civil liberties, repairing the physical infrastructure of the country, making New Orleans and the ghettos and barrios livable, health care and I could go on but you get the point. In short, those things that are desperately needed today but go far beyond the norms of even ‘left’ Democratic Party politics and require a workers party fighting for a workers government.  

 

Now I can tell why I did not respond to sooner to the announcement of Obama’s candidacy. As it is Black History Month I have been concentrating on writing about various historical figures and events important to the black liberation struggle. And as a natural part of that work the name and life of Malcolm X has taken prominence. Frankly, in the presence of such a real black mass leader, the voice of the rage of the ghettos in the 1960’s, to friend and foe alike, it was hard to take the time to comment on yet another ‘clean’ black Democrat. As I pointed out in a review of the Autobiography of Malcolm X today’s black leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Obama the “Charma” please take a step back, very far back. Enough said for now.    

 

 

 

***THE GRANDDADDY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE REVOLUTIONS-Crane Brinton

BOOK REVIEW

THE ANATOMY OF REVOLUTION, Revised and Expanded, CRANE BRINTON, VINTAGE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1965

I have always been an avid student of the great modern revolutions both as a matter of practical politics and in order to glean some insights into how they have affected human history. In short, how the ideas and practice of those revolutions have acted as nodal points on the further progress of humankind. Crane Brinton’s little book was probably the first book I read that tried to put that idea into some kind of order. While some of the material in the book is dated and some has been superseded by events and further research every serious student of comparative revolutions depends in some way or another on his pioneering methodology.

Brinton takes the four great revolutions of his time (the Chinese Revolution had not occurred when he originally wrote the book)-the English of the 17^th century, the French and American of the 18^th century and the Russian of the 20^th century and draws some common conclusions from them. Here the American Revolution acts as a kind of control for viewing the others. While no one would deny that each great revolution has its own perculiarities some lessons, so to speak, can be drawn from the various experiences.

Brinton traces the role of ideas, all kinds of ideas, some fanciful some serious that accompany the dawn of every pre-revolutionary period as those who want to make a revolution or at least change things get a hearing from layers of society that they would not get in more stable times. He also notes that the old regimes have run out of steam both in ideas and personnel, as exemplified by those who ruled at the time of revolutionary upheaval. While the spark that ignited each revolution had different causes the revolutionary process itself starts out as a broad coalition of forces opposed for various reasons to the old regime. Then a process of differentiation occurs where various more moderate or modest revolutionary types fall by the way side or are pushed aside under pressure from the more plebian masses and those committed to see the revolution out to the end, the Cromwells, the Robsepierres and the Lenins. During the course of these changes the counter-revolution, usually aided by foreign powers, rears its head.

I want to give particular attention to the question of Thermidor- that is the point where the revolution itself loses steam.  The term itself stems from that point in the French Revolution in 1794 where the extreme left under Robespierre was defeated by more moderate forces within his own party (the Jacobins) and while not returning back to the old regime most definitely marked the end of progressive social experimentation.  This has always been a thorny question on the political left. The Bolsheviks, particularly Trotsky, in the period of decline of the Russian Revolution poured out reams of polemics on its meaning (and even its applicability to their revolution). There are various causes for Thermidor; the leadership cadre gets tired, complacent or dies defending the revolution against counter-revolution; the people who previously supported the more extreme measures act likewise; and, those who want to stop the revolution in its tracks find a voice for their frustrations. That much is clear from Brinton. What may need some revising is the question of whether in light of the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the return to capitalism there  and the reverses in the Chinese Revolution which place it on the road back to capitalism that the previous premise about not going back to the old regime still holds true. The only way out of that dilemma is to argue that in neither case has the situation returned to the semi-feudal state before those revolutions. As for me, that argument is not good enough. In any case, while you will need to read other books on comparative revolutions this is the place to start.      

From The American Left History Archives-POLITCAL CORRECTNESS AND THE ‘G-Y’ WORD (2007)

Markin comment:

RUMBLINGS FROM iPOD /MP3 NATION

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

Readers of this space know that this writer centers his commentary on ‘high’ politics, usually lambasting the bourgeois politicians, especially Democratic Party politicians for being eunuchs or worst on the war in Iraq and other pressing social questions. And I am entirely comfortable with that, after all we are all adults in this game and it comes with the territory. While I am waiting to comment on what promises to be another ugly Democratic somersault on the upcoming war budget fight however another little issue has crossed my path. Believe me I enter this dispute with more fear and trepidation that I have ever had in my ‘adult’ battles for it involves the mysterious ways of teenagers. I had enough trouble trying to survive my own teenage years to be wary, very wary, of the trials and tribulations of teens a couple of generations behind me. But here goes.

I have recently read about the case of a Mormon girl out in Santa Rosa, California, Rebeka Rice, whose parents have taken school officials there to court over a reprimand and notation in her record that she received as a freshman in high school a few years ago. The gist of the case is that at that time some fellow students, as is the nature of such things, razzed her about her Mormonism by asking whether she had ‘ten mothers. In response, Rebeka stated that their comment was ‘so gay’, meaning to her stupid. And she was right, it was stupid. However, in the interest of ‘political correctness’ local school officials, assumingly well trained in how to ferret out real gay-bashing hate speech , and apparently with plenty of time on their hands decided to take a forthright stand for gay liberation over the statement and took the above mentioned action. As is the nature of the times the parents thereafter filed suit. And they were right to do so, as well.    

Hello, school officials. Apparently someone has been living in a bubble. Haven’t these august school officials been out to the malls in Santa Rosa lately? As least here I have. And assisted by a foreign language translator, a necessity in such situations, I found out that indeed common usage and understanding by teens is on Rebeka’s side. If one wants to use hate speech toward gays and lesbians there are other more robust forms of expression that I will not bother to repeat here. Moreover, in the present case the school’s hypocrisy trumps its supposed virtue. The local school officials passed on taking action on the really hateful expression in the exchange-the other students’ taut about Rebeka’s religion which is clear and unmistakable. In my teenage days, back in the days when the world was ‘young and gay’, that kind of statement would have been the equivalent of ‘your mama’ or ‘your mother’ and would have been fighting words, with fists flying. But, dear readers, we live in a kinder, gentler more civilized age with the requisite peer counseling, arbitration and, of course, the ubiquitous liberal ‘thought’ police to smooth things over.

Okay, okay. Yes, we live in an age of victim hood. And damn there is more discrimination against gays, lesbians, transsexuals, women, the aged, blacks, Hispanics, the mentally challenged, immigrants, teenagers and X oppressed groups that we can shake a stick at. But, something is desperately wrong when the everyday language of teens (or any other sub-culture) is subject to official governmental inspection and sanction allegedly in the interest of making bourgeois society ‘nice’. Where did we go off the rails on this part of the ‘culture’ wars? Well, one place to look is the 1960’s. I have written elsewhere about the fun, even for teenagers, of being alive at that time and imbibing in the whirlwind of the changing cultural currents. But, my friends, we were politically, socially and, in the case of some groups like the Black Panthers and Weather people, militarily defeated by the forces of reaction in this country. A response by some of my generation was either to deny that reality and drop out of the political struggle or turn into ‘cultural guerillas’ and head for the jungles, oops I mean, universities and try to create some kind of politically and morally correct ‘small’ universe there. That is at least part of the genesis of this ‘correctness’ mania.

Unfortunately, moral gestures will not change this sad old world but only by changing the material base of society so that NO ONE has a vested interest in hating anyone. But that requires political struggle against the current forces that want to keep each oppressed group separated in a divide and conquer strategy that works so well for them.  If you want to really fight against gay discrimination (and all the other discriminations) then you had better be prepared to do a lot more than play ‘cop’, even if for ‘do-gooder’ motives. In any case, I hope even in a communist future where no one will have a vested interest in ‘razzing’ anyone that the teens of the future will still have their own ‘tribal’ language as they try to figure out there place in the world. In the meantime-VICTORY TO REBEKA RICE!     

 

From The American Left History Archives As We Approach Election Day - THE ABC' OF THE WAR BUDGET (March 2007))

Markin Comment:

NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE PERSON FOR THE WAR!

ATTACHING UNENFORCEABLE RIDERS ONTO THE WAR APPROPRIATIONS BILL IS NOT A NO VOTE ON THE WAR BUDGET. HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRAT KARL LIEBKNECHT-HE KNEW HOW TO VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET.

 

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

WRITTEN ON MARCH 17^TH 2007 THE DAY OF THE 40^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ORIGINAL MARCH ON THE PENTAGON

Okay, one more time on the war budget. As I have repeatedly mentioned over the last year or so the only meaningful parliamentary maneuver on the Iraq War is a no vote on the war budget, under the principle of not one penny, not one person for the war. I have nevertheless been castigated lately for a seeming softness on the Democrats when I mentioned that the beginning of wisdom was a straight up and down no vote on the budget. (See ONCE AGAIN ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR IRAQ WAR in my blog archives for March 2007). Some very politically savvy acquaintances of mine have assumed that this meant political support for the efforts in Congress, particularly in the House, for the various pieces of legislation now before those bodies. Apparently they have missed my very clear statement that we cannot support such legislation. Why no such support? All the riders on the legislation, and I mean all, are attached in order to pass the war budget. The only control is over the timetable for withdrawal. That, dear readers, is very, very far from not one penny, not one person anti-war politics.  Where, in God's name is that a capitulation to Democrats? No one, I repeat, not one of the Democrats from fellow traveler Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders to Democratic presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich has advocated a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. That said; let us take a look at history to see what a real parliamentary anti-war war budget vote looks like.

I have mentioned elsewhere the name of the revolutionary German Social Democrat Karl Liebknecht in association with my model for what a parliamentary anti-war leader should look like, and even he had to do some somersaults to come out to the right decision. (See March 2006 blog archives.) As is well known, or should be well known, the Western European social democracy as institutionalized in the Second International before World War I was formally committed to the fight against war and especially imperialist war. That included a pro forma commitment to opposition to the capitalist war budgets. As we know, to our regret, those sentiments were fine in peace time but by the time that the war drums for World War I started most European socialist parties were committed to vote in favor of their own nation's war budget. Most notorious in this regard was the stance of the German Social Democratic Party, the largest and most organized party in the International, that voted unanimously (including Liebknecht) to support the Kaiser's war budget on August 4, 1914.

An explanation is in order about Liebknecht's initial vote. The German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation in 1914 (composed at the time of 110 members) was bound by bloc voting. Since the majority in caucus voted for the budget Liebknecht felt obliged to go along at the time, but not for long. By December of 1914 he had broken that fictitious solidarity and cast the lone against the war appropriations. For those familiar with the Liebknecht story, and those who are not, he went on to cast more no votes and got a few more Social Democrats to vote with him (not always for the same principled reason or with his intensity). Ultimately his agitation led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and eventual imprisonment for what amounted to treason against the German state. Liebknecht was later release as a result of the events of the November 1918 German Revolution and shortly thereafter assassinated, along with Rosa Luxemburg, after attempting to establish a Socialist Republic during the failed Spartacist uprising of January 1919.

To even tell the Liebknecht story in the content of what today passes for anti-war bourgeois politicians seems slightly ridiculous. With the Iraqi War seemingly never ending and subject to increased 'phantom' escalation with the latest news that the American military command in Iraq want several thousand MORE troops to support the already committed five ‘surge’ brigades anything short of a no vote seems less courageous than usual.

Join The Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace On Veterans/Armistice Day Sunday November 11th In Boston For An Anti-War March And Program

Once Again, When Be-Bop Bopped In The Doo Wop Night-Billie’s Doo-Wop Minute

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Harptones performing Life Is But A Dream.

Sure I have plenty to say, as I mentioned in a review of Volume One of a two-volume Street Corner Serenade set, about early rock ‘n’ roll, and now called the classic rock period in the musicology hall of fame. And within that say I have spent a little time, not enough considering its effect on us, on the doo-wop branch of the genre. Part of the reason, obviously, is that back in those mid-1950s jail-breakout days I did not (and I do not believe that any other eleven and twelve year olds did either), distinguish between let’s say rockabilly-back-beat drive rock, black-based rock centered on a heavy rhythm and blues backdrop, and the almost instrument-less (or maybe a soft piano or guitar backdrop) group harmonics that drove doo-wop. All I knew was that it was not my parents’ music, not close, and that they got nervous, very nervous, anytime it was played out loud in their presence. Fortunately, some sainted, sanctified, techno-guru developed the iPod of that primitive era, the battery-driven transistor radio. No big deal, technology-wise by today’s standards, but get this, you could place it near your ear and have your own private out loud music without parental scuffling in the background no-ing you to dead, or worst with the big scowl. Yes, heaven's door sent, sainted, sanctified techno-guru. No question.

What doo-wop did though down in our old-time beat down, beat around, beat six-ways-to Sunday working class neighborhood (dependent on fading domestic, early globalized ship-building), North Adamsville, and again it was not so much by revelation as by trial and error is allow us to be in tune with the music of our generation without having to spend a lot of money on instruments or a studio or any such. Where the hell would we have gotten the dough for such things anyway when papas were out of work, or were one step away from that dreaded unemployment line, and there was trouble just keeping the wolves from the door? Sure, some kids, some kids like my “home boy” (no, not a term we used at the time, corner boy was after some sociologist nailed us with that title, and jack-rollers too, since we, ah, hung around corners, you know, mom and pop variety stores, pizza parlors, arcades, donut shops, corner drugstores when all of those locations had local meaning) elementary school boyhood friend Billie, William James Bradley, were crazy to put together cover bands with electric guitars (rented occasionally), and dreams. Or maybe go wild with a school piano a la Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, or Fats Domino but those were maniac aficionados. Even Billie though, when the deal went down, especially after hearing Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love was mad to do the doo-wop and make his fame and fortune on the cheap.

I remember mentioning to someone when we were cutting up old torches once seeing some cover art on a doo-wop CD compilation showing a group of young black kids, black teen-agers, black guys anyway, who looked like they were doing their doo- wop on some big city street corner. (Corner boys too, okay, although they may have actually used that homeboy expression among themselves.) And that makes sense reflecting the New York City-sized, big city-sized derived birth of doo-wop and that the majority of doo-wop groups that we heard on AM radio were black. But the city, the poor sections of the city, white or black, was not the only place where moneyless guys and gals were harmonizing, hoping, hoping maybe beyond hope to be discovered and make more than just a 1950s rock and roll musical jail-breakout from musty old parents’ tunes. Moreover, that cover art also showed, and showed vividly, what a lot of us guys were trying to do-impress girls (and maybe visa-versa for girl doo-woppers but they can tell their own stories).

Yes, truth to tell, it was about impressing girls that drove many of us, Billie included, christ maybe Billie most of all, to mix and match harmonies. And you know you guys did too (except girls just switch around what I just said). Yah, four or five guys just hanging around the back door of the elementary school on hot summer nights, nothing better to do, no dough to do it, maybe a little feisty because of that, and start up a few tunes. Billie, who actually did have some vocal musical talent, usually sang lead, and the rest of us, well, doo-wopped. What do you think we would do? We knew nothing of keys and pauses, of time, pitch, or reading music we just improvised. (And I kept my changing to teen-ager, slightly off-key, voice on the low.)

Whether we did it well or poorly, guess what, as the hot day turned into humid night, and the old sun went down just over the hills, maybe the sea freshen up the night with a thank god breeze, first a couple of girls, kind of hesitant, kind of shy led, led usually, by some budding Billie-entranced girl too afraid to come alone, then a couple more maybe from down the street, non-Billie-entranced, but just what are guys all about wondering in that good night, and then a whole bevy (nice word, right?) of them came and got kind of swoony and moony. (Read: hoping that the lyrics doo-wopped portended romance, or whatever it was they read in those girl magazines that Doc’s Drugstore could not keep enough of in stock.) And swoony and moony was just fine. Just fine with what- are- girls- all- about Billie-led corner boys (and in Harlem, South Side Chicago, Watts, East Los Angeles and about then thousand spots on this jail break-out ready continent too).

And we all innocent, innocent dream, innocent when we dreamed, make our virginal moves. But, mainly, we doo-wopped in the be-bop mid-1950s night. And a few of the classic songs of doo-wop like Your So Fine, In The Still Of The Night, and Could This Be Magic could be heard in that airless night.

I think, that like in other genres, there were really only so many doo-wop songs sung on those sultry nights that have withstood the test of time, the Billie-derived play list test of time : Life Is But A Dream (which with my voice really changing I kept very, very low on), The Harptones; Gloria(a little louder from me on this one), The Cadillacs; Six Nights A Week(not their best 16 Candles was but by then Billie was into other stuff), The Crests: and, A Kiss From Your Lips, The Flamingos.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- American (Oops) British Pyscho- “Hangover Square”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Hangover Square.

DVD Review

Hangover Square, Laird Cregar, George Sanders, Linda Darnell, 20^th Century Fox, 1945

Yah, not all film noir is created equal. And not all crime noir either. This one is kind of ho-hum ( I am being kind) about a late 19^th century English composer who has this odd-ball habit of doing murderous things when he hears strange sounds in his head and steps away from being a skillful composer to turn into British pyscho (including some bizarre cinematic tricks to show this transformation , really bizarre). Of course, the old story is he can’t remember (until it is too late) that he off-handedly put to flames a few victims after murdering them. Including one gold-digging songstress who played him the fool just once too often, and maybe we will cry few tears over. Naturally she had to go up in flames, since this film is supposed to take place in 19^th century London, on Guy Fawkes Day, leaving all those Americans not familiar with the Gunpowder Plot, with early Stuart kingship history, and with no clue why that day is important to put a two-timing (maybe three) wench to the bonfire a little befuddled. Naturally those who live by the flame must die by the flame and so our composer (and perhaps this film) suffer that fate.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Cocaine Blues- Bette Davis’ “Three On A Match”

 

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1932 film Three On A Match.

DVD Review

Three On A Match, Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Warner Brothers, 1932

“Cocaine’s for horses, not for men, they say it’s going to kill you but they won’t say when.” from an old blues song. Yah, although the theme of this film is not about cocaine per se (and it is not explicitly mentioned and only introduced by a knowing low-life nose candy mimic from newly-minted gangster (stage gangster, that is) Humphrey Bogart) that line can serve as a metaphor for what this film is about. In theory it is about superstition (the old chestnut probably no used much anymore about the fate of the last of third on a match, an old wives tale but just in case, beware, okay. But really it is about going from riches to rags quick when that nose candy puts the squeeze on you.

Despite my plaintive plea the three gals in this story Mary, Ruth, and Vivian who have known each other since grade school (which we are aware of from the beginning shots that set the story line up) play this devilish game out when they met later in life during the Great Depression. Naturally poor little distracted, alienated, and bored rich girl Vivian was the last and thus fated to die first. And she does, after leaving her husband (and child in the end) for some hustling Dan who shows her the bright lights of the city, and introduces her to the free life, and that wicked cocaine, falls on hard times and, in an act of contrition saves her son from some evil ransom scheme by some mobsters who old Dan owes money to by committing suicide. Yah, leave that girl stuff alone. And you already know what I said about that match thing if it ever comes up.

HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE PARIS COMMUNE

Markin Comment: March 18th is the anniversary of the Paris Commune. All honor to the men and women who fought to the death to defend this first beacon of working class revolution. Remarks of a speaker at an event commemorating the heroic Paris Commune in March 2007: I would like make a few comments in honor of the heroic Communards. When one studies the history of the Paris Commune of 1871 one learns something new from it even though from the perspective of revolutionary strategy the Communards made virtually every mistake in the book. However, one can learn its lessons and measure it against the experience acquired by later revolutionary struggles and above all by later revolutions, not only the successful Russian Revolution of October 1917 but the failed German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Chinese and Spanish revolutions in the immediate aftermath of World War I. More contemporaneously we have the experiences of the partial victories of the later Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions. Notwithstanding the contradictory nature of these later experiences, as if to show that history is not always totally a history of horrors against the fate of the masses we honor the Paris Commune as a beacon of the coming world proletarian revolution. It is just for that reason that Karl Marx fought tooth and nail in the First International to defend it against the rage of capitalist Europe. It is one of our peaks. The Commune also presented in embryo the first post-1848 Revolution instance of what was later characterized by Lenin at the beginning of World War I as the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international labor movement. So this question that after Lenin’s death preoccupied Trotsky for much of the later part of his life really has a much longer lineage that I had previously recognized. Unfortunately, as we are too painfully aware that question is still to be resolved. Therefore, even at this great remove, it is necessary to learn the lessons of that experience in facing today’s crisis of leadership in the international labor movement. Below is a tribute to the Paris Commune written by the Bolshevik Revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1921 in Russian and later translated into English in the New International in March 1935, Volume 2, No. 2 LESSONS OF THE PARIS COMMUNE EACH TIME that we study the history of the Commune we see it from a new aspect, thanks to the experience acquired by the later revolutionary struggles and above all by the latest revolutions, not only the Russian but the German and Hungarian revolutions. The Franco-German war was a bloody explosion, harbinger of an immense world slaughter, the Commune of Paris a lightning harbinger of a world proletarian revolution. The Commune shows us the heroism of the working masses, their capacity to unite into a single bloc, their talent to sacrifice themselves in the name of the future, but at the same time it shows us the incapacity of the masses to choose their path, their indecision in the leadership of the movement, their fatal penchant to come to a halt after the first successes, thus permitting the enemy to regain its breath, to reestablish its position. The Commune came too late. It had all the possibilities of taking the power on September 4 and that would have permitted the proletariat of Paris to place itself at a single stroke at the head of the workers of the country in their struggle against all the forces of the past, against Bismarck as well as against Thiers. But the power fell into the hands of the democratic praters, the deputies of Paris. The Parisian proletariat had neither a party, nor leaders to whom it would have been closely bound by previous struggles. The petty bourgeois patriots who thought themselves socialists and sought the support of the workers did not really have any confidence in themselves. They shook the proletariat's faith in itself, they were continually in quest of celebrated lawyers, of journalists, of deputies, whose baggage consisted only of a dozen vaguely revolutionary phrases, in order to entrust them with the leadership of the movement. The reason why Jules Favre, Picard, Gamier-Pages and Co. took power in Paris on September 4 is the same as that which permitted Pall-Boncour, A. Varenne, Renaudel and numerous others to be for a time the masters of the party of the proletariat. The Renaudels and the Boncours and even the Longuets and the Pressemanes are much closer, by virtue of their sympathies, their intellectual habits and their conduct, to the Jules Favres and the Jules Ferrys than to the revolutionary proletariat. Their socialist phraseology is nothing but an historic mask which permits them to impose themselves upon the masses. And it is just because Favre, Simon, Picard and the others used and abused a democratico-liberal phraseology that their sons and their grandsons are obliged to resort to a socialist phraseology. But the sons and the grandsons have remained worthy of their fathers and continue their work. And when it will be necessary to decide not the question of the composition of a ministerial clique but the much more important question of knowing what class in France must take power, Renaudel, Varenne, Longuet and their similars will be in the camp of Millerand-collaborator of Galliffet, the butcher of the Commune .... When the revolutionary babblers of the salons and of parliament find themselves face to face, in real life, with the revolution, they never recognize it. The workers' party-the real one-is not a machine for parliamentary manoeuvres, it is the accumulated and organized experience of the proletariat. It is only with the aid of the party, which rests upon the whole history of its past, which foresees theoretically the paths of development, all its stages, and which extracts from it the necessary formula of action, that the proletariat frees itself from the need of always recommencing its history: its hesitations, its lack of decision, its mistakes. The proletariat of Paris did not have such a party. The bourgeois socialists with whom the Commune swarmed, raised their eyes to heaven, waited for a miracle or else a prophetic word, hesitated, and during that time the masses groped about and lost their heads because of the indecision of some and the fantasy of others. The result was that the revolution broke out in their very midst, too late, and Paris was encircled. Six months elapsed before the proletariat had reestablished in its memory the lessons of past revolutions, of battles of yore, of the reiterated betrayals of democracy-and it seized power. These six months proved to be an irreparable loss. If the centralized party of revolutionary action had been found at the head of the proletariat of France in September 1870, the whole history of France and with it the whole history of humanity would have taken another direction. If the power was found in the hands of the proletariat of Paris on March 18, it was not because it had been deliberately seized, but because its enemies had quitted Paris. These latter were losing ground continuously, the workers despised and detested them, the petty bourgeoisie no longer had confidence in them and the big bourgeoisie feared that they were no longer capable of defending it. The soldiers were hostile to the officers. The government fled Paris in order to concentrate its forces elsewhere. And it was then that the proletariat became master of the situation. But it understood this fact only on the morrow. The revolution fell upon it unexpectedly. This first success was a new source of passivity. The enemy had fled to Versailles. Wasn't that a victory? At that moment the governmental band could have been crushed almost without the spilling of blood. In Paris, all the ministers, with Thiers at their head, could have been taken prisoner. Nobody would have raised a hand to defend them. It was not done. There was no organization of a centralized party, having a rounded view of things and special organs for realizing its decisions. The debris of the infantry did not want to fall back to Versailles. The thread which tied the officers and the soldiers was pretty tenuous. And had there been a directing party center at Paris, it would have incorporated into the retreating armies-since there was the possibility of retreating-a few hundred or even a few dozen devoted workers, and given them the following instructions: enhance the discontent of the soldiers against the officers, profit by the first favorable psychological moment to free the soldiers from their officers and bring them back to Paris to unite with the people. This could easily have been realized, according to the admissions of Thiers' supporters themselves. Nobody even thought of it. Nor was there anybody to think of it. In the midst of great events, moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it, does not lose its head, by a party which is accustomed to having a rounded view and is not afraid to act. And a party of action is just what the French proletariat did not have. The Central Committee of the National Guard is in effect a Council of Deputies of the armed workers and the petty bourgeoisie. Such a Council, elected directly by the masses who have taken the revolutionary road, represents an excellent apparatus of action. But at the same time, and just because of its immediate and elementary connection with the masses who are in the state in which the revolutionary has found them, it reflects not only all the strong sides but also the weak sides of the masses, and it reflects at first the weak sides still more than it does the strong: it manifests the spirit of indecision, of waiting, the tendency to be inactive after the first successes. The Central Committee of the National Guard needed to be led. It was indispensable to have an organization incarnating the political experience of the proletariat and always present-not only in the Central Committee, but in the legions, in the battalion, in the deepest sectors of the French proletariat. By means of the Councils of Deputies-in the given case they were organs of the National Guard-the party could have been in continual contact with the masses, known their state of mind; its leading center con! I each day put forward a slogan which, through the medium of the party's militants, would have penetrated into the masses, uniting their thought and their will. Hardly had the government fallen back to Versailles than the National Guard hastened to unload its responsibility, at the very moment when this responsibility was enormous. The Central Committee imagined "legal" elections to the Commune. It entered into negotiations with the mayors of Paris in order to cover itself, from the Right, with "legality". Had a violent attack been prepared against Versailles at the same time, the negotiations with the mayors would have been a ruse fully justified from the military standpoint and in conformity with the goal. But in reality, these negotiations were being conducted only in order to avert the struggle by some miracle or other. The petty bourgeois radicals and the socialistic idealists, respecting "legality" and the men who embodied a portion of the "legal" state-the deputies, the mayors, etc.-hoped at the bottom of their souls that Thiers would halt respectfully before revolutionary Paris the minute the latter covered itself with the "legal" Commune. Passivity and indecision were supported in this case by the sacred principle of federation and autonomy. Paris, you see, is only one commune among many other communes. Paris wants to impose nothing upon anyone; it does not struggle for the dictatorship, unless it be for the 'dictatorship of example". In sum, it was nothing but an attempt to replace the proletarian revolution, which was developing, by a petty bourgeois reform: communal autonomy. The real revolutionary task consisted of assuring the proletariat the power all over the country. Paris had to serve as its base, its support, its stronghold. And to attain this goal, it was necessary to vanquish Versailles without the loss of time and to send agitators, organizers, and armed forces throughout France. It was necessary to enter into contact with sympathizers, to strengthen the hesitators and to shatter the opposition of the adversary. Instead of this policy of offensive and aggression which was the only thing that could save the situation, the leaders of Paris attempted to seclude themselves in their communal autonomy: they will not attack the others if the others do not attack them; each town has its sacred right of self-government. This idealistic chatter-of the same gender as mundane anarchism covered up in reality a cowardice in face of revolutionary action which should have been conducted incessantly up to the very end, for otherwise it should not have been begun. The hostility to capitalist organization-a heritage of petty bourgeois localism and autonomism-is without a doubt the weak side of a certain section of the French proletariat. Autonomy for the districts, for the wards, for the battalions, for the towns, is the supreme guarantee of real activity and individual independence for certain revolutionists. But that is a great mistake which cost the French proletariat dearly. Under the form of the "struggle against despotic centralism" and against "stifling" discipline, a fight takes place for the self preservation of various groups and sub-groupings of the working class, for their petty interests, with their petty ward leaders and their local oracles. The entire working class, while preserving its cultural originality and its political nuances, can act methodically and firmly, without remaining in the tow of events, and directing each time its mortal blows against the weak sectors of its enemies, on the condition that at its head, above the wards, the districts, the groups, there is an apparatus which is centralized and bound together by an iron discipline. The tendency towards particularism, whatever the form it may assume, is a heritage of the dead past. The sooner French communist-socialist communism and syndicalist communism-emancipates itself from it, the better it will be for the proletarian revolution. The party does not create the revolution at will, it does not choose the moment for seizing power as it likes, but it intervenes actively in the events, penetrates at every moment the state of mind of the revolutionary masses and evaluates the power of resistance of the enemy, and thus determines the most favorable moment for decisive action. This is the most difficult side of its task. The party has no decision that is valid for every case. Needed are a correct theory, an intimate contact with the masses, the comprehension of the situation, a revolutionary perception, a great resoluteness. The more profoundly a revolutionary party penetrates into all the domains of the proletarian struggle, the more unified it is by the unity of goal and discipline, the speedier and better will it arrive at resolving its task. The difficulty consists in having this organization of a centralized party, internally welded by an iron discipline, linked intimately with the movement of the masses, with its ebbs and flows. The conquest of power cannot be achieved save on the condition of a powerful revolutionary pressure of the toiling masses. But in this act the element of preparation is entirely inevitable. The better the party will understand the conjuncture and the moment, the better the bases of resistance will be prepared, the better the force and the roles will be distributed, the surer will be the success and the less victims will it cost. The correlation of a carefully prepared action and a mass movement is the politico-strategical task of the taking of power. The comparison of March 18, 1871 with November 7, 1917 is very instructive from this point of view. In Paris, there is an absolute lack of initiative for action on the part of the leading revolutionary circles. The proletariat, armed by the bourgeois government, is in reality master of the town, has all the material means of power-cannon and rifles-at its disposal, but it is not aware of it. The bourgeoisie makes an attempt to retake the weapon of the giant: it wants to steal the cannon of the proletariat. The attempt fails. The government flees in panic from Paris to Versailles. The field is clear. But it is only on the morrow that the proletariat understands that it is the master of Paris. The "leaders" are in the wake of events, they record them when the latter are already accomplished, and they do everything in their power to blunt the revolutionary edge. In Petrograd, the events developed differently. The party moved firmly, resolutely, to the seizure of power, having its men everywhere, consolidating each position, extending every fissure between the workers and the garrison on the one side and the government on the other. The armed demonstration of the July days is a vast reconnoitering conducted by the party to sound the degree of close contact between the masses and the power of resistance of the enemy. The reconnoitering is transformed into a struggle of outposts. We are thrown back, but at the same time the action establishes a connection between the party and the depths of the masses. The months of August, September and October see a powerful revolutionary flux. The party profits by it and augments considerably its points of support in the working class and the garrison. Later, the harmony between the conspirative preparations and the mass action takes place almost automatically. The Second Congress of the Soviets is fixed for November '. All our preceding agitation was to lead to the seizure of power by the Congress. Thus, the overturn was adapted in advance to November 7. This fact was well known and understood by the enemy. Kerensky and his councillors could not fail to make efforts to consolidate themselves, to however small an extent, in Petrograd for the decisive moment. Also, they stood in need of shipping out of the capital the most revolutionary sections of the garrison. We on our part profited by this attempt by Kerensky in order to make it the source of a new conflict which had a decisive importance. We openly accused the Kerensky government-our accusation subsequently found a written confirmation in an official document-of having planned the removal of a third of the Petrograd garrison not out of military considerations but for the purpose of counter-revolutionary combinations. This conflict bound us still more closely to the garrison and put before the latter a well-defined task, to support the Soviet Congress fixed for November 7. And since the government insisted-even if in a feeble enough manner-that the garrison be sent off, we created in the Petrograd Soviet, already in our hands, a Revolutionary War Committee, on the pretext of verifying the military reasons for the governmental plan. Thus we had a purely military organ, standing at the head of the Petrograd garrison, which was in reality a legal organ of armed insurrection. At the same time we designated (communist) commissars in all the military units, in the military stores, etc. The clandestine military organization accomplished specific technical tasks and furnished the Revolutionary War Committee with fully trustworthy militants for important military tasks. The essential work concerning the preparation, the realization and the armed insurrection took place openly, and so methodically and naturally that the bourgeoisie, led by Kerensky, did not clearly understand what was taking place under their very eyes. (In Paris, the proletariat understood only on the following day that it had been really victorious-a victory which it had not, moreover, deliberately sought-that it was master of the situation. In Petrograd, it was the contrary. Our party, basing itself on the workers and the garrison, had already seized the power, the bourgeoisie passed a fairly tranquil night and learned only on the following morning that the helm of the country was in the hands of its gravedigger.) As to strategy, there were many differences of opinion in our party. A part of the Central Committee declared itself, as is known, against the taking of power, believing that the moment had not yet arrived, that Petrograd was detached from the rest of the country, the proletariat from the peasantry, etc. Other comrades believed that we were not attributing sufficient importance to the elements of military complot. One of the members of the Central Committee demanded in October the surrounding of the Alexandrine Theater where the Democratic Conference was in session, and the proclamation of the dictatorship of the Central Committee of the party. He said: in concentrating our agitation as well as our preparatory military work for the moment of the Second Congress, we are showing our plan to the adversary, we are giving him the possibility of preparing himself and even of dealing us a preventive blow. But there is no doubt that the attempt at a military complot and the surrounding of the Alexandrine Theater would have been a fact too alien to the development of the events, that it would have been an event disconcerting to the masses. Even in the Petrograd Soviet, where our faction dominated, such an enterprise, anticipating the logical development of the struggle, would have provoked great disorder at that moment, above all among the garrison where there were hesitant and not very trustful regiments, primarily the cavalry regiments. It would have been much easier for Kerensky to crush a complot unexpected by the masses than to attack the garrison consolidating itself more and more on its positions: the defense of its inviolability in the name of the future Congress of the Soviets. Therefore the majority of the Central Committee rejected the plan to surround the Democratic Conference and it was right. The conjuncture was very well judged: the armed insurrection, almost without bloodshed, triumphed exactly on the date, fixed in advance and openly, for the convening of the Second Soviet Congress. This strategy cannot, however, become a general rule, it requires specific conditions. Nobody believed any longer in the war with the Germans, and the less revolutionary soldiers did not want to quit Petrograd for the front. And even if the garrison as a whole was on the side of the workers for this single reason, it became stronger in its point of view to the extent that Kerensky's machinations were revealed. But this mood of the Petrograd garrison had a still deeper cause in the situation of the peasant class and in the development of the imperialist war. Had there been a split in the garrison and had Kerensky obtained the possibility of support from a few regiments, our plan would have failed. The elements of purely military complot (conspiracy and great speed of action) would have prevailed. It would have been necessary, of course, to choose another moment for the insurrection. The Commune also had the complete possibility of winning even the peasant regiments, for the latter had lost all confidence and all respect for the power and the command. Yet it undertook nothing towards this end. The fault here is not in the relationships of the peasant and the working classes, but in the revolutionary strategy. What will be the situation in this regard in the European countries in the present epoch? It is not easy to foretell anything on this score. Yet, with the events developing slowly and the bourgeois governments exerting all their efforts to utilize past experiences, it may be foreseen that the proletariat, in order to attract the sympathies of the soldiers, will have to overcome a great and well organized resistance at a given moment. A skillful and well~ timed attack on the part of the revolution will then be necessary. The duty of the party is to prepare itself for it. That is just why it must maintain and develop its character of a centralized organization, which openly guides the revolutionary movement of the masses and is at the same time a clandestine apparatus of the armed insurrection. The question of the electibility of the command was one of the reasons of the conflict between the National Guard and Thiers. Paris refused to accept the command designated by Thiers. Varlin subsequently formulated the demand that the command of the National Guard, from top to bottom, ought to be elected by the National Guardsmen themselves. That is where the Central Committee of the National Guard found its support. This question must he envisaged from two sides: from the political and the military sides, which are interlinked but which should be distinguished. The political task consisted in purging the National Guard of the counter­revolutionary command. Complete electibility was the only means for it, the majority of the National Guard being composed of workers and revolutionary petty bourgeois. And in addition, the motto "electibility of the command", being extended also to the infantry, Thiers would have been deprived at a single stroke of his essential weapon, the counterrevolutionary officers. In order to realize this plan, a party organization, having its men in all the military units, was required. In a word, electibility in this ease had as its immediate task not to give good commanders to the batallions, but to liberate them from commanders devoted to the bourgeoisie. Electibility served as a wedge for splitting the army into two parts, along class lines. Thus did matters occur with its in the period of Kerensky, above all on the eve of October. But the liberation of the army from the old commanding apparatus inevitably involves the weakening of organizational cohesion and the diminution of combative power. As a rule, the elected command is pretty weak from the technico-military standpoint and with regard to the maintenance of order and of discipline. Thus, at the moment when the army frees itself from the old counterrevolutionary command which oppressed it, the question arises of giving it a revolutionary command capable of fulfilling its mission. And this question can by no means be resolved by simple elections. Before wide masses of soldiers acquire the experience of well choosing and selecting commanders, the revolution will be beaten by the enemy which is guided in the choice of its command by the experience of centuries. The methods of shapeless democracy (simple electibility) must be supplemented and to a certain extent replaced by measures of selection from above. The revolution must create an organ composed of experienced, reliable organizers, in which one can have absolute confidence, give it full powers to choose, designate and educate the command. If particularism and democratic autonomism are extremely dangerous to the proletarian revolution in general, they are ten times more dangerous ¥to the army. We saw that in the tragic example of the Commune. The Central Committee of the National Guard drew its authority from democratic electibility. At the moment when the Central Committee needed to develop to the maximum its initiative in the offensive, deprived of the leadership of a proletarian party, it lost its head, hastened to transmit its powers to the representatives of the Commune which required a broader democratic basis. And it was a great mistake in that period to play with elections. But once the elections had been held and the Commune brought together, ft was necessary to concentrate everything in the Commune at a single blow and to have it create an organ possessing real power to reorganize the National Guard. This was not the case. By the side of the elected Commune there remained the Central Committee; the elected character of the latter gave it a political authority thanks to which it was able to compete with the Commune. But at the same time that deprived it of the energy and the firmness necessary in the purely military questions which, after the organization of the Commune, justified its existence. Electibility, democratic methods, are but one of the instruments in the hands of the proletariat and its party. Electibility can in no wise be a fetish, a remedy for all evils. The methods of electibility must be combined with those of appointments. The power of the Commune came from the elected National Guard. But once created, the Commune should have reorganized with a strong hand the National Guard, from top to bottom, given it reliable leaders and established a regime of very strict discipline. The Commune did not do this, being itself deprived of a powerful revolutionary directing center. It too was crushed. We can thus thumb the whole history of the Commune, page by page, and we will find in it one single lesson: a strong party leadership is needed. More than any other proletariat has the French made sacrifices for the revolution. But also more than any other has it been duped. Many times has the bourgeoisie dazzled it with all the colors of republicanism, of radicalism, of socialism, so as always to fasten upon it the fetters of capitalism. By means of its agents, its lawyers and its journalists, the bourgeoisie has put forward a whole mass of democratic, parliamentary, autonomist formulae which are nothing but impediments on the feet of the proletariat, hampering its forward movement. The temperament of the French proletariat is a revolutionary lava. But this lava is now covered with the ashes of skepticism result of numerous deceptions and disenchantments. Also, the revolutionary proletarians of France must be severer towards their party and unmask more pitilessly any non-conformity between word and action. The French workers have need of an organization, strong as steel, with leaders controlled by the masses at every new stage of the revolutionary movement. How much time will history afford us to prepare ourselves? We do not know. For fifty years the French bourgeoisie has retained the power in its hands after having elected the Third Republic on the bones of the Communards. Those fighters of '71 were not lacking in heroism. What they lacked was clarity in method and a centralized leading organization. That is why they were vanquished. Half a century elapsed before the proletariat of France could pose the question of avenging the death of the Communards. But this time, the action will be firmer, more concentrated. The heirs of Thiers will have to pay the historic debt in full.

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.