The ABCs Of The Russian Revolution- Leon Trotsky's History Of The Russian Revolution (1932)

Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution is partisan history at its best. One does not and should not, at least in this day in age, ask historians to be ‘objective’. One simply asks that the historian present his or her narrative and analysis and get out of the way. Trotsky meets that criterion. Furthermore, in Trotsky’s case there is nothing like having a central actor in that drama, who can also write brilliantly and wittily, give his interpretation of the important events and undercurrents swirling around Russia in 1917. If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the fate of various nations after World War I or its affect on world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr’s History of the Russian Revolutionoffers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920’s. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov’s Notes on the Russian Revolution. For a more journalistic account John Reed’s classic Ten Days That Shook the World is invaluable. Trotsky covers some of this material as well. However, if additionally, you want to get a feel for the molecular process of the Russian Revolution in its ebbs and flows down at the base in the masses where the revolution was made Trotsky’s is the book for you.

The life of Leon Trotsky is intimately intertwined with the rise and decline of the Russian Revolution in the first part of the 20^th century. As a young man, like an extraordinary number of talented Russian youth, he entered the revolutionary struggle against Czarism in the late 1890’s. Shortly thereafter he embraced what became a lifelong devotion to a Marxist political perspective. However, except for the period of the 1905 Revolution when Trotsky was chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and later in 1912 when he tried to unite all the Russian Social Democratic forces in an ill-fated unity conference, which goes down in history as the ‘August Bloc’, he was essentially a free lancer in the international socialist movement. At that time Trotsky saw the Bolsheviks as “sectarians”as it was not clear to him at that time that for socialist revolution to be successful the reformist and revolutionary wings of the movement had to be organizationally split. With the coming of World War I Trotsky drew closer to Bolshevik positions but did not actually join the party until the summer of 1917 when he entered the Central Committee after the fusion of his organization, the Inter-District Organization, and the Bolsheviks. This act represented an important and decisive switch in his understanding of the necessity of a revolutionary workers party to lead the revolution.

As Trotsky himself noted, although he was a late comer to the concept of a Bolshevik Party that delay only instilled in him a greater understanding of the need for a vanguard revolutionary workers party to lead the revolutionary struggles. This understanding underscored his political analysis throughout the rest of his career as a Soviet official and as the leader of the struggle of the Left Opposition against the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution. After his defeat at the hands of Stalin and his henchmen Trotsky wrote these three volumes in exile in Turkey from 1930 to 1932. At that time Trotsky was not only trying to draw the lessons of the Revolution from an historian’s perspective but to teach new cadre the necessary lessons of that struggle as he tried first reform the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International and then later, after that position became politically untenable , to form a new, revolutionary Fourth International. Trotsky was still fighting from this perspective in defense of the gains of the Russian Revolution when a Stalinist agent cut him down. Thus, without doubt, beyond a keen historian’s eye for detail and antidote, Trotsky’s political insights developed over long experience give his volumes an invaluable added dimension not found in other sources on the Russian Revolution.

As a result of the Bolshevik seizure of power the so-called Russian Question was the central question for world politics throughout most of the 20^th century. That central question ended practically with the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. However, there are still lessons, not all negative, to be learned from the experience of the Russian Revolution. Today, an understanding of this experience is the task for the natural audience for this book, the young alienated radicals of Western society. For the remainder of this review I will try to point out some issues raised by Trotsky which remain relevant today.

The central preoccupation of Trotsky’s volumes reviewed here and of his later political career concerns the problem of the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international labor movement and its national components. That problem can be stated as the gap between the already existing objective conditions necessary for beginning socialist construction based on the current level of capitalist development and the immaturity or lack of revolutionary leadership to overthrow the old order. From the European Revolutions of 1848 on, not excepting the heroic Paris Commune, until his time the only successful working class revolution had been in led by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917. Why? Anarchists may look back to the Paris Commune or forward to the Spanish Civil War in 1936 for solace but the plain fact is that absent a revolutionary party those struggles were defeated without establishing the prerequisites for socialism. History has indicated that a revolutionary party that has assimilated the lessons of the past and is rooted in the working class allied with and leading the plebian masses in its wake is the only way to bring the socialist program to fruition. That hard truth shines through Trotsky’s three volumes. Unfortunately, this is still the central problem confronting the international labor movement today.

Trotsky makes an interesting note that despite the popular conception the February overthrow of the Czarist regime was not as spontaneous as one would be led to believe in the confusion of the times. He notes that the Russian revolutionary movement had been in existence for many decades before that time, that the revolution of 1905 had been a dress rehearsal for 1917 and that before the World War temporarily halted its progress another revolutionary period was on the rise. If there had been no such experiences then those who argue for spontaneity would have grounds to stand on. The most telling point is that the outbreak occurred in Petrograd, not exactly unknown ground for revolutionary activities. Moreover, contrary to the worshipers of so-called spontaneity, this argues most strongly for a revolutionary workers party to be in place in order to affect the direction of the revolution from the beginning.

All revolutions, and the Russian Revolution is no exception, after the first flush of victory over the overthrown old regime, face attempts by the more moderate revolutionary elements to suppress counter-posed class aspirations in the interest of unity of the various classes that made the initial revolution. Thus, we see in the English Revolution of the 17^th century a temporary truce between the rising bourgeoisie and yeoman farmers and pious urban artisans who formed the backbone of Cromwell’s New Model Army. In the Great French Revolution of the 18^thcentury the struggle from the beginning depended mainly on the support of the lower urban plebian classes. Later other classes through their parties which had previously remained passive enter the arena and try to place a break on revolutionary developments. Their revolutionary goals have been achieved in the initial overturn for them the revolution is over. They most commonly attempt to rule by way of some form of People’s Front government.

This is a common term of art in Marxist terminology to represent a trans-class formation of ultimately counterposed interests. The Russian Revolution also suffered under a Popular Front period under various combinations and guises supported by ostensible socialists, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, from February to October. One of the keys to Bolshevik success in October was that, with the arrival of Lenin from exile in April, the Bolsheviks shifted their strategy and tactics to a position of political opposition to the parties of the popular front. Later history has shown us in Spain in the 1930’s and more recently in Chile in the 1970’s how deadly support to such popular front formations can be by revolutionaries. The various parliamentary popular fronts in France, Italy and elsewhere show the limitations in another less dramatic but no less dangerous fashion. In short, political support for Popular Fronts means the derailment of the revolution or worst. This is a hard lesson, paid for in blood, that all manner of reformist socialists try deflect or trivialize in pursuit of being at one with the ‘masses’. Witness today’s efforts by ostensible socialists to get all people of ‘good will, etc.’, including liberal and not so liberal Democrats under the same tent in the opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.

One of Trotsky’s great skills as a historian is the ability to graphically demonstrate that within the general revolutionary flow there are ebbs and flows either speed up the revolutionary process or slow it down. This is the fate of all revolutions and can determine the outcome for generations. The first definitive such event in the Russian Revolution occurred in the so-called ‘April Days’ after it became clear that the then presently constituted Provisional Government intended to continue participation on the Allied side in World War I and retain the territorial aspirations of the Czarist government in other guises. This led the vanguard of the Petrograd working class to make a premature attempt to bring down that government. However, the vanguard was isolated and did not have the authority needed to be successful at that time. The most that could be done was the elimination of the more egregious ministers. Part of the problem here is that no party, unlike the Bolsheviks in the ‘July Days’ has enough authority to hold the militants back. Theses events only underscore, in contrast to the anarchist position, the need for an organized revolutionary party to check such premature impulses. Even then, the Bolsheviks took the full brunt of the reaction, with the wholehearted support of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionary Parties, with the jailing of their leaders and suppression of their newspapers.

The Bolsheviks were probably the most revolutionary party in the history of revolutions. They certainly were the most consciously revolutionary in their commitment to political program, organizational form and organizational practices. Notwithstanding this, before the arrival in Petrograd of Lenin from exile the Bolshevik forces on the ground were, to put it mildly, floundering in their attitude toward political developments, especially their position on so-called critical support to the Provisional Government (read, Popular Front). Hence, in the middle of a revolutionary upsurge it was necessary to politically rearm the party. This political rearmament was necessary to expand the party’s concept of when and what forces would lead the current revolutionary upsurge. In short, mainly through Lenin’s intervention, the Party needed to revamp its old theory of ‘the democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry’ to the new conditions which placed the socialist program i.e. ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ on the immediate agenda. Informally, the Bolsheviks, or rather Lenin individually, came to the same conclusions that Trotsky had analyzed in his theory of Permanent Revolution prior to the Revolution of 1905. This reorientation was not done without a struggle in the party against those forces who did not want to separate with the reformist wing of the Russian workers and peasant parties, mainly the Mensheviks and the Social revolutionaries. This should be a sobering warning to those who argue, mainly from an anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist position, that a revolutionary party is not necessary. The dilemma of correctly aligning strategy and tactics even with a truly revolutionary party can be problematic. The tragic outcome in Spain in the 1930’s abetted by the confusion on this issue by the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and Durrutti-led left anarchists, the most honestly revolutionary organizations at the time, painfully underscores this point. This is why Trotsky came over to the Bolsheviks and why he drew that lesson on the organization question very sharply for the rest of his political career.

The old-fashioned, poorly trained, inadequately led peasant-based Russian Army took a real beating at the hands of the more modern, mechanized and disciplined German armies on the Eastern Front in World War I. The Russian Army, furthermore, was at the point of disintegration just prior to the February Revolution. Nevertheless, the desperate effort on the part of the peasant soldier essentially declassed from his traditional role on the land by the military mobilization, was decisive in overthrowing the monarchy. Key peasant reserve units placed in urban garrisons, and thus in contact with the energized workers, participated in the struggle to end the war and get back to the take the land alive. Thus, from February on the peasant army through coercion or through inertia was no longer a reliable vehicle for any of the combinations of provisional governmental ministries to use. In the Army’s final flare-up in defense, or at least neutrality, of placing all power into Soviet hands it acted as a reserve, an important one, but nevertheless a reserve. Only later when the Whites in the Civil War came to try to take the land did the peasant soldier exhibit a willingness to fight and die. Such circumstances are not a part of today’s revolutionary strategy, at least in advanced capitalist society. In fact, today only under exceptional conditions would a revolutionary socialist party support, much less advocate the Bolshevik slogan-‘land to the tiller’ to resolve the agrarian question. The need to split the armed forces, however, remains.

Not all revolutions exhibit the massive breakdown in discipline as occurred in the Russian army- the armed organ that defends any state- but it played an exceptional role here. However, in order for a revolution to be successful it is almost universally true that the existing governmental authority can no longer rely on such troop discipline. If this does not occur revolution generally would be impossible as untrained plebeians are no match for trained soldiers. Moreover, the Russian peasant army reserves are further exceptional in that they responded to the general democratic demand for land to the tiller that the Bolsheviks were the only party to endorse and, moreover, were willing to carry out to the end. In the normal course of events the peasant, as a peasant on the land, cannot lead a modern revolution in even a marginally developed industrial state. It has more often been the bulwark for reaction; witness its role in the Paris Commune, Bulgaria in 1923, for example, more than it has been a reliable ally of the urban masses. However, World War I put the peasant youth of Russia in uniform and gave it discipline, for a time at least, that it would not have otherwise had to play a subordinate role in the revolution. Later revolutions based on peasant armies, such as China, Cuba and Vietnam, confirm this notion that only exception circumstances, mainly as part of a military formation, permit the peasantry a progressive role in a modern revolution.

Trotsky is politically merciless toward the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary leaderships that provided the crucial support for the Provisional Governments between February and October in their various guises and through their various crises. Part of the support of these parties for the Provisional Government stemmed from their joint perspectives that saw the current revolution was a limited bourgeois one and so therefore they could no go further than the decrepit bourgeoisie of Russia was willing to go. Given its relationships with foreign capital that was not very far. Let us face it these organizations in the period from February to October betrayed the interest of their ranks on the question of immediate peace, of the redistribution of the land, and a democratic representative government. This is particularly true after their clamor for the start of the ill-fated summer offensive on the Eastern Front and their evasive refusal to convene a Constituent Assembly to ratify the redistribution of the land. One can chart the first slow but then rapid rise of Bolsheviks influence in places when they did not really exist when the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, formerly the influential parties of those areas moved to the right. All those workers, peasants, soldiers, whatever political organizations they adhered to formally, who wanted to make a socialist revolution naturally gravitated to the Bolsheviks. Such movement to the left by the masses is always the case in times of crisis. The point is to channel that energy for the seizure of power.

The ‘August Days’ when the ex-Czarist General Kornilov attempted a counterrevolutionary coup and Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, in desperation asked the Bolsheviks to use their influence to get the Kronstadt sailors to defend that government points to the ingenuity of the Bolshevik strategy. A point that has been much misunderstood since then, sometimes willfully, by many leftist groups is the Bolshevik tactic of military support-without giving political support- to bourgeois democratic forces in the struggle against right wing forces ready to overthrow democracy. The Bolsheviks gave Kerensky military support while at the same time politically agitating, particularly in the Soviets and within the garrison, to overthrow the Provisional Government. Today, an approximation of this position would take the form of not supporting capitalist war budgets, parliamentary votes of no confidence, independent extra-parliamentary agitation and action, etc. Granted this principled policy on the part of the Bolsheviks is a very subtle maneuver but it is miles away from giving blanket military and political support to forces that you will eventually have to overthrow. The Spanish revolutionaries in the 1930’s, even the most honest grouped in the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) learned this lesson the hard way when that party, despite its equivocal political attitude toward the popular front, was suppressed and the leadership jailed by the Negrin government despite having military units at the front in the fight against Franco.

As I write this review [2007]we are in the fourth year of the American-led Iraq war. For those who opposed that war from the beginning or have come to oppose it the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution shows the way to really end a fruitless and devastating war. In the final analysis if one really wants to end an imperialist war one has to overthrow the imperialist powers. This is a hard truth that most of even the best of today’s anti-war activists have been unable to grasp. It is not enough to plead, petition or come out in massive numbers to ask politely that the government stop its obvious irrational behavior. Those efforts are helpful for organizing the opposition but not to end the conflict on just terms. The Bolsheviks latched onto and unleashed the greatest anti-war movement in history to overthrow a government which was still committed to the Allied war effort against all reason. After taking power in the name of the Soviets, in which it had a majority, the Bolsheviks in one of its first acts pulled Russia out of the war. History provides no other way to stop for us to stop imperialist war. Learn this lesson.

The Soviets, or workers councils, which sprang up first in the Revolution of 1905 and then almost automatically were resurrected after the February 1917 overturn of the monarchy are merely a convenient and appropriate organization form for the structure of workers power. Communists and other pro-Communist militants, including this writer, have at times made a fetish of this organizational form because of its success in history. As an antidote to such fetishism a good way to look at this form is to note, as Trotsky did, that a Soviet led by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries does not lead to the seizure of power. That tells the tale. This is why Lenin, in the summer of 1917, was looking to the factory committees as an alternative to jump-start the second phase of the revolution. Contrary to the anarchist notion of no, or merely local federated forms of organization, national Soviets are the necessary form of government in the post- seizure of power period. However, they may not be adequate for the task of seizing power. Each revolution necessarily develops its own forms of organization. In the Paris Commune of 1871 the Central Committee of the National Guard was the logical locus of governmental power. In the Spanish Civil War of 1936 the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias and the factory committees could have provided such a focus. Enough said.

For obvious tactical reasons it is better for a revolutionary party to take power in the name of a pan-class organization, like the Soviets, than in the name of a single party like the Bolsheviks. This brings up an interesting point because, as Trotsky notes, Lenin was willing to take power in the name of the party if conditions warranted it. Under the circumstances I believe that the Bolsheviks could have taken it in their own name but, and here I agree with Trotsky, that it would have been harder for them to keep it. Moreover, they had the majority in the All Russian Soviet and so it would be inexplicable if they took power solely in their own name. That, after a short and unsuccessful alliance with the Left Social Revolutionary Party in government, it came down to a single party does not negate this conclusion. Naturally, a pro-Soviet multi-party system where conflicting ideas of social organization along socialist lines can compete is the best situation. However, history is a cruel taskmaster at times. That, moreover, as the scholars say, is beyond the scope this review and the subject for further discussion.

The question of whether to seize power is a practical one for which no hard and fast rules apply. An exception is that it important to have the masses ready to go when the decision is made. In fact, it is probably not a bad idea to have the masses a little overeager to insurrect. One mistaken assumption, however, is that power can be taken at any time in a revolutionary period. As the events of the Russian Revolution demonstrate this is not true because the failure to have a revolutionary party ready to roll means that there is a fairly short window of opportunity. In Trotsky’s analysis this can come down to a period of days. In the actual case of Russia he postulated that that time was probably between late September and December. That analysis seems reasonable. In any case, one must have a feel for timing in revolution as well as in any other form of politics. The roll call of unsuccessful socialist revolutions in the 20^th century in Germany, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Spain, etc. only painfully highlights this point.

Many historians and political commentators have declared the Bolshevik seizure of power in October a coup d’etat. That is facile commentary. If one wants to do harm to the notion of a coup d’etat in the classic sense of a closed military conspiracy a la Blanqui this cannot stand up to examination. First, the Bolsheviks were an urban civilian party with at best tenuous ties to military knowledge and resources. Even simple military operations like the famous bank expropriations after the 1905 Revolution were mainly botched and gave them nothing but headaches with the leadership of pre World War I international social democracy. Secondly, and decisively, Bolshevik influence over the garrison in Petrograd and eventually elsewhere precluded such a necessity. Although, as Trotsky noted, conspiracy is an element of any insurrection this was in fact an ‘open’ conspiracy that even the Kerensky government had to realize was taking place. The Bolsheviks relied on the masses just as we should.

With almost a century of hindsight and knowing what we know now it is easy to see that the slender social basis for the establishment of Soviet power by the Bolsheviks in Russia was bound to create problems. Absent international working class revolution, particularly in Germany, which the Bolsheviks factored into their decisions to seize power, meant, of necessity, that there were going to be deformations even under a healthy workers regime. One, as we have painfully found out, cannot after all build socialism in one country. Nevertheless this begs the question whether at the time the Bolsheviks should have taken power. A quick look at the history of revolutions clearly points out that such opportunities are infrequent. You do not get that many opportunities to seize power and try to change world history for the better so you better take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves. As mentioned above, revolutionary history is mainly a chronicle of failed revolutionary opportunities. No, the hell with all that. Take working class power when you can and let the devil take the hinder most. Let us learn more than previous generations of revolutionaries, but be ready. This is one of the political textbooks you need to read if you want to change the world. Read it.

***“You Are On The Bus Or Off The Bus”- The Transformation Of “Foul-Mouth” Phil Into “Far-Out” Phil- With Mad Hatter Writer Ken Kesey And His Merry Pranksters In Mind

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

Everybody, well everybody who checks things out here, or on other sites that I am associated with, knows that I am dedicated to swapping lies about the old days. The old days in this case being the 1960s, and more specifically the 1960s old corner boy days in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor in North Adamsville, my growing-up working class hometown. And, of course, if one wants to swap lies about those old days, or any days, then one needs a, well, foil, or foils. Needless to say, via, the “miracle” of the Internet, in its various manifestations, all one has to do is latch onto some search engine, type in “corner boys,” “North Adamsville,” or some such combinations and, like lemmings from the sea, our home land the sea, every surviving corner boy with enough energy to lift his stubby little fingers will be on your screen before you can say, well, say, be-bop night.

Frankie Riley, our lord and chieftain was the first, although he has lost much speed in his pitch since the old days. I won’t bore you with the details of his “exploits.” You can fumble through the archives for that. Nor will I speak of fast-talking Johnny Silver, except to point out that he is the culprit, there is no other way to put it, who started the sexual revolution. No, not the real one that started with “the pill” in the early 1960s and continues through to today with the struggle for women’s liberation, liberation from all kinds of second-class citizen stuff from jobs and wages to help with childcare and housework. No, Johnny started the AARP-version of the sexual revolution-old geezers looking for love, looking for love in all the wrong places, if you ask me but nobody is, asking that is. Those gripping tales can also be found in the archives.

All of this, of course, is prelude to the real subject here. Phil Larkin’s transformation from corner boy“Foul-Mouth” Phil (and he really was, as he would tell you in that moment of candor that he is occasionally capable of) in early 1960s North Adamsville to“Far-Out” Phil on one of the ubiquitous “Merry Prankster-” inspired converted yellow brick road school buses that dotted the highways and by-ways of the American be-bop heading west night from about the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s (maybe a little earlier in the ‘70s). When last we hear from Phil lately he was heading to Pennsylvania to meet up with some doctoral program research addict whom he “met” on Facebook. That tale, ah, can also be found in the archives here. However, unlike these seemingly endless “haunting the Internet” school boy antics from guys old enough, well I am no snitch, so let’s say old enough to know better, looking for the fountain of youth, or whatever this Phil transformation story actually interests me. And so here it is. As usual I edited it lightly but it is Phil’s story, and I am pleased to say a good one.

*********
Phil Larkin here. Jesus, The Scribe [Markin: Like I warned the other guys, Phil, watch that scribe, or The Scribe thing] actually liked this idea of me telling about riding the, what did he call it, oh yah, the yellow brick road bus, back in my prankster days [Markin: Just to keep things straight, since Phil still likes to play a little rough with the truth, not the famous Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters bus made famous through Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, but certainly inspired by it]. I barely got by with my stories about real stuff that people want to read like the trials and tribulations of an older guy trying to “hook-up” with the ladies on what amounted to a sexless sex site and my rendezvous with Amy (and she is not a research addict, Markin, no way, although she is an addict another way but you don’t want to hear that real stuff story), my lovely sociology doctoral student down at Penn State (Go, Nittany Lions!). But he is all over, all f—king over, some little bit of“cultural history” stuff that nobody, except AARP-guys (and dolls) would do anything but yawn over. And those AARP-guys (and dolls) are too busy trying to“hook-up,” to grab some sex before is too late to spent more than two seconds on ancient history. So this one is strictly for The Scribe, oops, Peter Paul Markin.

What got the whole memory lane thing started was that somewhere Markin picked up, probably second-hand off of Amazon if I know him, a CD from Time-Life Music entitled something like Shakin’ It Up: 1966. Now the music on the compilation, the music in the post-British invasion, heart of acid rock night, was strictly for laughs. But the artwork on the cover (as Markin told me was true on other CDs in the expansive rock era series) featured nothing more, or nothing less, than a day-glo bus right out of my prankster days, complete with some very odd residents (odd now, not then, then they were righteous, and maybe, just maybe still are). That scene gave us a couple of hours conversation one night and jogged my memory about a lot of things. Especially about what Markin, hell, me too, called the search of the great American freedom night. (He put some colors, blue-pink like just before dark, dark out West anyway, in his but we, for once. were on the same page.)

Naturally, Markin as is his wont [Markin: “wont” is my word not Phil’s. His, I prefer, strongly prefer, to post], once he played the CD and plied me for information (I know this guy, remember) ran off like a bunny and wrote his version as part of a review of the CD. Of course, being, well, being Markin he got it about half-right. So let me tell the story true and you can judge who plays “rough” with the truth.

Markin had it just about right when he described that old bus:

“A rickety, ticky-tack, bounce over every bump in the road to high heaven, gear-shrieking school bus. But not just any yellow brick road school bus that you rode to various educationally good for you locations like movie houses, half yawn, science museums, yawn, art museums, yawn, yawn, or wind-swept picnic areas for some fool weenie roast, two yawns there too, when you were a school kid. And certainly not your hour to get home daily grind school bus, complete with surly driver (male or female, although truth to tell the females were worst since they acted just like your mother, and maybe were acting on orders from her) that got you through K-12 in one piece, and you even got to not notice the bounces to high heaven over every bump of burp in the road. No, my friends, my comrades, my brethren this is god’s own bus commandeered to navigate the highways and by-ways of the 1960s come flame or flash-out. Yes, it is rickety, and all those other descriptive words mentioned above in regard to school day buses. That is the nature of such ill-meant mechanical contraptions after all. But this one is custom-ordered, no, maybe that is the wrong way to put it, this is “karma” ordered to take a motley crew of free-spirits on the roads to seek a “newer world,” to seek the meaning of what one persistent blogger on the subject has described as the search for the great blue-pink American Western night.”

“Naturally to keep its first purpose intact this heaven-bound vehicle is left its mustard yellow body surface underneath but over that primer the surface has been transformed by generations (generations here signifying not twenty-year cycles but trips west, and east) of, well, folk art, said folk art being heavily weighted toward graffiti, toward the psychedelic day-glo splashes and zodiacally meaningful symbols. And the interior. Most of those hardback seats that captured every bounce of childhood have been ripped out and discarded who knows where and replaced by mattresses, many layers of mattresses for this bus is not merely for travel but for home. To complete the “homey”effect there are stored, helter-skelter, in the back coolers, assorted pots and pans, mismatched dishware and nobody’s idea of the family heirloom china, boxes of dried foods and condiments, duffle bags full of clothes, clean and unclean, blankets, sheets, and pillows, again clean and unclean. Let’s put it this way, if someone wants to make a family hell-broth stew there is nothing in the way to stop them. But also know this, and know it now, as we start to focus on this journey that food, the preparation of food, and the desire, except in the wee hours when the body craves something inside, is a very distant concern for these “campers.” If food is what you desired in the foreboding 1960s be-bop night take a cruise ship to nowhere or a train (if you can find one), some southern pacific, great northern, union pacific, and work out your dilemma in the dining car. Of course, no heaven-send, merry prankster-ish yellow brick road school bus would be complete without a high- grade stereo system to blast the now obligatory “acid rock” coming through the radiator practically.”

That says it all pretty much about the physical characteristics of the bus but not much about how I got on the damn thing. Frankly, things were pretty tough around my house, things like no having much of a job after high school just working as a retail clerk up at Raymond’s Department Store in Adamsville Plaza, not really, according to dear mother, with dear old dad chiming in every once in a while especially when I didn’t come up with a little room and board money, being motivated to “better myself,” and being kind of drift less with my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boys long gone off to college, the service, or married, stuff like that. Then too I was having some girl trouble, no, not what you think juts regular the battle of the sexes stuff when my honey, Ginny McCabe, practically shut me off because I didn’t want to get married just then. But I knew something was in the air, something was coming like “the scribe” was always predicting. I wanted in on that. But the specific reason that I split in the dead of the North Adamsville night was that I was trying to avoid the military draft, now that the war in Vietnam was escalating with nowhere else to go. I knew my days were numbered and while I was as patriotic (and am, unlike that parlor pinko, commie, Markin) as the next guy (and these days, girls) I was not ready to lay down my life out in the boondocks right then. So I headed out on the lam.

[Markin: Phil, as he related this part of the story that night, had me all choked up about his military plight and I was ready to say brother, welcome to the anti-imperialist resistance. Then I realized, wait a minute, Phil was 4-F (meaning he was not eligible for drafting due to some medical or psychological condition in those days for those who do not know the reference. A prima facie example, I might add, of that playing rough with the truth that I warned you about before.]

Hey, I am no slave to convention, whatever the conventions are, but in those days I looked like a lot of young guys. Longish hair, a beard, a light beard at the time, blue jeans, an army jacket, sunglasses, a knapsack over my shoulder, and work boots on my feet (sandals would not come until later when I got off the road and was settled in a “pad” in San Francisco and anyway were not the kind of footwear that would carry you through on those back road places you might find yourself in, places like Deadwood, Nevada at three in the morning with a ten mile walk to the nearest town in front of you). I mention all this because that “look” gave me the cache to make it on the road when I headed out of the house that Spring 1966 be-bop night after one final argument with dear mother about where I was going, what was I going to do when I got there, and what was I going to do for money. Standard mother fare then, and now I suppose.

So short on dough, and long on nerve and fearlessness then I started to hitchhike with the idea of heading west to California like about eight million people, for about that same number of reasons have been heading there since the Spanish, or one of those old time traveling by boat nations, heard about the place. Of course, nowadays I would think to do such a thing in such a dangerous world, unless I was armed to the teeth and that would take a little edge off that “seeking the newer world” Markin has been blabbing about since about 1960. But then, no problem. Especially no problem when a Volkswagen mini-bus (not in the same league as the yellow brick road school bus but okay for a long ride, and definitely okay when you are in some nowhere back road, hostile territory dominate by squares, squares with guns and other evil implements and they, stoned, stoned to the heavens stop to ask you directions because they are “lost” and invite you on board) stops on Route 128, backs up, and a guy who looks a long like me, along with two pretty young girls says“where are you heading?” West, just west. (Okay, okay, Markin, young women, alright?)

Most of the road until the Midwest, Iowa is the Midwest, right was filled with short little adventures like that. A mini-van frolic for a few hours, or a few days. Maybe a few short twenty miles non-descript rides in between but heading west by hook or by crook. Did I like it? Sure I did although I was pretty much an up-tight working class guy (that was one of those pretty girls called me and , hell, she was from Clintondale for chrissakes) who liked his booze, a little sex, and just hanging around the old town waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I could see, after a few drug experiences, no, not LSD, that I was starting to dig the scene. And I felt every day that I was out of North Adamsville that I was shaking off the dust from that place. Then one night, sitting in the front seat of a big old Pontiac (not everybody, not every “hip” everybody had the mini-bus, van or school bus handy), Big Jane between us, the Flip-Flop Kid driving like god’s won mad driver, smoking a joint, laughing with the couple of in back, Bopper Billy and Sweet Pea, we headed into a pay-as- you go roadside camp near Ames out in Iowa. And at that campsite parked maybe five or six places over from where we planted ourselves was god’s own copy of that day-glo merry prankster bus that Markin described before. I flipped out because while I had hear about, and seen from a distance, such contraptions I hadn’t been up close to one before. Wow!

After we settled in, the Flip-Flop Kid (and the guy really could never make up his mind about anything, anything except don’t go too close to Big Bang Jane, no kidding around on that), Bopper Billy (who really thought he was king of the be-bop night, but, hell in the North Adamsville corner boy night Frankie Riley, hell, maybe even Markin, would have out be-bopped him for lunch and had time for a nap), Big Bang Jane (guess what that referred to, and she gave herself that nickname but, I never tried to make a move on her because she was just a little too wild, a little too I would have to keeping looking over my shoulder for me then, probably later too when things got even looser. And then there was the Flip-Flop Kid’s warning ), and Sweet Pea (and she was a sweet pea, if Bopper Billy, wasn’t around, well we both agreed there was something there but in those 1966 days we were still half tied up with the old conventions of not breaking in between a guy and his girl, well that was the convention anyway whether it was generally honored or not, I did) we headed over once we heard the vibes from the sound system churning out some weird sounds, something like we had never heard before (weird then, little did we know that this was the wave of the future, for a few years anyway. Naturally, well naturally after the fact once we learned what the inhabitants of the bus were about, they invited us for supper, or really to have some stew from a big old pot cooking on a fireplace that came with the place. And if you didn’t want the hell-broth stew then partake of some rarified dope (no, again, no on the LDS thing. It was around, it was around on the bus too, among its various denizens, but mainly it was a rumor, and more of a West Coast thing just then, a year later, in the Summer of Love and after that is when the acid hit, and when I tried it but not on this trip. This trip was strictly weed (hemp, joint, mary jane, marijuana, herb, whatever you wanted to called that stuff that got you high, got you out of yourself and got you away from what you were in North Adamsville, Mechanicsville or whatever ville you were from, for a while.

So that night was the introduction to the large economy size search for the freedom we all, as it turned out were looking for. I remember saying to Sweet Pea as we went back to our campsite (and wishing I wasn’t so square about messing with another guy’s girl, and maybe she was too, maybe wishing I wasn’t square about it.) that we had turned a corner that night and that we had best play it out right then for the chance might not come again.

The next day, no, the next night because I had spent the day working up to it, I became “Far-Out” Phil, or the start of that Phil. Frankly, to not bore you with a pipe by pipe description of the quantity of dope that I smoked (herb, hashish, a little cocaine more exotic then than it became later) or ingested (a tab of mescaline) that day, I was “wasted.” Hell I am getting “high” now just thinking about how high I was that day. By nightfall I was ready for almost anything as that weird music that crept up your spine got hold of me. I just, as somebody put a match to the wood to start the cooking of tonight pot of stew to keep us from malnutrition, started dancing by myself. Phil Larkin, formerly foul-mouthed Phil, a cagy, edgy guy from deep in corner boy, wise guy, hang-out guy, never ask a girl to dance but just kind of mosey up world started dancing by himself. But not for long because then he, me, took that dance to some other level, some level that I can only explain by example. Have you ever seen Oliver Stone’s film, The Doors, the one that trances the max-daddy rocker of the late 1960s night, Jim Morrison’s career from garage band leader to guru? One of the scenes at one of the concerts has him; head for of dope, practically transformed into a shaman. Yah, one of those Indian (Markin: Native American, Phil] religious leaders who did a trance-dance. That was me in late May of 1966, if you can believe that.

And see, although I wasn’t conscious of it first I was being joined by one of the women on the bus, Luscious Lois, (and Markin had it right describing her as luscious, she really was), whom I had met, in passing the night before. This Lois, not her real name, as you can tell not only were we re-inventing ourselves physically and spiritually but in our public personas shedding our “slave names” much as some blacks were doing for more serious reasons than we had at the time. [Markin: nice point, Phil] Her real name was Sandra Sharp, a college girl from Vassar who, taking some time off from school, was “on the bus” trying to find herself. She was like some delicate flower, a dahlia maybe, like I had never encountered before. I won’t bore you with the forever have to tell what she looked like thing because that is not what made her, well, intriguing, maddeningly intriguing, like some femme fatale in a crime noir film that Markin, from what I can gather, is always running on about. She was pretty, no question, maybe even a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty if it came to a fair description in the light of day but what made her fetching, enchanting, if that is a different way to say it, was the changes in her facial expressions as she danced, and danced provocatively, dance half-nakedly, around my desire. And I danced, shedding my shirt although I do not remember doing so, and also danced half-naked around her desire. Then, faintly like a buzz from some hovering insect, maybe a bee, and then more loudly I kept hearing the on-lookers, half-mad with dope, and with desire themselves, yelling far out, far out. And Far-Out Phil was born.

Oh, as for Luscious Lois and her desire, well, you figure it out. I might not have been wise to the ways of the Vassar world in those days when such places were bastions to place the young women of the elite and keep them away from clawing upstarts from the corner boy night as I should have been but the rest of my time on the bus was spend hovering around Lois, and keeping other guys away. I even worked some plebeian magic on her one night when I started using certain swear words in her ear that worked for me with every Sunday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Millie Callahan, back in the day. Far-Out Phil got a little something extra that night, proper Vassar girl or not.

No offense against Iowa, well only a little offense for not being near an ocean, I think. No offense against the university there, well only a little offense for not being Berkeley but after about a week of that campsite and its environs I was ready to move on and it did not matter if it was with Flip-Flop and his crowd or with Captain Crunch (the guy who “led” his merry pranksters, real name, Samuel Jackman, Columbia, Class of 1958 who long ago gave up searching, searching for anything, and just hooked into the idea of taking the ride). Captain Crunch, as befitted his dignity (and since it was “his” bus paid for out of some murky deal, probably a youthful drug deal, from what I heard), was merely the “leader” here. The driving was left to another, older guy. Like Markin said before this driver was not your mother-sent, mother-agent, old Mrs. Henderson, who prattled on about keep in your seats and be quiet while she is driving (maybe that, subconsciously, is why the seats were ripped out long ago on the very first “voyage” west) but a very, very close imitation of the god-like prince-driver of the road, the ‘on the road” pioneer, Neal Cassady, shifting those gears very gently but also very sure-handedly so no one noticed those bumps (or else was so stoned, drug or music stoned, that those things pass like so much wind). His name: Cruising Casey (real name, Charles Kendall, Haverford College Class of ’64, but just this minute, Cruising Casey, mad man searching for the great American be-bop night under the extreme influence of one Ken Kesey, the max-daddy mad man of the great search just then). And Cruising was, being just a little older, and about one hundred years more experienced, was also weary, very weary of co-eds, copping dope and, frankly, staying in one place for so long. He, also, wanted to see his girlfriend or his wife I am not sure which in Denver so I know where we are heading. So off we go.

And the passengers. Nobody from the Flip-Flop Express (although Flip-Flop, as usual lived up to his name and hemmed and hawed about it), they were heading back east, back into the dark Mechanicsville night. I tried, tried like hell, to get Sweet Pea to come along just in case the thing with Lois fell apart or she took some other whim into her head. See re-invented or not I still had some all-the angles boyhood rust hanging on me. We did know for sure that Casey was driving, and still driving effortlessly so the harsh realities of his massive drug intake had not hit yet, or maybe he really is superman. Other whose names I remember: Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Michigan, Class of 1959, ditto on the searching thing), Captain Crunch’s girlfriend, (although not exclusively, not exclusively by her choice, not his, and he is not happy about it for lots of reasons which need not detain us here). Most of the rest of the“passengers” have monikers like Silver City Slim, Penny Pot (guess why), Moon Man, Flash Gordon (from out in space somewhere, literally, as he tells it), Denver Dennis (from New York City, go figure), and the like. They also have real names that indicate that they are from somewhere that has nothing to do with public housing projects, ghettos or barrios. And they are also, or almost all are, twenty-somethings that have some highly-rated college years after their names, graduated or not). And they are all either searching or, like the Captain, at a stage where they are just hooked into taking the ride.

As for the rest. Well, no one could be exactly sure, as the bus approached the outskirts of Denver, as this was strictly a revolving cast of characters depending on who was hitchhiking on that desolate back road State Route 5 in Iowa, or County Road 16 in Wyoming, and desperately needed to be picked up, or face time, and not nice time with a buzz on, in some small town pokey. Or it might depend on who decided to pull up stakes at some outback campsite and get on the bus for a spell, and decide if they were, or were not, on the bus. After all even all-day highs, all-night sex, and 24/7 just hanging around listening to the music is not for everyone. And while we had plenty of adventures, thinking back on it now, they all came down to drugs, sex, and rock and roll with a little food on the side. If you want to hear about them just ask Markin to contact me. The real thing though, the thing that everybody should remember is that dance night in Ames, Iowa when Phil Larkin got “religion,” 1960s secular religion. He slid back some later, like everybody does, but when he was on the bus he was in very heaven.

Markin note: No question that this story, except perhaps for hormonal adolescents, is better than those dreary old geezer searching for young love tales that he ran by us before. By the way Phil, you don’t happen to have Luscious Lois’s, ah, Sandra Sharp’s cell phone number or e-mail address. And don’t lie and say you don’t have it. You never crossed off a woman’s name from your book in your life. Give it up.

***Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Great San Francisco Summer Of Love Explosion-Or When Owsley Turned The World Upside Down.

The Byrds performing their classic wa-wa song So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star to give a flavor of the times to this piece.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

Scene: A 1967 scene brought to mind by one of the songs in a CD compilation once reviewed, The Byrds Fillmore West-driven summer of love before the wave crested and it all turned to ashes classic wa-wa song, So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’Roll Star.

*******

Phil Larkin, now road-weary“Far-Out” Phil Larkin, for those who want to trace his evolution from North Adamsville early 1960s be-bop night “Foul-Mouth” Phil, the vocal terror of every mother’s daughter from six to sixty (and, occasionally, secret delight, secret delight of one Minnie Callahan, damn him, for one of some girl classmates), to full-fledged merry prankster now sits on a 1967 be-bop night San Francisco hill with his new flame Butterfly Swirl, and his old flame, Luscious Lois, now transformed into Lilly Rose, transformed at the flip of a switch, as was her way when some whim, or some word in the air, hit her dead center. (Sometime, but not now, remind me to give you my take on this name-changing epidemic as not only were we re-inventing ourselves physically and spiritually but in our public personas shedding our “slave names” much as some blacks were doing for more serious reasons than we had at the time. Yes, do remind me.)

A nameless hill, nameless to first time ‘Frisco Phil, although maybe not to some ancient Native American shaman delighted to see our homeland the sea out in the bay working it way to far-off Japans. Or to some Spanish conquistador, full of gold dreams but longing for the hills of Barcelona half a world away.

But enough of old-time visions, of old time rites of passage, and of foundling dreams. Phil, and his entourage (nice word, huh, no more girlfriend solo, or as here paired, lovingly paired, to be hung up about, just go with the flow). Phil, Butterfly, hell, even jaded Lilly Rose (formerly known as Luscious Lois in case you forgot, or we not paying attention) are a “family,” or rather part of the Captain Crunch extended intentional family of merry pranksters (small case, so as not to be confused with their namesakes and models legendary mad man writer Ken Kesey and his La Honda Merry Pranksters, okay) who just yesterday hit ‘Frisco and have planted their de rigueur day-glo bus in the environs of Golden Gate Park after many months on the road west, and some time down south in La Jolla. After hearing the siren call they have now advanced north to feast on the self-declared Summer of Love that is guaranteed to mend broken hearts, broken spirits, broken rainbows, broken china, and broken, well broken everything. The glue: drug, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll, although not just any old-timey be-bop fifties rock and roll but what everybody now calls “acid”rock. And acid, for the squares out there, is nothing but the tribal name for LSD that has every parent from the New York island to the Redwood forests, every public official from ‘Frisco to France, and every police officer (I am being nice here and will not use the oink word) from the Boston to Bombay and back, well, “freaked out” (and clueless). Yes, our Phil has come a long way from that snarly wise guy corner boy night of that old town he lammed out from (according to his told story) just about a year ago.

Or has he? Well, sure Phil’s hair is quite a bit longer, his beard less wispy and more manly, his tattered Chuck Taylor sneakers transformed into sensible (West Coast ocean sensible) roman sandals and his weight, well, his weight is way down from those weekly bouts with three-day drug escape, and fearful barely eaten four in the morning open hearth stews, and not much else. And as he sits on that nameless hill with his “ladies” he no longer has the expectation of just trying LSD for the hell of it, having licked it (off a blotter), or drank it (the famous, or infamous, kool-aid fix), several times down in La Jolla, watching the surf (and surfers) splashing against the Pacific world with blond-haired, blue-eyed, bouncy Butterfly, and the raven-haired, dark as night-eyed Lilly Rose, or both listening to the music fill the night air. Not square music either (anything pre-1964 except maybe some be-bop wild piano man Jerry Lee Lewis, or some Chicago blues guitar fired by Muddy Waters or microphone-eating Howlin’Wolf), but moog, boog, foog-filled music.

Just that nameless hill minute though, and to be honest, while in the midst of another acid trip (LSD, for the squares just in case you forgot), Phil sensed that something had crested in the Pacific night and that just maybe this scene will not evolve into the “newer world” that everybody, especially Captain Crunch, keeps expecting any day now. Worse, now that he knows he can’t, no way, go back to some department clerk’s job, some picket-fenced white house with dog, two point three children, and a wife what is to happen to him when Butterfly, Lilly Rose, and even Captain Crunch “find” themselves and go back to school, home, academic careers, or whatever. Heavy,man, heavy.

In Honor Of  Women’s History Month- In Nana Kamkov’s Time- For All The Red Emmas

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Frank Jackman was not sure where or when he first heard the term “Red Emma” applied to the old- time revolutionary women who came of age around the turn of the 20^th century and who blossomed in the time of the Russian revolution, particularly its Bolshevik phase and of the time of the defense of the revolution in the few year period of the civil war against the national and international White Guards. He did know that Emma Goldman the old bomb-throwing (at least in her mind) firebrand anarchist and early defender (and early non-defender) of the Bolshevik experiment bore that sobriquet and so that might have been the genesis of the term but in any case here is the story, or really sketch of a story since a lot was unknown about her exploits, of one such Red Emma, Nana Kamkov, who held her own in the dark days of the Russian revolution of the eve of the decisive battle for Kazan…

Nana Kamkov’s name first became known to revolutionary history indirectly through her membership in the remnants of a red peasant brigade fighting the Whites in the Russian Civil War around 1919 , a bare platoon at that point whose core were five peasant soldiers from Omsk who had been conscripted and fought together for the Czar in the disastrous World War I battles, gone home at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, farmed their newly Soviet-provided land, were subsequently dispossessed of that land by Orlov the previous owner when the White Guards came through Omsk , and in reaction they had joined the Reds in 1919 to get that land back. After several engagements crisscrossing Central Russia they, the remnant anyhow, found themselves in soon to be besieged Kazan. Nana had been assigned to their unit in the crush of organizational tangles preparing for the defense of Kazan. Nana had also been caught inside Kazan at a time when that locale was being besieged by White Guard forces, particularly the feared Czech Legion that was running amok from Siberia to the Urals in their attempts to get home. Previously Nana’s story, the story of a mere slip of girl of sixteen, had been submerged as part of the story of this unit, a unit now led by one of the peasant soldiers, Vladimir Suslov, but further research found that she deserved, more than deserved, additional recognition in her own right

Yes, Nana Kamkov, deserved a better fate that to written off as some play thing for some loutish peasant boy, Grunsha Zanoff by name, no matter how Red Army brave he was just that moment and no matter how peasant handsome he was, and he was, to Nana’s eyes. Nana had come off the land as a child, land in Omsk and as fate would have it also Orlov’s land, when after the last revolution, the one in 1905, the government encouraged capitalist exploitation of the land in order to break down the backward-looking peasant communes. Her parents had abandoned the land and had travelled to live in Kazan and her father had set up shop as a locksmith, a good one. Nana had gone school and had been an outstanding student if somewhat socially backward, she had not been like the other girls boy-crazy, although she confessed in one girlish moment to a classmate that she thought some Prince Charming would see her on the Kazan streets, be immediately smitten by her purposeful carriage and carry her off to some golden palace but that was just a moment’s thought. Nana though desperately wanted to become an engineer although the family resources precluded such a fate.

One day in the summer of 1917 at the height of the revolutionary fervor she ran across a Bolshevik agitator in the central square of Kazan (later killed in Kiev fighting off some White Guards in that location) who told her, young impressionable her, aged fourteen, no more, that if the Soviets survived she would be able to pursue her engineering career, hell, the Bolsheviks would encourage it.

From that time Nana had been a single-minded Red Guard soldier performing many dangerous tasks (involving setting off explosives, some espionage work and so on, the specifics unfortunately have been lost despite further inquiry) until the Whites threatened Kazan and she was trapped in the city and had joined Vladimir’s remnants as a result of various organizational tangles. And there she spied Grunsha among his soldiers, loutish, foolish Grunsha, although handsome she admitted. Perhaps it was the time of her time, perhaps she still had a little foolish schoolgirl notion to be with a man, to be a woman, just in case things didn’t work out and she was killed, or worse, executed but one cold night she snuggled up to the sleeping Grunsha and that was that. And she was not sorry although she blushed, blushed profusely when Grunsha’s comrades from home would see them together and knowingly laugh they knew had happened. She had thereafter taken him under her wing and was teaching him to read and to think about things, big idea things, how to work that land back in Omsk better, more scientifically, just in case they weren’t killed, or worse executed. Practical young woman, very practical. And so young Nana entered the red pantheon, and maybe she would drag young Grunsha along too.

Just as she was instructing Grunsha in some Gogol short story a messenger came to their line, a messenger from the river in front of Kazan, from the wind- swept Volga. The message said that Trotsky himself , Trotsky of the phantom armored train rushing to this and that front, seemingly everywhere at the same time, a man that put fear in the hearts of whites and reds alike, had decided to fight and die before Kazan if necessary to save the revolution, to save their precious land. Vladimir and his comrades, including our Red Emma, Red Emma who if the truth be told despite her tender years of sweet sixteen was the best soldier of the lot, and should have been the commissar except those lumpish peasants would not have listened to her, reaffirmed their blood oath. They were not sure of Lenin, thinking him a little too smart, and maybe he had something up his sleeve, maybe he was just another Jew, he looked the part with that bald head of his, but stout-hearted Trotsky, if he was willing to die then what else could they do but stand. If they must die they would die in defense of Kazan, and maybe just maybe somebody would hear of their story, the story of five peasant boys and a pretty red-hearted city girl as brave as they, and lift their heads and roar back too.

And so young Nana entered the red pantheon, and maybe she would drag young Grunsha along too...

And hence this Women’s History Month contribution.

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night-When Diana Nelson “Torched” The North Adamsville Night Away- With Peggy Lee In Mind

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in a CD compilation, Leslie Gore’s 1960s classic teen dream theme (girl division) song, That’s The Way Boys Are. Go figure.

I, Diana Nelson, am going to be a big singing star just watch out, watch out and don’t blink because then you will miss it. Hey, it is written in the stars, my stars. Proof? I have just this spring won the 1962 edition of the annual Adamsville Female Vocalist Contest. Hands down! There was no way that any of those other girls could match (and one guy who dressed up as a girl, weird right, although he did a good job on Mary Wells’ Two Lovers and I was a little worried until they found out he was a guy and gave him the boot). Even Emma Johns and her smoky version of old hat Peggy Lee’s Fever got left behind when I went deep, deep down almost to my soul on Brenda Lee’s I’m Sorry. See that is what the judges were looking for, not smoldering sexy stuff but act of contrition stuff. And the girls who filled up the audience seats and gave their thumbs up and down only wanted to hear stuff that they can listen too when they cry on their pillows after their Johnny doesn’t call, goes cheap on some corny date, or cheats on them, cheats on them with their best girlfriend, usually. I’ve got it all figured out.

Sure, like I was telling my good friend, Peter Paul Markin, the other day during class I was glad to get the one thousand scholarship money that was one of the prizes offered. I can use it if I decide to go to college after we graduate next year. But the big thing for me is to get to sing, sing featured, along with the guys from the Rockin’ Ramrods to back me up, at the Falling Leaves Dance to be held late in September. That dance is always sponsored by the senior class and it will give me a thrill to go out to please that crowd of fellow seniors, especially Peter Paul, who shares my love of music (although he is not a very good singer, sorry if you see this P.P.) and likes to talk about politics and stuff like I do. The big, big thing though, and I haven’t even told Peter Paul about this is that a recording agent, Jerry Rice, yes, that Jerry Rice, from Ducca Records, the one that signed Connie what’s-her name, has promised to be there and if he likes what he hears, well, like I say it in my stars. Don’t blink, okay.

By the way don’t get thrown off by that good friend Peter Paul thing, especially if you know my own true love boyfriend Bobby Swann. There’s nothing to it (sorry again, Peter). Bobby couldn’t be at the contest because he was studying for his finals at State University. He is finishing up his freshman year and so he had to study hard. Peter Paul and I met in ninth grade and we have been good friends ever since. Oh, I suppose I can tell you now, now that I have my handsome blue-eyed Bobby, that if he wasn't such a “stup” P.P could have had his chances with me but all he ever did was stare at my ass in class, and in the corridors. If you don’t believe me ask Emma Johns, she’s the one that noticed him doing it first, although I had an idea. Better yet, ask P.P. he’ll tell you, maybe. The thing was that I couldn’t wait forever for him to get up the nerve to ask me out and then Bobby came along and swooped me up in tenth grade and then I didn’t care for younger guys anymore, except as good friends.

I guess I should tell you since I am telling you everything else that I had a dream when I was very young, maybe seven or eight, that I was going to be a singing star. Maybe it was my mother always playing women singers on the family record like that Peggy Lee when she was young and sprightly with Benny Goodman, Teresa Brewer, and Billie Holiday that got me going because I would sing along all day with the radio on. Later Ma had me take singing lessons and I have been going strong ever since. Peter Paul said he went crazy when he first heard me do Brenda’s I Want To Be Wanted and Patsy Cline’s Crazy, although she, Patsy, seemed a little to ah, shucks, countrified when I first heard her. She has gotten less so since she has started turning to more a more popular style. I sure wish I could hit her high notes but Miss French, my vocals teacher, says I will get there soon enough and then I will have to, get this word, “husband” my valuable resource. See, I am a cinch.

Did I tell you that I told, no ordered (and I can do that to him, and he jumps like a puppy dog, sorry again P.P.) to be at the Falling Leaves Dance solo, so we can talk between sets. It looks like Bobby won’t be coming. According to him no big time State University sophomore would be caught dead at a high school dance and also his cross-country team is having a big meet in New York City that weekend. You know, and I hope you won’t tell Bobby, if you know him, because I do love him so, every once in a while I wish P. P. would have done more than just look at my ass in ninth grade.

***In The Age Of “The World Turned Upside Down”- D.H. Pennington’s “Europe In The Seventeenth Century”- A Book Review

Book Review

Europe In The Seventeenth Century, Second Edition, D.H. Pennington, Longman, London, 1970

No question when I think of 17^th century European history I am drawn immediately to think about the English bourgeois revolution of the mid-century. That event put paid to the notion that a ruler could rule by divine right and that through various twists and turns, not all of them historically progressive by any means, some rough semblance of democratic rule would work best in tandem with emerging capitalist order (of course the process stretched out for some two centuries bit the shell was established then) as the means of creating a stable society. Aside from kings and queens having to worry, worry to death, about their pretty little necks (asks Charles I and Louis XVI, among others) and having rough-hewn, warts and all, rulers like Oliver Cromwell entry the scene many other things were going on in Europe in the 17^th century that would contribute as well to what we would recognize as a modern Europe. What those events were, and their importance, was why when I was first seriously looking at the English Revolution back in the late 1970s I picked up Professor Pennington’s nice little survey book (well maybe not little at six hundred plus pages). And a recent re-reading only confirms (with the obvious acknowledgement of a need for some updating) that worth as a primer.

March 8th: The Day of International Working Women’s Solidarity		Printer-Friendly E-Mail This
Mar 8, 2013 By CWI
Beware the anger of women against the bosses’ system! For over a hundred years, March 8th has been the day on which to commemorate the great struggles of working women for a better deal at work and in society. It is also the day to celebrate the contribution of women – some famous, many unknown - in the fight against oppression and for socialism. It is traditional on this day to remember the early strikes of textile workers in America, of ’match-girls’ in England and of the working women of St Petersburg whose strike on International Women’s Day, 1917, set off the revolution that overthrew Tsarist dictatorship in Russia. There are also the great socialist fighters to remember – Rosa Luxembourg, murdered on the orders of Social Democrat leaders in Germany, Clara Zetkin, Alexandra Kollontai. There are workers’ leaders like Mother Jones in the US who inspired mineworkers and their wives to fight the bosses without stint. This year is the centenary of the birth of Rosa Parks - the black woman in the racially segregated south of the US, whose courage in refusing to give up her seat in a Montgomery bus to a white person inspired a generation of civil rights activists. Hidden from view The number of women whose contribution to society is recognized, however, is extremely limited. Many statistics available now on the internet verify that the overwhelming majority of women in the world are confined to a life of toil in the home and in the field and factory. They have proportionately far smaller chances of achieving a basic education and far greater chances of being refugees or the direct victims of wars and civil wars as in Syria today. They are the overwhelming majority of the adults who bring up children on their own. It is clear from the scarcity of women in photographs of world leaders – be it at G20s or Global Forums – that women are a clear minority even amongst the ruling elite. Even a feminist from the British aristocracy has been hidden from view for four centuries! Her ’crime’ was to argue that the women of her class should stand in line as equals when it came to inheriting family estates and accumulated wealth! In the past it was generally only daughters of the rich, or exceptionally determined middle-class and working women, who were able to get an education and develop skills in the arts and sciences. Even when they did, recognition was late in coming, if it came at all. Last year, an ’edit-athon’ was organised by two British science organisations to try and redress the balance of Wikipedia entries internationally; women scientists tended to be either absent or accorded no more than a few lines even when their achievements were more significant than those of their much-mentioned husbands or male colleagues! The way capitalism and class society has operated over the centuries has depended on holding most women in subjection and treating them as second class citizens. Their primary role has been to produce and care for the next generation of owners and workers and perpetuate the idea, with the help of myths and religion, of rulers and ruled...in society and in the home. Part of the ideology used to maintain this has involved cultivating humiliating images of women as only useful for reproduction, decoration and looking after men and their children or as sex objects. Women’s rebellions against their double oppression have been the subject of jokes and comedies for centuries - from the sex-strike in Euripides’ ’Lysistrata’ to the ’bra-burning’ of the ’Women’s Liberation’ movement of the mid 20th century! Today’s media attempt to make fun of protests such as the ’Billion women march’ of 14 February and the recent ’slut-walks’ against victim-blaming that have taken place in different parts of the world. Parties affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International participate in campaigns against sexism and chauvinism and for a better deal for women. In a number of countries CWI sections have taken the initiative in launching specific campaigns against gender prejudice and oppression. At the same time we emphasize how women’s oppression is rooted in the division of society into classes and the need to build the struggle to establish a different form of society - socialism. In England and Wales, the ’Rape is no Joke’ campaign has been set up with the aim of countering a recent spate of politicians - of the ’left’ and right – as well as comedians - trivializing rape. In Sweden, there has been a vicious attempt by a group of internet users to belittle women as vulnerable sex-objects. The CWI-affiliated Ratvisepartiet Socialisterna has revived its campaign, ’Refuse to be called a whore’, to help young women counter this horrible form of harassment and humiliation. Mass protests In the past year, there have been significant mass demonstrations around the world on gender issues. The gang-rape and murder of the young woman student in India provoked an outpouring of anger about something which unfortunately happens to millions of women world-wide. Women from the oppressed caste dalits in India (known as ‘untouchables’) are often raped as victims of revenge punishment and the perpetrators go unpunished. The horrific statistics for rape in India are carried on the New Socialist Alternative website. Members of the CWI in India and internationally participated in the many demonstrations in protests at the lack of action to protect women from rape. New Socialist Alternative campaigned for a safe environment for women at home as well as outside it – the need to combat the entrenched domination of men over women enshrined in law and tradition. They linked their demands with the need to fight for an end to the capitalist system itself that discriminates against and oppresses women. They called for People’s Defense Committees and also for the removal from office of top politicians convicted of rape. While understanding why angry people on the demonstrations in India advocated such things as castration and capital punishment to deal with offenders, we opposed these measures. They deny arrestees basic human rights to a fair trial and could lead to the judicial killing of innocent people in an attempt to appease the campaigners. Such measures do nothing to change attitudes towards women or to prevent rape. The death penalty is a dangerous weapon in the hands of the ruling class that has already been used against innocent people and activists in the workers’ and social movements across India. In Ireland at the end of last year, CWI members were involved in organizing the angry responses that spread round the world when Savita Hallapanavar died in a Galway hospital when she was denied an abortion which would probably have saved her life. The Socialist Party (Ireland) has also been a driving force in launching a new campaign called Rosa – for Reproductive rights, against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity. It is holding an International Women’s Day protest on the slogans: ’Stand up for women’s right to choose’, ’Stop violence against women’, ’Rage against rape’ and ’Oppose austerity and the assault on the public sector ’. Socialists can brook no compromise in the fight for free abortion on demand. They must fight to preserve and extend the rights now coming under attack in a number of countries. One of the key demands in the programme for women advocated by the CWI has been for the right of all women to choose when and whether to have children. That means being fully in favour of freely available contraception, abortion and fertility treatment without the prohibition by the church, state or male partners. Savita’s abortion was refused on the grounds that “Ireland is a Catholic country”. This is just one example of how some of the most reactionary attitudes towards women and other aspects of social life are ’justified’ by religious doctrine. Just this week, the annual UN-sponsored Gaza marathon has had to be cancelled because the Hamas-run Authority has reversed a decision to allow women to participate. Almost half of the runners who had registered to take part - international and Palestinian - were women. Last year a number of very determined women athletes faced deep-seated prejudice in their countries in order to compete in the Olympic Games. In recent weeks, there has been a widely publicized case in Saudi Arabia of the brutal execution by beheading of a 24 year-old Sri Lankan maid. At the age of 17 she had been accused by her employers of murdering their baby. The publicity given to this case has shone a spotlight on the plight of literally millions of women forced into a form of often abusive domestic slavery in order to send a pittance to their families, mostly in poverty-stricken countries of Asia. More has to be done to campaign for the basic rights of these women, but removing the scourge of mass poverty in their home countries in their home countries is the task of the socialist revolution. In the meantime socialists fight for every advance possible in relieving the suffering of women. Campaigns must be supported to stop the ’sale’ of hundreds of thousands of women and children across borders and into prostitution and pornography. In China we are in favor of the abolition of the one-child policy that deprives women and men choice in the size of their family. In Ethiopia, we support the heroic efforts of young women little more than children themselves travelling the country to urge the next generation to refuse to endure what they had to go through – female genital mutilation, forced marriage and violent sexual intercourse. The rate of FGM has indeed declined where campaigns have been conducted, but it will take dramatic political and social change to eradicate all the horrific indignities and physical harm that women and girls have to face around the world. Late last year, 14 year-old Malala Yusafzai from Pakistan was flown to Britain for life-saving treatment. The Taliban had shot her in the head to try and put an end to her heroic campaign to get at least a basic education for girls. A new film called ’Girl Rising’ features similar girl-heroines to underline how giving girls an education helps them and their communities. Teams of women who volunteer to work in western Pakistan to vaccinate children against deadly diseases are also targeted and killed by reactionary Islamic fanatics. The women of the CWI in Pakistan have organised many protests on the streets and in the workplaces as well as noisy and combative contingents on the May Day demonstrations. Recently they led the victorious strike of ’lady nurses’ in Lahore (see socialistworld.net). Recent events in South Africa have inspired men and women worldwide who fight for a socialist alternative to the horrors of capitalism. The millions of workers there who have risen against the treacherous ANC government have many valiant woman fighters amongst them. Women in South Africa face one of the worst rates of rape and domestic violence internationally and live in one of the most unequal societies in the world. The newly formed Workers’ and Socialist Party has the potential to grow into a mass force fighting for nationalization, democratic planning and a new form of society to end capitalist rule – a development that can inspire millions of oppressed people around the world. It is not just in Africa, Asia or Latin America that millions of women suffer daily abuse and physical attack. It is happening on a horrifying scale in the most developed capitalist nation in the world – the USA. A feminist writer, Gloria Steinman recently pointed out that more American women have been killed by their husbands or boyfriends since 2001 than all the US citizens killed in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together. In Spain, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, a rise in domestic violence is exacerbated by cuts in public spending as well as the country’s ’machismo’ ideology that influences judges and social workers who should be taking measures to protect women from violent partners. There is not only poorer provision for women attempting to leave a violent relationship but cuts have been made to the programme meant to help men stop taking violent action against their partners. As capitalism’s crisis deepens, women bear an unequal measure of the suffering it inflicts on working and poor people. The majority of the world’s jobless, homeless and hungry are women and their children. In Europe - North as well as South - genuine and hard-won welfare reforms are being annihilated by austerity budgets. Services are being slashed which have most assisted women as the primary carers of children and of elderly and sick relatives. Women’s jobs in the public sector, as well as welfare benefits, are being axed. In many ’developed’ economies, the lack of house-building and tighter rules on allowances for the poorest families is seeing millions of families homeless. For purely economic reasons, young people without a decent income are staying at home with their parents, often along with their grandparents, adding to the daily burdens and strains that generally fall on women’s shoulders. Relationships are placed under enormous pressure. What can be done to change things? Since the earliest days, the sections of the CWI have continued the best traditions of the workers’ movement in championing the struggle for equal pay for work of equal value. Way back in the 1960s we covered the famous struggle of women workers at Fords in Britain, for example, now the subject of the film ‘Made in Dagenham’. Other campaigning work has taken up the issue of sexual harassment at work, most severe in the sweat-shops of the neo-colonial world, but a constant menace world-wide. We have fought, with some success, for domestic violence to be taken up by the trade unions; it affects the lives (and ability to be active in the movement) of so many of their members. Over the years, in the USA, Europe and elsewhere, the struggles of women have achieved many improvements. In some countries, as the workers’ movement has receded, the situation has gone back. The austerity policies of all the major capitalist countries are now hitting the jobs of women, many of them in the public services on which they have depended to relieve them of some of the numerous tasks they are expected to perform. Women have been to the fore in the strikes and demonstrations against cuts in Europe - be it in Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, Belgium. CWI members have been fully involved in aiming to bring more and more women workers and young women into the ranks of our sections. In the neo-colonial world, the everyday struggle to feed the family has worsened. Prices of basic foods have rocketed. This is a recipe for new social explosions like those we saw in the Spring of 2011 in Tunisia and Egypt. Women have often been to the fore in these struggles too and are still prominent on the streets in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. Millions of women in India stayed away from the factories, building sites and offices where they work to join the two day general strike in March against rocketing prices and misery wages. A commentator in the British Guardian, Seamus Milne, welcomes the “historic shift” of women to the left as they have become more involved in the world of work. But ’left’ is relative in a world where no mass parties really stand for the interests of working class and poor people. Having more women in parliaments would also not necessarily lead to big improvements in equality of opportunity, pay and living conditions for women anywhere. Positive discrimination can give you more women holding positions but it does not, of itself, lead to policies that can change the fortunes of the vast majority of women in society. Women are still paid far less than men and must demand the full implementation of a policy of equal pay for work of equal value. As we have known since the days of Catherine the Great, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher et al, having a woman at the head of the state was no guarantee against autocracy! Nor have female presidents in Brazil, Chile or Argentina changed the fate of the tens of millions of women struggling to bring up families in primitive conditions and in the sprawling shanty towns around the cities. Women from the property and land-owning classes in Asia or Africa will not fight for an end to feudal relations – in agriculture or within the family including the degrading exploitation of women. Nor will they push for the end of female enslavement in garment sweatshops or on the fields or the bonded labor of children that adds to their wealth! Nor will women heads of state mean more progressive policies in relation to women. Nor does having a rich business-woman at the head of the IMF add to the wealth of working women. Nor does having a female head of a national trade union organisation make the urgent calling of national general strikes against austerity any more likely– be it Susanna Camusso in Italy or Frances O’Grady in Britain! The future The right to flexible well-paid jobs, child-care, affordable and adequate housing, health and education free and on demand, are all the vital components for a healthy society. A shorter working week and the provision of good quality, public services would relieve much of the burden and stress which currently falls on the shoulders of women in the family in particular. Fully sharing and easing all domestic tasks is only viable on the basis of a shorter working week for all and the socialization of tasks currently undertake. Community provision of good, healthy meals and communal laundries can work only on the basis of a plentiful supply of machines and of chemical free fresh food along with rotas of short shifts for well-paid workers. This was the dream of the early socialists but it was thwarted by the lack of material development in the isolated economy of the USSR, particularly under the Stalinist dictatorship which usurped the revolution, ultimately paving the way for the restoration of capitalism. The coming to power under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party of a workers’ socialist government in Russia nearly 100 years ago saw the immediate passing of legislation aimed at establishing equal rights for women in relation to marriage, divorce, work and wages. Abortion was made free and available on demand as well as contraception. Equal rights were also established for homosexuals to counter the huge prejudices that had built up in society. This was the first government in the world to do so – something that is timely to remember in Russia today as Putin tries to eliminate all LGBT rights! But capitalism, especially capitalism in crisis, is not able to provide what the overwhelming majority in society – the 99% - need. For women in particular, to escape oppression at work, in society and in the home a total socialist, transformation of society is more vitally necessary than ever. The conditions for the spread of socialist ideas and for revolution are growing - in southern Europe, in the Middle East, in China and perhaps, above all, in South Africa. The potential for the establishment of a federation of socialist states world-wide has never been greater. Bosses and landlords, beware the anger of women against your system! Women of the world, fight for your rights! Join the struggle to end capitalist exploitation and look to a future society of harmony and prosperity - a socialist world! For special International Women’s Day articles see the site of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) and further material on socialistworld.net Click here to buy a copy of It doesn’t have to be like this - Women and the Struggle for Socialism by Christine Thomas