Friday, July 26, 2013

IN DEFENSE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION


COMMENTARY-BOOK REVIEW

END THE U.S. BLOCKADE!-U.S.OUT OF GUANTANAMO!

THE REAL FIDEL CASTRO, LEYCHESTER COLTMAN, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN, 2003

This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 54th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 46th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of 68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against United Statesimperialism. Thus, it is fitting to review a biography of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon. The choice of this biography reflected my desire to review a recent biography. As always one must accept that most Western biographers have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution and one would expect that to be particularly true of a former British Ambassador (who has since died). After reading this biography I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this militant can honor the Cuban Revolution as a symbol of a fight all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

The Ambassador obviously differs with my political prospective. Nevertheless he hits also the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American sponsored Bay of Pigs; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its intendent hardships; and, various other events up until 2002. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds


From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels "On Authority"

Workers Vanguard No. 898
14 September 2007

 


From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels "On Authority"

We print below “On Authority” by Friedrich Engels, written between October 1872 and March 1873 and published first in Italy in December 1873. In refuting arguments raised by anarchists and echoed by some socialists, Engels pointed to the experience of the Paris Commune of March-May 1871, when the proletariat briefly governed the city before being crushed by the French army with the support of German forces, with over 20,000 slaughtered. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the founders of scientific socialism, described the Paris Commune as the first historical expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat—i.e., a workers state.

Engels’ polemic has resonance in today’s ideological climate, which is overwhelmingly conditioned by the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. The bourgeois rulers’ lying proclamation of the “death of communism” has provided fertile ground for the re-emergence of anarchist and other retrograde political tendencies.

The following translation is taken from the Collected Works of Marx and Engels (International Publishers, 1988).

* * *

A number of socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It is sufficient for them to say that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely. Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether—given the conditions of present-day society—we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer and would consequently have to disappear. On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals. Modern industry with its big factories and mills, where hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages and wagons of the highways have been substituted by railway trains, just as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats. Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate vast stretches of land. Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?

Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing, to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared or will it only have changed its form? Let us see.

Let us take by way of example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of materials, etc., which must be settled at once on pain of seeing all production immediately stopped; whether they are settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!] If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Let us take another example—the railway. Here, too, the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persons interested. In either case there is very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?

But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but here it is not a case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the authoritarian political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon—authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they are talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
On the 60th Anniversary of Moncada And The July 26th Movement- A  Documentary View of Fidel



DVD REVIEW

Fidel Castro: An American Experience, PBS Productions, 2004


This year marks the 55th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 49th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 41st anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerrilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of '68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against American imperialism.

Thus, it is fitting to review a biography of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon. The choice of this documentary reflected my desire to review a recent post- Soviet biographic sketch. As always one must accept that most Western biographic sketches have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution. The director here, Ms. Borsch, is apparently a second generation Cuban exile in America. Nevertheless, after viewing this sketch I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start. To get a more detailed analysis one, as always, then goes to the books to get a better sense of the subject.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban Revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this militant can honor the Cuban Revolution as a symbol of a fight all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

Ms. Borsch obviously differs with my political prospective. Nevertheless she has presented interesting footage focusing on the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs in 1961; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its devastating hardships; and, various other events up through the 1990’s.

All of this is complete with the inevitable ‘talking heads’ experts interspersed throughout the documentary giving their take on the meaning of various incidents. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships that he dealt with over the years he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds.
On The 60th Anniversary Of The July 26th Movement-The Legend Of Ernesto “Che” Guevara- The Heroic Guerrilla Face



DVD Review

This year is the 60th Anniversary of the July 26th Movement, the 54th Anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the 46th  anniversary of the death of Ernesto, “Che”, Guevara. Defend The Cuban Revolution

Che, starring Eduardo Noriega, 2006


On more than one occasion I have mentioned that “Che” Guevara, as icon and legend, despite his left Stalinist politics (at best) and the political gulf that separated him from those who fought, and fight, under the banner of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International, was, and is, a justifiably appealing revolutionary militant for the world’s youth to consider. A number of films have come out over the years that portray one or another aspect of the “Che” personality. Here the central thrust of the film is the creation of “Che” as a revolutionary cadre in the guerrilla warfare movement that dominated much of the radical political action of the 1960s, in the wake of the success and survival of the Cuban revolution in the face of American Yankee imperialism.

This little film, really a docu-drama since there is an abundance of black and white newsreel film footage to set the story line throughout most of the 1950s, goes, up close and personal, into the transformation of the Argentine free spirit and free- booter. In short, from the pre-“Che” of the “Motorcycle Chronicles” period into a commandant of the Second Front in the Fidel and Raul Castro-led rural insurgence against the hated dictator (except in Miami) Batista.

In that sense it almost does not work. Eduardo Noriega is “Che” in his mannerisms, his good and manly looks, and in his earnestness (no pun intended) to free the Americas of the Yankee beast. However, the film is saved when “Che” gets to show more aspects of his personality when he is being interviewed by an American women reporter in the post-victory period. And also by his determination to end up where he started, as a guerrilla fighter extraordinaire fighting against the world’s injustices. And an enemy's bullet.

That, my friends, today is refreshingly appealing. That said though, as I have repeatedly pointed out on other occasions, Che deserved a better fate that to be caught out in the bush in Bolivia. And here is where the irony (and the political differences) between us comes in. What the hell was he doing in the Bolivian bush, of all places in Bolivia when they was a working class (mainly miners) who had a history of extreme militancy and readiness to do class battles against the state (and have done so since then). “Che”, mainly deserves his status as icon, as a personal exemplar, but a whole generation of militants in Latin America and elsewhere got torn up based on that wrong strategic assumption. That is the real lesson of the film, any worthwhile film on Che.
OnThe Anniversary Of TheJuly 26th Movement-The Latest From "The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five" Website -Free The Five Ahora! -The Defense Of The Cuban Revolution Begins With The Defense Of The Cuban Five

Click on the title to link to the website mentioned in the headline for the latest news and opinion from this site.


 
Markin comment (re-post from July 26, 2011):
On a day, July 26th, important in the history of the Cuban revolutionary movement it is also important, as always, to remember that the defense of the Cuban revolution here in the United States, the "heart of the beast", starts with the defense of the Cuban Five.

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck (now deceased), whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I have been a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases internationally that are brought to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

Out in the 1950s Crime Noir Night –Raymond Chandler’s Playback

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Book Review

Playback, Raymond Chandler, Vintage Crime Books, New York, 1958

Yes, no question, Philip Marlowe was getting long in the tooth, too long in the tooth, too long in the private snooper racket, too long searching for some reasons to stop tilting at every passing windmill after twenty years out in, what did Ross MacDonald call it, oh yah, the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles, L.A. L.A. before it became La La Land. He had lost his compass a little, lost the feel for the gritty streets now that the town was getting all grown up after the war and those endless highways from one spot to another were becoming endless super highways from one spot to another. Yah, the town had changed since he first blew the force, the D.A.'s office off his back in the late 1930s and went private. Went private to make his own deals, tilt or not tilt at his own windmills and try, try mind you, to make some sense of this wicked old world.  With a little bit of honor and self-regard left in tack.  Those wild waves coming from back East made it hard though, mad e it real hard.

See, even if the town had changed, the hordes had come and eaten up the best there was to offer, the swells had made the place nothing but another of their stinking watering holes. The crimes though, the crimes still needed solving, the off- hand murder or robbery or kidnapping or art theft or all of them together still needed to be solved. And the coppers, well, the coppers had too many fish to fry, too many things to handle without enough resources and so there you were. Yah, every small town grafter it seemed, every com man who knew from three- card Monte, every mobster looking ‘retire “in the sun had his hands in the till.  And the women too, the grasping women who had as much murder, as much larceny,  as much lechery in their grasping little hearts as in the old days and to be held at bay if anything was to be figured out. Marlowe knew, knew as well as he knew anything, that when that perfume got in the way he was done for. And lately he had lost a certain amount of judgment brooding over, well, let’s call her, “her” and move on. Yah, our boy had lost a step or two and this last caper kind of put paid to that notion.

Of course it was about a dame, a good-looking dame, a red-head or what passed for a red-head those days, that he was supposed to tail and keep an eye on. Well, he did, did it pretty good too except a guy, a guy looking for the main chance got in the way, got himself killed and that dame was implicated in it right up to her pretty little eyebrows. But here is the clincher she tied herself up with one of the new hard boys then seen around town lately. The reason for that was simple she needed a strong guy to protect her from her past. No questions asked.  And so it took Marlowe an excoriatingly long time to figure out why he was tailing this red-head, what she was hiding and why she was, well, uncooperative when he tried to tilt a little windmill her way. Hell, here is a surefire way to know our boy was slipping he didn’t even get her under the satin sheets until he had things all figured out. What do you think of that.  Still L.A. had gone to hell in a hand-basket since our slumming avenging angel kept a lid on crime in the city of angles.                         

Oh yah, about Raymond Chandler, about the guy who wrote the book. Like I said in another review he, along with Brother Dashiell Hammett (the author of The Thin Man, and creator of The Maltese Falcon’s Sam Spade maybe the most famous tough guy detective of them all. Who, come to think of it, also had a judgment problem when it came to women, although not Hollywood women but up North in Frisco town) turned the dreary gentile drawing-room sleuth by-the-numbers crime novels that dominated the reading market back in the day on its head and gave us tough guy blood and guts detectives we could admire, could get behind, warts and all. Thanks, guys.

In Chandler’s case he drew strength from his startling use of language to describe Marlowe’s environment much in the way a detective would use his heightened powers of observation during an investigation, missing nothing. Marlowe was able to size up, let’s say, a sizzling blonde, as a statuesque, full-bodied and ravishing dame and then pick her apart as nothing but a low-rent gold-digger. Of course that never stopped him from taking a run at one or two of them himself and then sending them off into the night, or to the clink, to fend for themselves. He also knew how to blow off a small time chiseler, a grifter, as so much flamboyance and hot air not neglecting to notice that said grifter had moisture above his upper lip indicating that he stood in fear of something if only his shadow as he attempted to pull some caper, or tried to pull the wool over Marlowe’s eyes.

The list of descriptions goes on and on -sullen bartenders wiping a random whisky glass, flighty chorus girls arm in arm with wrong gee gangsters, Hollywood starlet wannabes displaying their wares a little too openly, old time geezers, toothless, melting away in some thankless no account job, guys working out of small-time airless no front cheap jack offices in rundown building s on the wrong side of town doing, well, doing the best they can. And cops, good cops, bad cops, all with that cop air about them of seen it all, done it all blasé, and by the way spill your guts before the billy- club comes down (that spill your guts thing a trait that our Marlowe seems organically incapable of having). He had come from them, from the D.A.s office in the old days, had worked with them on plenty of cases but generally he tried to treat them like one might a snake not quite sure whether it is poisonous or not.

At the same time Chandler was a master of setting the details of the space Marlowe had to work in- the high hill mansions and the back alley rooming houses (although usually not the burgeoning ranchero middle class locales since apparently that segment of society has not need of his services and therefore no need of a description of their endless sameness and faux gentility). He has a fix on the museum-like quality of the big houses, the places like General Sternwood’s in The Big Sleep or Mrs. Murdock’s in The High Window reflecting old wealth California. And he has a razor sharp sense of the arrivisite, the new blood all splash and glitter, all high-ceiling bungalow, swimming pools, and landscaped gardens.

But where Chandler made his mark was in his descriptions of the gentile seedy places, the mansions of old time Bunker Hill turned to rooming houses with that faint smell of urine, that strong smell of liquor, that loud noise that comes with people living too close together, too close to breath their simple dreams. Or the descriptions of the back alley offices in the rundown buildings that had seen better days populated by the failed dentists, the sly repo men, the penny ante insurance brokers, the con artists, the flotsam and jetsam of the losers in the great American West night just trying to hang on from rent payment to rent payment. Those denizens of these quarters usually had a walk on role, or wound up with two slugs to the head, but Chandler knew the type, had the type down solid.

Nor was Chandler above putting a little social commentary in Marlowe’s mouth. Reflections on such topics as that very real change after World War II in the kind of swarms that were heading west to populate the American Western shore night. The rise of the corner boys hanging, just hanging, around blasted storefronts, a few breaking off into the cranked up hot rod hell’s highway night. The restless mobsters for broken back East looking to bake out in the southern California sun while taking over the vast crime markets. The wannabe starlets ready to settle for less than stardom for the right price. The old California money (the gold rush, gold coast, golden era money) befuddled by the all new waves coming in. And above all a strong sense of the rootlessness, the living in the moment, the grabbing while the grabbing was good mentality that offended old Marlowe’s honor code.

And of course over a series of books Chandler expanded the Marlowe character, expanded his range of emotions, detailed his growing world-weariness, his growing wariness, his small compromises with that code of honor that he honed back in the 1930s. Yes, Marlowe the loner, the avenging angel , the righter of wrongs, maybe little wrongs but wrongs in this wicked old world. The guy who sometimes had to dig deep in his office desk drawer to grab a shot or six of whiskey to help him think things through. Marlowe the guy of a thousand punches, the guy of a hundred knocks on the head, the guy who had taken a more than one slug for the cause, the guy who was every insurance company’s nightmare and a guy who could have used some Obamacare health insurance no questions asked . Yah, Marlowe.

 

 

All out on July 27th at Park Street Station in Downtown Boston at 1:00 PM for Bradley Manning in an international day of solidarity with this heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower.




As Bradley Manning’s trial winds down-Closing arguments are scheduled for July 25th and a decision is expected shortly thereafter- stand in solidarity with this courageous soldier in this last effort before that decision comes down.  Check Facebook https://www.facebook.com/savebradley#!/events/191172314377855/?fref=ts 

Five Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Bradley Manning

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ ) addressed to the Secretary of the Army to drop all the charges and free Bradley Manning-1100 plus days are enough! Join the over 30,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has started funds are urgently needed! The hard fact of the American legal system is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Bradley’s.  The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And has used them. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

*Write letters of solidarity to Bradley Manning while he is being tried. Bradley’s mailing address: Commander, HHC, USAG, Attn: PFC Bradley Manning, 239 Sheridan Avenue, Bldg. 417, JBM-HH, VA 22211. Bradley Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum. Mail sent to the above address is forwarded to Bradley.    
Peace Action: Working for Peace Since 1957 FacebookTwitterBlogContact us


Dear Al,
As I write this the House is debating H.R. 2397 — Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2014 — which will fund the Pentagon with hundreds of billions of dollars. Fortunately, there a dozens of amendments that seek to cut the Pentagon fat. You can see our positions on key amendments here.
Please call your Representative now at 202-224-3121 and say:

Please oppose the Department of Defense Appropriations Act and support amendments that reduces the Pentagon budget and ends the Afghanistan war.

Only a few times a year does Congress vote on Pentagon spending. Now is your time to voice your priorities. To tell your Member of Congress that you support funding human needs and oppose wasting more tax dollars on war and weapon systems that fail to make Americans safer.

Now is the time to pick up your phone and make a brief phone call. It's quick and easy. We expect votes tonight and tomorrow.
Thanks for taking action now.
Humbly for Peace,
Kevin Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action

P.S. - The House of Representatives is about to vote on Pentagon funding. Please call your Representative now at 202-224-3121 and say: Please oppose the Department of Defense Appropriations Act and support amendments that reduces the Pentagon budget and ends the Afghanistan war.

Free Bradley Manning Now!

Government’s closing arguments over major Manning charges; judge allows charge sheet change: trial report, day 21

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. July 25, 2013.
Photo credit: AP/Patrick Semansky
Photo credit: AP/Patrick Semansky
The government’s closing argument took up today’s entire Bradley Manning trial session, reviewing its evidence, inferences, and conclusions for each set of documents released, based on several weeks of witnesses. The prosecution alleged that Manning released to WikiLeaks because he felt an “utter disregard for this country…. no allegiance to any country,” which it called similar to the viewpoints of an anarchist. Prosecutors tried to sweep aside Manning’s declaration that he sought “debates, discussions, and reforms,” countering that he never mentioned the safety of the United States. Government attorney Maj. Ashden Fein was incredible repetitive, hammering home over and over that Manning wasn’t a whistleblower, naive, or well-intentioned, and that he was instead an anarchist, hacker, and traitor.
The defense will present its closing argument tomorrow, beginning at 9:30 AM.
Government says Manning sought both notoriety and anonymity
Maj. Fein painted Manning as an egotist with no regard for the United States’ national security or classified information. He said that while Manning had a “humanist” dog tag, “the only human” he cared about was himself, despite also arguing that Manning instructed WikiLeaks to protect him as their source.
Maj. Fein continued to push the allegation throughout his closing argument. “How proud was [Manning] of his actions?” Fein asked. “You’ve already seen the photo, your honor,” he said, and displayed an early 2010 photo Manning took of himself in the mirror of his aunt’s house. Maj. Fein said the photo was not of someone troubled by U.S. foreign policy but of someone who craved fame and was proud of his violation. He said Manning “put himself before his country,” and that he thought the Collateral Murder video was “cool” and so he sent it to “antigovernment activists and anarchists.”
Yet he conceded that Manning’s intent for the information to be released to the world, that he “wanted this information to be in the public domain.”
Maj. Fein reviewed Manning’s training as an ‘all-source intelligence analyst,’ including the PowerPoint he created stating that terrorist organizations are known to use the Internet for sensitive and valuable information. He said that as an intelligence analyst, he knew how valuable the war logs would be to America’s enemies.
The prosecution maintained its allegation that Manning’s disclosures began in November 2009, in an attempt to frame him has someone who culled information for WikiLeaks as soon as he deployed, despite the fact that its evidence for a Garani video transmission – which it contends was the 2009 release – is from April 2010.
Maj. Fein said that Manning knew that WikiLeaks specifically was searching for United States classified information, and chose it to reach the widest audience. He cited the 2009 ‘Most Wanted Leak’ List (which it hasn’t been proven Manning saw) as Manning’s “guiding light” for what to release. In doing so, Maj. Fein wildly mischaracterized Harvard Prof. Yochai Benkler’s testimony, saying Benkler confirmed that activism and journalism were separate and that a transparency movement was not a journalistic outlet. Actually, Benkler said that activism and journalism are not mutually exclusive, and that mass document leaking is not inconsistent with journalism.
Judge denies defense motion, allows Govt. to change charges
Judge Lind denied the defense’s motion to direct not-guilty verdicts on charges that Bradley Manning stole government property, ruling that the government provided sufficient evidence to suggest that
Further, she allowed the government to change its charge sheet to allege that Manning stole “portion[s] of” the databases in question instead of the entire databases themselves. The defense argued that this substantially changes the federal theft charges, especially considering the defense cannot go back and question prosecution witnesses regarding this articulation of the charges. Nevertheless, Judge Lind ruled that the change was minor, and therefore allowed.
The defense moved the judge to reconsider her ruling, and will notify the court over the weekend of whether it will request oral argument on that motion. That argument would take place Monday morning at 9:30.
New intimidation tactics in Ft. Meade press room
Unlike ever before, armed soldiers paced around the media center today, creepily monitoring reporters’ use of the Internet despite the fact that Ft. Meade had shut down WiFi in the center when court was in session and banned wireless hotspots. These soldiers reprimanded various journalists for simply having web pages open, and lurked over our shoulders. When asked why, they merely said they had to ensure we didn’t transmit any information while not in recess. When told they were creeping us out, they said they would continue anyway. They also used scanning wands to search us for electronic devices upon entry and emptied our bags – a first in the media center.
Press were told that Judge Lind would give 24-hour notice (to the press? to lawyers? it’s unclear) before she’ll announce her final verdict.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

From The Marxist Archives- Against Illusions in Bourgeois “Justice”

Workers Vanguard No. 897
31 August 2007

TROTSKY

LENIN

Against Illusions in Bourgeois “Justice”

(Quote of the Week)



Writing shortly after the execution of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti 80 years ago, Max Shachtman, then editor of the International Labor Defense monthly Labor Defender, upheld the ILD’s fight for class-struggle defense against those in the official Boston-based defense committee who preached reliance on the capitalist courts.

The courts, the judges and executives of Massachusetts, never had any idea of giving “justice” to Sacco and Vanzetti. Their intentions were at no time characterized by a desire to consider the abstract principles of equity and fairness in the case. All the delays, all the illusive legerdemain of the courts, the pompous and fraudulent going through with the motions, was only for the purpose of demonstrating to naive people the thoroughness and legal sanctity of the final decision.

The blows dealt the liberation movement for Sacco and Vanzetti by the elements who fastened themselves on the Boston Committee and dominated its policy consisted essentially in this: that they failed to see the case as a class issue, a part of the bitter and inexorable international struggle between the ruling class and the ruled; that they nursed and fostered the illusion that it was possible to extract an essence of “justice” from the murderers of Sacco and Vanzetti by dignified and respectable supplication. They tried to smother the militant protest movement and hurled the mud of slander upon the workers who organized it. They sought to cover the rough clothes of the workers’ movement with the cap and gown of the lawyer, and substitute a cultured Boston accent for the violent shouts of the masses in a dozen tongues.

It was quite different with the masses of the world. Their magnificent and almost unprecedented solidarity was based on a common understanding of who was enemy and who was friend. The earth-shaking rise of the workers everywhere for Sacco and Vanzetti not only showed how much explosive is contained in the working class of the world, how dangerous it is for the capitalists to tamper with these powder kegs, but it also proved that the world proletariat pierces and contemns the shams and pretences of the American ruling class and its “peace” and its “justice” and its “golden opportunities.”

If anything was demonstrated by the Sacco-Vanzetti case it was that labor cases cannot be fought with fat volumes of legal spider webs alone but that the class character of the prosecution must be pointed out and the defense organized on that basis.

—Max Shachtman, Sacco and Vanzetti: Labor’s Martyrs (1927)

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

http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1927/saccovanz.pdf
 

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

***Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-As The Torch Passes-In Honor Of Those Who Fight To "Seek A Newer World"


We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels

Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.


Works of Frederick Engels 1877

Karl Marx




Written: mid-June 1877;
First published: in Volks-Kalender, Brunswick, 1878;
Source: On Marx;
Publisher: Foreign Languages Press, Peking (1975).



Karl Marx, the man who was first to give socialism, and thereby the whole labour movement of our day, a scientific foundation, was born at Trier in 1818. He studied in Bonn and Berlin, at first taking up law, but he soon devoted himsslf exclusively to the study of history and philosophy, and in 1842 was on the point of establishing himself as an assistant professor in philosophy when the political movement which had arisen since the death of Frederick William III directed his life into a different channel. With his collaboration, the leaders of the Rhenish liberal bourgeoisie, the Camphausens, Hansemanns, etc., had founded the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, and in the autumn of 1842, Marx, whose criticism of the proceedings of the Rhenish Landtag (or Provincial Diet) had excited very great attention, was put at the head of the paper. The Rheinische Zeitung naturally appeared under censorship, but the censorship could not cope with it. [The first censor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Police Councillor Dolleschall, the same man who once struck out an advertisement in the Kölnische Zeittung of the translation of Dante's Divine Comedy by Philalethes (later King John of Saxony) with the remark: “One must not make a comedy of divine affairs.” [Note by Engels] The Rheinische Zeitung almost always got the articles which mattered through; the censor was first supplied with insignificant fodder for him to strike out, until he either gave way of himself or was compelled to give way by the threat that then the paper would not appear the next day. Ten newspapers with the same courage as the Rheinische Zeitung and whose publishers would have allowed a few hundred thalers extra to be expended on type setting — and the censorship would have been made impossible in Germany as early as 1843. But the German newspaper-owners were petty-minded, timid philistines and the Rheinische Zeitung carried on the struggle alone. It wore out one censor after another; finally it came under a double censorship; after the first censorship the Regierungspräsident had once more, and finally, to censor it. That also was of no avail. In the beginning of 1843, the government declared that it was impossible to keep this newspaper in check and suppressed it without more ado.

Marx, who in the meanwhile had married the sister of von Westphalen, later a reactionary minister, removed to Paris, and there, in conjunction with A. Ruge, published the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, in which he opened the series of his socialist writings with a Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right ; and then, together with F. Engels, The Holy Family. Against Bruno Bauer and Co., a satirical criticism of one of the latest forms blunderingly assumed by the German philosophical idealism of that time. The study of political economy and of the history of the Great French Revolution still allowed Marx time enough for occasional attacks on the Prussian Government; the latter revenged itself in the spring of 1845 by securing from the Guizot ministry — Herr Alexander von Humboldt is said to have acted as intermediary — his expulsion from France. Marx shifted his domicile to Brussels and published there in French in 1847 The Poverty of Philosophy, a criticism of Proudhon's Philosophy of Poverty, and, in 1848, Discourse on Free Trade. At the same time he made use of the opportunity to found a German workers’ society in Brussels and so commenced practical agitation. The latter became still more important for him when he and his political friends in 1847 joined the secret Communist League, which had already been in existence for a number of years. Its whole structure was now radically changed; this association, which previously was more or less conspiratorial, was transformed into a simple organization for communist propaganda, which was only secret because necessity compelled it to be so, the first organization of the German Social-Democratic Party. The League existed wherever German workers’ societies were to be found; in almost all of these societies in England, Belgium, France and Switzerland, and in very many of the societies in Germany, the leading members belonged to the League and the share of the League in the incipient German labour movement was very considerable. Moreover, our League was the first which emphasized the international character of the whole labour movement and realized it in practice, which had Englishmen, Belgians, Hungarians, Poles, etc., as members and which organized international labour meetings, especially in London.

The transformation of the League took place at two congresses held in 1847, the second of which resolved on the elaboration and publication of the fundamental principles of the Party in a manifesto to be drawn up by Marx and Engels. Thus arose the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which first appeared in 1848, shortly before the February Revolution, and has since been translated into almost all European languages.

The Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung, in which Marx participated and which mercilessly exposed the blessings of the police regime of the Fatherland, caused the Prussian Government to try to effect Marx's expulsion once more, but in vain. When, however, the February Revolution resulted in popular movements in Brussels, too, and a radical change appeared to be imminent in Belgium, the Belgian Government arrested Marx without ceremony and deported him. In the meanwhile, the French Provisional Government had sent him an invitation through Flocon to return to Paris, and he accepted this call.

In Paris he came out especially against the swindle, widespread among the Germans there, of wanting to form the German workers in France into armed legions in order to carry the revolution and the republic into Germany. On the one hand, Germany had to make her revolution herself, and, on the other hand, every revolutionary foreign legion formed in France was betrayed in advance by the Lamartines of the Provisional Government to the government which was to be overthrown, as occurred in Belgium and Baden.

After the March Revolution, Marx went to Cologne and founded there the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which was in existence from June 1, 1848 to May 19, 1849 — the only paper which represented the standpoint of the proletariat within the democratic movement of the time, as shown in its unreserved championship of the Paris June insurgents of 1848, which cost the paper the defection of almost all its shareholders. In vain the Kreuz-Zeitung pointed to the “Chimborazo impudence” with which the Neue Rheinische Zeitung attacked everything sacred, from the king and vice-regent of the realm down to the gendarme, and that, too, in a Prussian fortress with a garrison of 8,000 at the time. In vain was the rage of the Rhenish liberal philistines, who had suddenly become reactionary. In vain was the paper suspended by martial law in Cologne for a lengthy period in the autumn of 1848. In vain the Reich Ministry of Justice in Frankfort denounced article after article to the Cologne Public Prosecutor in order that judicial proceedings should be taken. Under the very eyes of the police the paper calmly went on being edited and printed, and its distribution and reputation increased with the vehemence of its attacks on the government and the bourgeoisie. When the Prussian coup d'etat took place in November 1848, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung called upon the people, at the head of each issue, to refuse to pay taxes and to meet violence with violence. In the spring of 1849, both on this account and because of another article, it was made to face a jury, but on both occasions was acquitted. Finally, when the May risings of 1849 in Dresden and the Rhine Province had been suppressed, and the Prussian campaign against the Baden-Palatinate rising had been inaugurated by the concentration and mobilization of considerable masses of troops, the government believed itself strong enough to suppress the Neue Rheinische Zeitung by force. The last number — printed in red ink — appeared on May 19.

An attempt to continue issuing the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in the form of a review (in Hamburg, 1850) had to be given up after a while in view of the ever-increasing violence of the reaction. Immediately after the coup d'etat in France in December 1851, Marx published The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York, 1852; second edition, Hamburg, 1869, shortly before the war). In 1853 he wrote Revelations About the Cologne Communist Trial (first printed in Basle, later in Boston, and again recently in Leipzig).

After the conviction of the members of the Communist League in Cologne, Marx withdrew from political agitation and for ten years devoted himself, on the one hand, to the study of the rich treasures offered by the library of the British Museum in the sphere of political economy, and, on the other hand, to writing for the New York Tribune, which up to the outbreak of the American Civil War published not only contributions signed by him but also numerous leading articles from his pen on conditions in Europe and Asia. His attacks on Lord Palmerston, based on an exhaustive study of British official documents, were reprinted in London in pamphlet form.

As the first fruit of his many years of study of economics, there appeared in 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Part I (Berlin, Duncker). This work contains the first coherent exposition of the Marxian theory of value, including the doctrine of money. During the Italian War Marx, in the German newspaper Das Volk, appearing in London, attacked Bonapartism, which at that time posed as liberal and playing the part of liberator of the oppressed nationalities, and also the Prussian policy of the day, which under the cover of neutrality was seeking to fish in troubled waters. In this connection it was necessary to attack also Herr Karl Vogt, who at that time, on the commission of Prince Napoleon (Plon Plon) and in the pay of Louis Napoleon, was carrying on agitation for the neutrality, and indeed the sympathy, of Germany. When Vogt heaped upon him the most abominable and deliberately false calumnies, Marx answered with Herr Vogt (London, 1860), in which Vogt and the other gentlemen of the imperialist sham-democratic gang were exposed, and Vogt himself on the basis of both external and internal evidence was proved guilty of taking bribes from the December empire. The confirmation came just ten years later: in the list of the Bonaparte hirelings, found in the Tuileries in 1870 and published by the September government, there was the following entry under the letter V: “Vogt — in August 1859 there were remitted to him — Frs. 40,000."

Finally, in 1861 there appeared in Hamburg Capital, a Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Volume I, Marx's chief work, which expounds the foundations of his economlc socialist conceptions and the main features of his criticism of existing society, the capitalist mode of production and its consequences. The second edition of this epoch-making work appeared in 1872; the author is engaged in the elaboration of the second volume.

Meanwhile the labour movement in various countries of Europe had so far regained strength that Marx could entertain the idea of realizing a long-cherished wish: the foundation of a Workers’ Association embracing the most advanced countries of Europe and America, which would demonstrate bodily, so to speak, the international character of the socialist movement both to the workers themselves and to the bourgeois and the governments — for the encouragement and strengthening of the proletariat, for striking fear into the hearts of its enemies. A mass meeting in favour of Poland, which had just then again been crushed by Russia, held on September 28, 1864 in St. Martin's Hall in London, provided the occasion for bringing forward the matter, which was enthusiastically taken up. The International Working Men's Association was founded; a Provisional General Council, with its seat in London, was elected at the meeting, and Marx was the soul of this as of all subsequent General Councils up to the Hague Congress. He drafted almost every one of the documents issued by the General Council of the International, from the Inaugural Address, 1864, to the Address on the Civil War in France, 1871. To describe Marx's activity in the International is to write the history of this Association, which in any case still lives in the memory of the European workers.

The fall of the Paris Commune put the International in an impossible position. It was thrust into the forefront of European history at a moment when it had everywhere been deprived of all possibility of successful practical action. The events which raised it to the position of the seventh Great Power simultaneously forbade it to mobilize its fighting forces and employ them in action, on pain of inevitable defeat and the setting back of the labour movement for decades. In addition, from various sides elements were pushing themselves forward that sought to exploit the suddenly enhanced fame of the Association for the purpose of gratifying personal vanity or personal ambition, without understanding the real position of the International or without regard for it. A heroic decision had to be taken, and it was again Marx who took it and who carried it through at the Hague Congress. In a solemn resolution, the International disclaimed all responsibility for the doings of the Bakuninists, who formed the centre of those unreasonable and unsavoury elements. Then, in view of the impossibility of meeting, in the face of the general reaction, the increased demands which were being imposed upon it, and of maintaining its complete efficacy other than by a series of sacrifices which would have drained the labour movement of its life-blood — in view of this situation, the International withdrew from the stage for the time being by transferring the General Council to America. The results have proved how correct was this decision — which was at the time, and has been since, so often censured. On the one hand, it put a stop then and since to all attempts to make useless putsches in the name of the International, while, on the other hand, the continuing close intercourse between the socialist workers’ parties of the various countries proved that the consciousness of the identity of interests and of the solidarity of the proletariat of all countries evoked by the International is able to assert itself even without the bond of a formal international association, which for the moment had become a fetter.

After the Hague Congress, Marx at last found peace and leisure again for resuming his theoretical work, and it is to be hoped he will be able before long to have the second volume of Capital ready for the press.

Of the many important discoveries through which Marx has inscribed his name in the annals of science, we can here dwell on only two.

The first is the revolution brought about by him in the whole conception of world history. The whole previous view of history was based on the conception that the ultimate causes of all historical changes are to be looked for in the changing ideas of human beings, and that of all historical changes political changes are the most important and dominate the whole of history. But the question was not asked as to whence the ideas come into men's minds and what the driving causes of the political changes are. Only upon the newer school of French, and partly also of English, historians had the conviction forced itself that, since the Middle Ages at least, the driving force in European history was the struggle of the developing bourgeoisie with the feudal aristocracy for social and political domination. Now Marx has proved that the whole of previous history is a history of class struggles, that in all the manifold and complicated political struggles the only thing at issue has been the social and political rule of social classes, the maintenance of domination by older classes and the conquest of domination by newly arising classes. To what, however, do these classes owe their origin and their continued existence? They owe it to the particular material, physically sensible conditions in which society at a given period produces and exchanges its means of subsistence. The feudal rule of the Middle Ages rested on the self-sufficient economy of small peasant communities, which themselves produced almost all their requirements, in which there was almost no exchange and to which the arms-bearing nobility lent protection from without and national or at least political cohesion. When the towns arose and with them a separate handicraft industry and commercial intercourse, at first internal and later international, the urban bourgeoisie developed, and already during the Middle Ages achieved, in struggle with the nobility, its inclusion in the feudal order as likewise a privileged estate. But with the discovery of the extra-European world, from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards, this bourgeoisie acquired a far more extensive sphere of trade and therewith a new spur for its industry; in the most important branches handicrafts were supplanted by manufacture, now on a factory scale, and this again was supplanted by large-scale industry, which had become possible owing to the discoveries of the previous century, especially that of the steam-engine. Large-scale industry, in its turn, reacted on trade by driving out the old manual labour in backward countries, and creating the present-day new means of communication: steam-engines, railways, electric telegraphy, in the more developed ones. Thus the bourgeoisie came more and more to combine social wealth and social power in its hands, while it still for a long period remained excluded from political power, which was in the hands of the nobility and the monarchy supported by the nobility. But at a certain stage — in France since the Great Revolution — it also conquered political power, and now in turn became the ruling class over the proletariat and small peasants. From this point of view all historical phenomena are explicable in the simplest possible way — with sufficient knowledge of the particular economic condition of society, which it is true is totally lacking in our professional historians, and in the same way the conceptions and ideas of each historical period are most simply to be explained from the economic conditions of life and from the social and political relations of the period, which are in turn determined by these economic conditions. History was for the first time placed on its real basis; the palpable but previously totally overlooked fact that men must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore must work, before they can fight for domination, pursue politics, religion, philosophy and so on — this palpable fact at last came into its historical rights.

This new conception of history, however, was of supreme significance for the socialist outlook. It showed that all previous history had moved in class antagonisms and class struggles, that there have always existed ruling and ruled, exploiting and exploited classes, and that the great majority of mankind has always been condemned to arduous labour and little enjoyment. Why is this? Simply because in all earlier stages of development of mankind production was so little developed that the historical development could proceed only in this antagonistic form, that historical progress as a whole was assigned to the activity of a small privileged minority, while the great mass remained condemned to producing by their labour their own meagre means of subsistence and also the increasingly rich means of the privileged. But the same investigation of history, which in this way provides a natural and reasonable explanation of the previous class rule, otherwise only explicable by the wickedness of man, also leads to the realization that, in consequence of the tremendously increased productive forces of the present time, even the last pretext has vanished for a division of mankind into ruIers and ruled, exploiters and exploited, at least in the most advanced countries; that the ruling big bourgeoisie has fulfilled its historic mission, that it is no longer capable of the leadership of society and has even become a hindrance to the development of production, as the trade crises, and especially the last great collapse, and the depressed condition of industry in all countries have proved; that historical leadership has passed to the proletariat, a class which, owing to its whole position in society, can only free itself by abolishing altogether all class rule, all servitude and all exploitation; and that the social productive forces, which have outgrown the control of the bourgeoisie, are only waiting for the associated proletariat to take possession of them in order to bring about a state of things in which every member of society will be enabled to participate not only in production but also in the distribution and administration of social wealth, and which so increases the social productive forces and their yield by planned operation of the whole of production that the satisfaction of all reasonable needs will be assured to everyone in an ever-increasing measure.

The second important discovery of Marx is the final elucidation of the relation between capital and labour, in other words, the demonstration how, within present society and under the existing capitalist mode of production, the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist takes place. Ever since political economy put forward the proposition that labour is the source of all wealth and of all value, the question has become inevitable: How is this, then, to be reconciled with the fact that the wage-worker does not receive the whole sum of value created by his labour but has to surrender a part of it to the capitalist? Both the bourgeois economists and the socialists exerted themselves to give a scientifically valid answer to this question, but in vain, until at last Marx came forward with the solution. This solution is as follows: The present day capitalist mode of production presupposes the existence of two social classes — on the one hand, that of the capitalists, who are in possession of the means of production and subsistence, and, on the other hand, that of the proletarians, who, being excluded from this possession, have only a single commodity for sale, their labour power, and who therefore have to sell this labour power of theirs in order to obtain possession of means of subsistence. The value of a commodity is, however, determined by the socially necessary quantity of labour embodied in its production, and, therefore, also in its reproduction; the value of the labour power of an average human being during a day, month or year is determined, therefore, by the quantity of labour embodied in the quantity of means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of this labour power during a day, month or year. Let us assume that the means of subsistence of a worker for one day require six hours of labour for their production, or, what is the same thing, that the labour contained in them represents a quantity of labour of six hours; then the value of labour power for one day will be expressed in a sum of money which also embodies six hours of labour. Let us assume further that the capitalist who employs our worker pays him this sum in return, pays him, therefore, the full value of his labour power. If now the worker works six hours of the day for the capitalist, he has completely replaced the latter's outlay — six hours’ labour for six hours’ labour. But then there would be nothing in it for the capitalist, and the latter therefore looks at the matter quite differently. He says: I have bought the labour power of this worker not for six hours but for a whole day, and accordingly he makes the worker work 8, 10, 12, 14 or more hours, according to circumstances, so that the product of the seventh, eighth and following hours is a product of unpaid labour and wanders, to begin with, into the pocket of the capitalist. Thus the worker in the service of the capitalist not only reproduces the value of his labour power, for which he receives pay, but over and above that he also produces a surplus value which, appropriated in the first place by the capitalist, is in its further course divided according to definite economic laws among the whole capitalist class and forms the basic stock from which arise ground rent, profit, accumulation of capital, in short, all the wealth consumed or accumulated by the non-labouring classes. This, however, proved that the acquisition of riches by the present-day capitalists consists just as much in the appropriation of the unpaid labour of others as that of the slave-owner or the feudal lord exploiting serf labour, and that all these forms of exploitation are only to be distinguished by the difference in manner and method by which the unpaid labour is appropriated. This, however, also removed the last justification for all the hypocritical phrases of the possessing classes to the effect that in the present social order right and justice, equality of rights and duties and a general harmony of interests prevail, and exposed present-day bourgeois society, no less than its predecessors, as a grandiose institution for the exploitation of the huge majority of the people by a small, ever-diminishing minority.

Modern, scientific socialism is based on these two important facts. In the second volume of Capital these and other hardly less important scientific discoveries concerning the capitalist system of society will be further developed, and thereby those aspects of political economy not touched upon in the first volume will also undergo revolutionization. May it be vouchsafed to Marx to be able soon to have it ready for the press.