The Face (book) Photo That Launched A Thousand Clicks- Or “Foul-Mouth” Phil Hits Pay-Dirt-Finally

Link below to a Wikipedia entry for Facebook for those three or four people in the Western world , hell, the whole world, who have not gotten the word about this new form of "social-networking" yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).

Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.

But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.

Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.

You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.

Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.

Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?

Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.

Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.

Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:


“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”

The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.

Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.

***Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More"-You Have That Right, Brother

A YouTube film clip of Stephen Foster's Hard Times Come Again No More performed by the McGarrigle Sisters. You had that right Brother Foster.
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
*******
Hard Times Come Again No More-Stephen Foster
Lyrics

1.
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Chorus:

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

2.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

3.
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

4.
Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

STRIKE THE BLOW-THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN LATE OF HARPERS FERRY

Reclaiming John Brown for the Left

BOOK REVIEW

JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST, DAVID S. REYNOLDS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK, 2005
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harpers Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they headed south. I was then, however, neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Almost 150 years after his death this writer is proud to stand in defense of the exploits of John Brown.

That said, it is with a great deal of satisfaction that I can recommend Mr. Reynolds’s book detailing the life, times and exploits of John Brown, warts and all. Originally published in hardcover in 2005, this is an important source (including helpful end notes) for updating various controversies surrounding the John Brown saga. While I may disagree with some of Mr. Reynolds’s conclusions concerning the impact of John Brown’s exploits on later black liberation struggles and to a lesser extent his position on Brown’s impact on his contemporaries, particularly the Transcendentalists, on the key point of the central place of John Brown in American leftist revolutionary history there is no dispute.

Mr. Reynolds has moreover taken pains to provide substantial detail about the ups and downs of John Brown’s posthumous reputation. Most importantly, he defends the memory of John Brown against all-comers-that is partisan history on behalf of the ‘losers’ of history at its best. He has reclaimed John Brown to his proper position as an icon for the left against the erroneous and outrageous efforts of modern day right wing religious and secular terrorists to lay any claim to his memory or his work. Below I make a few comments on some of controversies surrounding John Brown developed in Mr. Reynolds’s work.

If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As Mr. Reynolds’s points out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on Harpers Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it, and their latter-day apologists, about his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.

For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) also cloud his image. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like, but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.

Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harpers Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion combined with rural guerrilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since his time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs. The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would have greatly enhanced the chances for success at Harpers Ferry.

A point not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist avenging angel in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist determination that he would not been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson,Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported him and kept his memory alive in hard times. In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet, but they did not emulate him. Now Brown's animating spirit is not one that animates modern leftist revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand the depths of his religious convictions on his actions. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and one of mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of John Brown.

By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.

Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ to this day cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such 'madman' theories. Historians and others have also willfully misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy which led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians in order to take the sting out of their proper political implications.

From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to had been immediately successful, reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the existing American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom that would have insured a running start toward that equality. That is still our fight. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities have changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Black people are now a part of "free labor," and the key to their liberation is in the integrated fight of labor in the current one-sided class war in order to establish a government of workers and their allies. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown (and of his friend Frederick Douglass). We need to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the Civil War, not by emulating Brown’s exemplary actions but to moving the multi-racial American working class to power. Finish the Civil War.

Poet’s Corner- Seamus Heaney Passes –Take Two

 

On The Passing Of Seamus Heaney

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (nee Francis Riley) 

A word. He came from the land of poets, porridge, potatoes, publicans, paupers, prayers, pissers and peat, the well-known eight p’s (a ninth,  protestants, will be left unspoken). He spoke the mother tongue, nay, the grandmother’s tongue never quite the King’s and then time passing the Queen’s English but that surly brogue that bespoke of ancient sorrows, ancient oppressions, ancient dreams against the hard seas surrounding dear mother. Dear green earth mother born of sorrows, sea-borne easy prey for reckless adventurers seeking simple riches and too easy passage to points east and west when the troubles come.

Grandmother, gone to Amerikee, gone to easy sea-borne passage east or west when the troubles came, famine, field rot, rack-rents and imperial decrees, spoke unto death, and maybe beyond the grave too, spoke in brogue too (and not just grandmother in her generation, her Dublin “shawlie” generation transported to M Street, Southie and Ashmont Street, Dorchester) defiant against vanilla Americanization, against tarnished green, against some lost old sod memory. And so DNA-wired her sprawl unto the third generation learned, prosaic and poetic both, the swirl of language, the twisting of a word upon the tongue, the savoring of it, and the blarney and insincerely of it too when needed, and the delight in catching just the right breeze of a phrase as it passes in some bay (always some bay present, these were a sea-bound, sea-faring people, if only to diaspora) drifting back across the seas. Across the seas to that good green earth.             

And grandmother’s tongue, speak plainly brother, grandmother’s brogue bespoke not just of flailed language, and of savorings, but as repository of other sights, smells and sounds, and ancient clan customs. Eternal white sheets, pillow cases, towels, underwear (men’s, women’ s hung somewhere, some modest somewhere, hidden from sex-distorted youth and lecherous old men) flying in the back porch triple-decker wind trying to make due for the umpteenth time although one and all can almost see though the hand wrung bleached whiteness of the things. The sound of the trains belching coal dust fumes almost in the back door as they ferry THEM to their busyness.

The smell of oatmeal bread, oatmeal set aside from the daily ration, fresh baked from widow lady Ida’s Bakery (really the downstairs part of her house converted of necessity into a money-producing operation since Mister’s passing), and Friday buns (yes, yes too, Lenten hot-cross reprieve buns I hadn’t forgotten). The no smell of the boiled dinner (non- descript meat, someone’s leavings, yes, yes, potatoes, cabbage and so on, boiled to perdition by the time the damn thing boiled, got boiled down). The smell of whiskies (and Uncle Sean, named after Sean Flynn, whisky breathes) cheap low-shelf whiskies, the cheapest Johnny Walker could bring forth, to make the pennies go farther, and of stouts and ales too when whiskey credits were short. The acrid smell of sweaty barrooms, men only, ladies by invitation, just before last call, just before a whole slew of grizzled fathers, uncles, older brothers crabbed their ways home to some sullen sleep. The smell of sunken sunrise Sunday church (Roman Catholic, naturally) all dank and foreboding, faint wisps of wine sand incense left from some past ceremony, and young innocent boys (and girls too but they can speak for themselves, them and their rosary-saying, stations of the cross praying ways all dressed in white, damn them) filled with wonder about hell, heaven and that hope, the high hope of purgatory as a way-station,       

Spoke too of eight hundred year oppressions and scratching on hard rock earth against foreign slayings.  Of 1916, always of the men of ’16, eternally of the men of ’16, of James Connolly and his pipedream workers’ republic above all, who was right and who was wrong when Mick Collins and Harry Boland had it out, and later the boys in the North when they came under British guns and that unnamed unadorned tin can sitting atop the Dublin Grille counter filled with dollars and nobody, no matter what their thirst and no dough, touched that under, well, under penalty of death so not touched.  Yes, the boys in the north, and never quite getting the whole thing settled.

Of shame, of shanty shame, also DNA-etched from time before mist.  Of keeping one own counsel, also known as not airing the family’s linen in public unlike those threadbare sheets flailing away on the back porch. Above all spoke of the “squawlie” net-work that ran amok over every tenement block and kept the whole wide world informed, kept young and old in line under the threat of terrible shawlie justice (not until later was it understood as sham). Informed not in the language of the poet by the way. All past now. So too Seamus Heaney passes.    

From The Marxist Archives -In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International-

“The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism”

  

Workers Vanguard No. 937	22 May 2009

“The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism”

By V.I. Lenin

(From the Archives of Marxism)

V.I. Lenin’s “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,” which we reprint below, was first published in March 1913 in the Bolshevik journal Prosveshcheniye to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, who, along with Friedrich Engels, founded scientific socialism. The following translation is taken from Volume 19 of the Collected Works of Lenin (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1963).

Throughout the civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind of “pernicious sect.” And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage-slave society is as foolishly naïve as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question of whether workers’ wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital.

But this is not all. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling “sectarianism” in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.

The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.

It is these three sources of Marxism, which are also its component parts, that we shall outline in brief.

I

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to “refute,” undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion.

Marx and Engels defended philosophical materialism in the most determined manner and repeatedly explained how profoundly erroneous is every deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Dühring, which, like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every class-conscious worker.

But Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century materialism: he developed philosophy to a higher level. He enriched it with the achievements of German classical philosophy, especially of Hegel’s system, which in its turn had led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The main achievement was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science—radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements—have been a remarkable confirmation of Marx’s dialectical materialism despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers with their “new” reversions to old and decadent idealism.

Marx deepened and developed philosophical materialism to the full, and extended the cognition of nature to include the cognition of human society. His historical materialism was a great achievement in scientific thinking. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops—how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism.

Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.

Marx’s philosophy is a consummate philosophical materialism which has provided mankind, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments of knowledge.

II

Having recognised that the economic system is the foundation on which the political superstructure is erected, Marx devoted his greatest attention to the study of this economic system. Marx’s principal work, Capital, is devoted to a study of the economic system of modern, i.e., capitalist, society.

Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in England, the most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations of the labour theory of value. Marx continued their work; he provided a proof of the theory and developed it consistently. He showed that the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent on its production.

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people. The exchange of commodities expresses the connection between individual producers through the market. Money signifies that the connection is becoming closer and closer, inseparably uniting the entire economic life of the individual producers into one whole. Capital signifies a further development of this connection: man’s labour-power becomes a commodity. The wage-worker sells his labour-power to the owner of land, factories and instruments of labour. The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.

The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx’s economic theory.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately apparent, but the same phenomenon is also to be observed in agriculture, where the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is enhanced, the use of machinery increases and the peasant economy, trapped by money-capital, declines and falls into ruin under the burden of its backward technique. The decline of small-scale production assumes different forms in agriculture, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a regular economic organism—but the product of this collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population are intensified.

By increasing the dependence of the workers on capital, the capitalist system creates the great power of united labour.

Marx traced the development of capitalism from embryonic commodity economy, from simple exchange, to its highest forms, to large-scale production.

And the experience of all capitalist countries, old and new, year by year demonstrates clearly the truth of this Marxian doctrine to increasing numbers of workers.

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.

III

When feudalism was overthrown and “free” capitalist society appeared in the world, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation of the working people. Various socialist doctrines immediately emerged as a reflection of and protest against this oppression. Early socialism, however, was utopian socialism. It criticised capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its destruction, it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation.

But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution. It could not explain the real nature of wage-slavery under capitalism, it could not reveal the laws of capitalist development, or show what social force is capable of becoming the creator of a new society.

Meanwhile, the stormy revolutions which everywhere in Europe, and especially in France, accompanied the fall of feudalism, of serfdom, more and more clearly revealed the struggle of classes as the basis and the driving force of all development.

Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won except against desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country evolved on a more or less free and democratic basis except by a life-and-death struggle between the various classes of capitalist society.

The genius of Marx lies in his having been the first to deduce from this the lesson world history teaches and to apply that lesson consistently. The deduction he made is the doctrine of the class struggle.

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle.

Marx’s philosophical materialism alone has shown the proletariat the way out of the spiritual slavery in which all oppressed classes have hitherto languished. Marx’s economic theory alone has explained the true position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.

Independent organisations of the proletariat are multiplying all over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa. The proletariat is becoming enlightened and educated by waging its class struggle; it is ridding itself of the prejudices of bourgeois society; it is rallying its ranks ever more closely and is learning to gauge the measure of its successes; it is steeling its forces and is growing irresistibly.

Tell Pres. Obama: PVT Manning deserves clemency! Tell President Obama: Private Manning deserves clemency! Please sign the White House petition now (Having trouble? See below!) Announcing the Private Manning Support Network! August 26, 2013, By attorney David Coombs and the Private Manning Support Network (formerly the Bradley Manning Support Network). Clarification on PVT Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning's request regarding her gender and name. With your continued support, our network will continue its advocacy efforts in support our heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower. Note: The image above is PVT Manning's current favorite photo of herself. Read more... Last week American democracy took a tragic step back, when a military court was allowed to sentence heroic Army whistleblower PVT Manning to 35 years in prison. As we wrote in our joint statement with Amnesty International, “The prosecution of Bradley Manning starkly contrasts to the US government’s repeated failure to deliver justice for serious human rights violations committed during counter-terror operations of the past decade.” As PVT Manning files a formal request for pardon, now is the time for supporters to call on President Obama to improve his record by granting PVT Manning's request. Only a massive outpouring of public support will convince the Administration that PVT Manning deserves clemency. Please follow the directions below to sign our petition now, and tell President Obama: “To reduce this blight on the US human rights record… grant Manning clemency for time served, protect whistleblowers, and provide accountability for crimes like those Manning exposed.” This is the first of many actions our Support Network will organize to promote clemency for PVT Manning. It is also the most important action you can take right now. So please sign and share widely! Instructions to sign the White House Petition: Visit : http://wh.gov/lgG58 If you have a whitehouse.gov account, you can go ahead and click on “Sign in” then click on “Sign Petition.” If you don’t have a whithouse.gov account, you will need to create one first. This only takes a couple of minutes. Why do you need to create an account to sign the petition? Verifying your email address ensures that your email account is valid and prevents having duplicate signatures by the same person. To create an account to sign our petition, follow these steps: Go to https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user/register and enter your account information. You will receive an email within a few minutes asking you to click on a link to verify your email address. Click on the link in the email (or cut and paste it into your web browser). Once you have verified your email address, you’re logged into the system. (Note, some people receive an ‘error’ message when they click the link, even though the verification process actually worked). Click this link to return to the petition and sign: http://wh.gov/lgG58 Help us continue to cover 100% of PVT Manning's legal fees! Donate today.

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Subscribe Send to a friend Donate Problems viewing this? Click here U.S. Navy veteran speaks out: To my fellow sailors: Refuse your orders to attack Syria! The author is a former Second Class Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy from 2007-20012 and served on the USS Fitzgerald and the USS The Sullivans. He is a March Forward! organizer in Los Angeles and is working to build anti-war actions locally. To my fellow sailors, shipmates and service members on active duty, Second Class Petty Officer Ernesto Fuentes Many of you are now in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria to be used to carry out strikes against the country. 91 percent of the American public opposes these strikes. The Obama administration has failed to produce the “evidence” it says would justify them. Do not be fooled into yet another war based on lies in the Middle East. The events that came to pass in Iraq and Afghanistan go to show that "defending freedom and democracy around the world," as the Sailor's Creed so wrongfully suggests is just a scheme to defend the interests of the rich at our expense. Syria—which is the only remaining country in the Arab World that is independent of Wall Street—is a huge prize for the oil and defense industries. But the billionaires who will profit don’t send their own children. They send us. What we learned from the Iraq war in particular is that the U.S. government will fabricate intelligence, lies to our faces, and create a false story about “protecting civilians” to cover-up their true motives. Don't be a part of a war machine that kills innocent lives and separates entire families. Tomahawks and MK 45 rounds kill indiscriminately. Do not be fooled into yet another endless watch, duty day, sleepless night and deployment in support of a corrupt system that constantly puts you in harm’s way. I ask you, is it really worth it? I enlisted on July 20th, 2007 right out of high school in the hopes that I could peruse an education and travel the world through the Navy. The longer I was in, the more I realized that the community I was exposed to in the Navy was so far removed from the everyday lives of American civilians. Military spending always goes up. I was surrounded by billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, while schools have to fundraise for supplies and scholarships, whole cities were going bankrupt, and students struggled to pay their loans. I realized then that the system in place had left me no choice but to join the military. It was an illusion of choice when the reality is that more and more of us join to escape economic hardship. Then we are used to carry out missile strikes against other struggling people just like us all over the globe. It is a cycle that continues to fuel the war machine. To me, patriotism is doing what you think is right for your country, not blindly following its government. It means that when we receive orders from corrupt high-ranking officers to launch strikes against Syria, against the will of the American people and against the will of the Syrian people, that it is our duty to refuse to carry them out. Getting out of the military was the best decision I ever made, because the military tried to make me into a tool of oppression for other people around the world—but failed. If I were at sea now, ordered to carry out this new war, I would refuse. You can too. Disobey the bogus orders to launch a new war. Refuse deployments and reenlistments. Come home to your families and fight the real battle that has been waged by the government against its own people in the form of unemployment, poor education, high interest rates for college students, police brutality and the erosion of our civil liberties. Second Class Petty Officer, Ernesto Fuentes USN, 2007-2012 March Forward! is dedicated to building the anti-war movement among veterans and active-duty service members. Click here to make an urgently-neeeded donation to help us with out organizing and outreach efforts against the Syria war.
	March Forward! is an organization of veterans and active-duty service members affiliated with the ANSWER Coalition.
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No War On Syria

Call To Resist

September 1, 2013 ·

By: George Capaccio

I read the news today and almost cried when I discovered that Linda Rondstadt has Parkinson’s disease and as a result, has lost her ability to sing. The site I was on included a photo of Ms. Rondstadt as a young woman caressing a song into a microphone and wearing an off-the-shoulder dress. Her beauty, her youth, her Mexican lineage are all there in that compelling image from decades past. And as I reached back to the late sixties when she was performing with the Stone Poneys and I was a college senior facing the draft and the end of my well-insulated life, I couldn’t help but think of all that we have lost since then—not only the well-known list of gifted performers who left us much too early in their lives and careers but those intangible, immaterial gifts many of my generation believed would carry us forward into a radically different sort of life—one in which our common humanity and our fellowship with all living things would be the center around which the world would revolve.

Regrettably, this has not come to pass, though the dream remains, and there are many among us, old, young and in between, who continue to believe a revolution in our values remains the only goal worth struggling for. Then I turned the digital page and came to a Syrian father holding in his arms the lifeless body of his child, apparently killed from poison gas. And he is weeping for his loss and all that he and his family will never recover because the promise was not fulfilled, the dream was deferred, and the mountain top from which Dr. Martin Luther King returned recedes in the distance, shrouded over by a noxious, lethal cloud threatening to descend upon Mother Earth and all of her children. It is the cloud of ignorance, the cloud of vanity, the cloud of hubris, the cloud of deceit, and its effect is leaving us spiritually impoverished, mentally dwarfed, and half-crazy with fear and an obsessive worship of violence as the way to bring forth peace.

Now we have those dogs of war once again baying for blood in the halls of Parliament and Congress and from the hollow trumpets of our media, telling us we must hit Syria with the life-saving benediction of our bombs and missiles. And once again the US is the alpha dog, the leader of the pack, stationing destroyers in the Mediterranean, issuing threats, cobbling together a “coalition of the willing,” another name for a band of cutthroat, neocolonial pirates posing once again as lovers of humanity and saviors of the poor, the oppressed, the godforsaken “wretched of the Earth.” A glance at the historical record of these self-ordained peacemakers should be enough to make anyone weep with shame for the suffering they have inflicted, the lies they have told, the horror upon horror they have visited upon the innocent in their quest for hegemony over Heaven and Earth.

Obama and his compadres in Europe and elsewhere would have us belief their sole concern is to protect the people of Syria and punish the Syrian government for having used chemical weapons “against its own people,” though as of this writing there is no conclusive evidence to indict either side in the conflict. But the absence of such evidence will likely not stop them from carrying out their plan to bomb the hell out of Syria, dump the government, and put in its place a collection of stooges drawn from the Syrian opposition.

I cringe when I consider the audacity of these sanctimonious hypocrites drawing their red lines and proclaiming the right and the responsibility to intervene in Syria when their own voluminous rap sheets reveal the extent of their complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Secretary of State John Kerry, for example, along with his predecessor Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden voted in favor of the Congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq in 2003. They voted for the resolution despite ample evidence that Iraq no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction and despite the fact that an invasion of a sovereign country constituted a direct violation of the UN Charter. No matter, when it came time to vote, our illustrious Secretary of State stood tall with his fellow legislators on both sides of the aisle and said yes to a war of aggression whose tragic consequences continue to eviscerate Iraq.

Recently, I phoned a family in Baghdad—a family I have known for 15 years and whom I met during my first visit to Iraq as an anti-sanctions activist. Though I have not seen this family since 2003, a few months before the invasion, we have kept in touch through regular phone calls. The head of the family is a single mother with 2 grown children and 3 still in school. During my most recent call, I spoke with her daughter “Zahra,” a young woman who was only 7 the last time we were together. Over the years, we have become quite close. Next week she will return to school after having the summer off. We talked about the situation in Baghdad—the daily shootings and bombings, the constant shortages of electricity and clean water, the rising prices for food and clothing.

“Baghdad is no good,” Zahra said. “Too dangerous. Always I am afraid when I go out. But I have no choice. This is my life. The life of all Iraqi people.”

Zahra’s mother is unable to find work and must depend on handouts from relatives and the generosity of local merchants in order to feed her family and keep a roof over their heads. She and her children have no choice but to live their lives under the constant threat of death from car bombs or suicide bombers. Certainly in this respect, their circumstances compare to those of families in Yemen and Pakistan where drones—Obama’s weapon of choice—continue to terrorize and, on far too many occasions, obliterate innocent civilians.

Car bombs, suicide bombers, oppressive poverty—these are only a small sample of the horrors that have resulted from our invasion of Iraq. Our military’s use of depleted uranium, white phosphorous, and other toxic munitions during the invasion and subsequent 8-year occupation have contributed, if not caused, an alarming increase in birth defects among Iraqi infants, particularly those born in the cities of Basra and Falluja where US forces conducted major offensives against the Iraqi resistance.

The apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria is a crime against humanity. But so too is the use of toxic munitions by the United States and its allies in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Antiwar activists who have visited Iraq in recent years and interviewed Iraqi doctors report seeing “babies born with parts of their skulls missing, various tumors, missing genitalia, limbs and eyes, severe brain damage, unusual rates of paralyzing spina bifida. . . “ (http://www.uruknet.org/?p=m100341&hd=&size=1&l=e)

The men and women who either voted for, authorized, or master-minded the invasion of Iraq (and before that, Afghanistan) have shown no remorse for their decisions and no compassion for their victims. Yet now some of these very same people want to do it all over again—this time to the people of Syria—as though the only lesson learned from our ongoing interference in the Middle East is that there is no such thing as too much bloodshed, particularly if its their blood and not ours.

What is the difference between a Syrian father cradling the lifeless body of his son, a victim of some dreadful neurotoxin, and a mother in Iraq delivering a horribly deformed baby? On what scale does one measure the suffering of either parent? Are the perpetrators behind the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria crueler and more deserving of condemnation than the officers who oversaw the destruction of Falluja or a village in Afghanistan? And what of the countless families in Yemen and Pakistan struggling to identify the charred and scattered remains of their loved ones, killed by a US drone? Isn’t their pain just as great, their loss just as devastating?

Given the complicity of the US government in waging proxy wars and war of aggression over the past 60 odd years and directly or indirectly causing the deaths of millions of people, what is our responsibility, as patriotic citizens, now when the US is once more preparing to attack a Middle Eastern country, with or without UN authorization?

Remaining silent is not an option; we must reclaim our voice and speak out against our own country’s latest preparation for war.

About the author: George Capaccio is a professional writer and storyteller. His book of poems ‘While the Light Still Trembles’ took first prize in the University of Arkansas Peace Writing Contest. From 1997-2003, Capaccio made 9 trips to Iraq with various peace and humanitarian organizations concerned with the devastating impact of sanctions. Much of his writing reflects his long-standing concern for the struggle of the Iraqi people to survive sanctions, war and occupation. He continues to assist families in Baghdad through the Iraq Family Relief Fund, an effort he began in 1998.Click here to visit his website.

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***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Robert Mitchum Watch Out For Berserk Femmes Fatales, Will You- Angel Face- A Film Review

DVD Review

Angel Face, starring Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, RKO Pictures, 1952

Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femmes fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, let's just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we know, we know.

The plot here takes a little something from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. The “fair damsel” (played by a young dark-eyed, dark-haired piano-playing Jean Simmons who, before seeing this film I might have taken a run at her myself, in my dreams anyway. But see I know how to take a lesson), after she gets her hooks into Mitchum, furthers her plot to get rid of her dear stepmother so she can have her father to herself (take that anyway you want but you do not have to be a Freudian to know that she is seriously hung up on her novelist father, a probable cause for some of her youthful, ah, monomania). But unlike the femme in Postman she just “forgets” to tell him he is part of the plan.

Of course when the foul deed is done (the old "wire cut on the steering wheel of the car and off the cliff you go, dearie" gag that has been around, well, been around since femmes figured out automobiles aren’t just for driving) the pair are the obvious suspects. But with some razzle-dazzle legal work, including marriage to evoke the jury’s sympathy, they get off. (Yeah, I know on that one too. But those were more romantic times than ours, I guess. I want the name and e-mail of that lawyer, by the way, just in case.) Of course what guy in his right mind is going to stick around and see, well, what is in store for him and his lovely bride after the court battles are over? Like I said though, this is Robert Mitchum, the guy who can’t learn a lesson.

Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any woman’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. And not just femmes fatales. In this film, as in Out Of The Past, there is the “good” girl waiting in wings. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, to stay in that orbit but when those maddened eyes and ruby red lips call that speak to some dark adventure, well, what’s a man to do?

HONOR WOBBLIE "BIG BILL" HAYWOOD- CLASS-WAR MILITANT

COMMENTARY

BELOW IS A POLITICAL OBITUARY WRITTEN BY JAMES P. CANNON, FRIEND AND COMRADE OF BILL HAYWOOD'S FROM THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD (IWW) AND COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL DAYS FOR THE MAY 22, 1928 DAILY WORKER, NEWSPAPER OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY. AS NOTED BIG BILL WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE- THE CLASS-WAR PRISONER DEFENSE ORGANIZATION FOUNDED BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND LED BY CANNON UNTIL 1928. I ONLY NEED ADD THAT THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT HAS NOT PRODUCED SUCH LEADERS AS HAYWOOD FOR A LONG TIME. THERE ARE CERTAINLY MILITANTS OUT THERE AND NOW IS THE TIME TO EMULATE BIG BILL-THAT WOULD BE A FITTING TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

The death of Haywood was not unexpected. The declining health
of the old fighter was known to his friends for a long time. On each
visit to Moscow in recent years we noted the progressive weakening
of his physical powers and learned of the repeated attacks of the
fatal disease which finally brought him down. Our anxious inquiries
during the past month, occasioned by the newspaper reports of his
illness, only brought the response that his recovery this time could
not be expected. Nevertheless we could not abandon the hope that his
fighting spirit and his will to live would pull him through again, and
the news that death had triumphed in the unequal struggle brought
a shock of grief.

The death of Haywood is a double blow to those who were at once his comrades in the fight and his personal friends, for his character was such as to invest personal relations with an extra-ordinary dignity and importance. His great significance for the American and world labor movement was also fully appreciated, I think, both by our party and by the Communist International, in the ranks of which he ended his career, a soldier to the last.

An outstanding personality and leader of the pre-war revolutionary labor movement in America, and also a member and leader of the modern communist movement which grew up on its foundation, Bill Haywood represented a connecting link which helped to establish continuity between the old movement and the new. Growing out of the soil of America, or better, hewn out of its rocks, he first entered the labor movement as a pioneer unionist of the formative days of the Western Federation of Miners 30 years ago. From that starting point he bent his course toward the conscious class struggle and marched consistently on that path to the end of his life. He died a Communist and a soldier of the Communist International.

It is a great fortune for our party that he finished his memoirs and that they are soon to be published. They constitute a record of the class struggle and of the labor movement in America of priceless value for the present generation of labor militants. The career of Haywood is bound up with the stormy events which have marked the course of working-class development in America for 30 years and out of which the basic nucleus of the modern movement has come.

He grew up in the hardship and struggle of the mining camps ofthe West. Gifted with the careless physical courage of a giant and an eloquence of speech, Bill soon became a recognized leader of the metal miners. He developed with them through epic struggles toward a militancy of action combined with a socialistic understanding, even in that early day, which soon placed the Western Federation of Miners, which Haywood said "was born in a Bull Pen," in the vanguard of the American labor movement.

It was the merger of these industrial proletarian militants of the West with the socialist political elements represented by Debs and De Leon, which brought about the formation of the I.W.W. in 1905. The fame and outstanding prominence of Haywood as a labor leader even in that day is illustrated by the fact that he was chosen chairman of the historic First Convention of the I.W.W. in 1905.

The brief, simple speech he delivered there, as recorded in the stenographic minutes of the convention, stands out in many respects as a charter of labor of that day. His plea for the principle of the class struggle, for industrial unionism, for special emphasis on the unskilled workers, for solidarity of black and white workers, and for a revolutionary goal of the labor struggle, anticipated many established principles of the modern revolutionary labor movement.

The attempt to railroad him to the gallows on framed-up murder charges in 1906 was thwarted by the colossal protest movement of the workers who saw in this frame-up against him a tribute to his talent and power as a labor leader, and to his incorruptibility. His name became a battle cry of the socialist and labor movement and he emerged from the trial a national and international figure.

He rose magnificently to the new demands placed upon him by this position and soon became recognized far and wide as the authentic voice of the proletarian militants of America. The schemes of the reformist leaders of the Socialist Party to use his great name and popularity as a shield for them were frustrated by the bold and resolute course he pursued. Through the maze of intrigue and machinations of the reformist imposters in the Socialist Party, he shouldered his way with the doctrine of class struggle and the tactics of militant action.

The proletarian and revolutionary elements gathered around him and formed the powerful "left wing" of the party which made its bid for power in the convention of 1912. The "Reds" were defeated there, and the party took a decisive step along the pathway which led to its present position of reformist bankruptcy and open betrayal. The subsequent expulsion of Haywood from the National Executive Committee was at once a proof of the opportunist degeneration of the party and of his own revolutionary integrity.

Haywood's syndicalism was the outcome of his reaction against the reformist policies and parliamentary cretinism of the middle-class leaders of the Socialist Party—Hillquit, Berger and Company. But syndicalism, which in its final analysis, is "the twin brother of reformism", as Lenin has characterized it, was only a transient theory in Haywood's career. He passed beyond it and thus escaped that degeneration and sterility which overtook the syndicalist movement throughout the world during and after the war. The World War and the Russian Revolution did not pass by Haywood unnoticed, as they passed by many leaders of the I.W.W. who had encased themselves in a shell of dogma to shut out the realities of life.

These world-shaking events, combined with the hounding and dragooning of the I.W.W. by the United States government—the "political state" which syndicalism wanted to "ignore"—wrought a profound change in the outlook of Bill Haywood. He emerged from Leavenworth Penitentiary in 1919 in a receptive and studious mood. He was already 50 years old, but he conquered the mental rigidity which afflicts so many at that age. He began, slowly and painfully, to assimilate the new and universal lessons of the war and the Russian Revolution.

First taking his stand with that group in the I.W.W. which favored adherence to the Red International of Labor Unions, he gradually developed his thought further and finally came to the point where he proclaimed himself a communist and a disciple of Lenin. He became a member of the Communist Party of America before his departure for Russia. There he was transferred to the Russian Communist Party and, in recognition of his lifetime of revolutionary work, he was given the status of "an old party member"—the highest honor anyone can enjoy in the land of workers' triumph.

As everyone knows, Haywood in his time had been a prisoner in many jails and, like all men who have smelt iron, he was keenly sensitive to the interests of revolutionaries who suffer this crucifixion. He attached the utmost importance to the work of labor defense and was one of the founders of the I.L.D. He contributed many ideas to its formation and remained an enthusiastic supporter right up to his death. What is very probably his last message to the workers of America, written just before he was stricken the last time, is contained in a letter which is being published in the June number of the Labor Defender now on the press.

As a leader of the workers in open struggle Haywood was a fighter, the like of which is all too seldom seen. He loved the laboring masses and was remarkably free from all prejudices of craft or race or nationality. In battle with the class enemies of the workers he was a raging lion, relentless and irreconcilable. His field was the open fight, and in mass strikes his powers unfolded and multiplied themselves. Endowed with a giant's physique and an absolute disregard of personal hazards, he pulled the striking workers to him as to a magnet and imparted to them his own courage and spirit.

I remember especially his arrival at Akron during the great rubber-workers' strike of 1913, when 10,000 strikers met him at the station and marched behind him to the Hall. His speech that morning has always stood out in my mind as a model of working-class oratory. With his commanding presence and his great mellow voice he held the vast crowd in his power from the moment that he rose to speak. He had that gift, all too rare, of using only the necessary words and of compressing his thoughts into short, epigrammatic sentences. He clarified his points with homely illustrations and pungent witticisms which rocked the audience with understanding laughter. He poured out sarcasm, ridicule and denunciation upon the employers and their pretensions, and made the workers feel with him that they, the workers, were the important and necessary people. He closed, as he always did, on a note of hope and struggle, with a picture of the final victory of the workers. Every word from beginning to end, simple, clear and effective. That is Haywood, the proletarian orator, as I remember him.

There was another side to Bill Haywood which was an essential side of his character, revealed to those who knew him well as personal friends. He had a warmth of personality that drew men to him like a bonfire on a winter's day. His considerateness and indulgence toward his friends, and his generous impulsiveness in human relations, were just as much a part of Bill Haywood as his iron will and intransigence in battle.

"Bill's room", in the Lux Hotel at Moscow, was always the central gathering place for the English-speaking delegates. Bill was "good company". He liked to have people around him, and visitors came to his room in a steady stream; many went to pour out their troubles, certain of a sympathetic hearing and a word of wise advice.

The American ruling class hounded Haywood with the most vindictive hatred. They could not tolerate the idea that he, an American of old revolutionary stock, a talented organizer and eloquent speaker, should be on the side of the exploited masses, a champion of the doubly persecuted foreigners and Negroes. With a 20-year prison sentence hanging over him he was compelled to leave America in the closing years of his life and to seek refuge in workers' Russia. He died there in the Kremlin, the capitol of his and our socialist fatherland with the red flag of his class floating triumphantly overhead.

Capitalist America made him an outlaw and he died expatriated from his native land. But in the ranks of the militant workers of America, who owe so much to his example, he remains a citizen of the first rank. He represented in his rugged personality all that was best of the pre-war socialist and labor movement, and by his adhesion to communism he helped to transmit that inheritance to us. His memory will remain a blazing torch of inspiration for the workers of America in the great struggles which lie before them.

His life was a credit and an honor to our class and to our movement. Those who pick up the battle flag which has fallen from his lifeless hands will do well to emulate the bigness and vision, the courage and the devotion which were characteristics of our beloved comrade and friend, Bill Haywood.

***Big Bill Haywood-Working Class Warrior

Book Review

Big Bill Haywood, Melvyn Dubofsky, Manchester University Press, Manchester England, 1987

If you are sitting around today wondering, as I occasionally do, what a modern day radical labor leader should look like then one need go no further than to observe the career, warts and all, of the legendary Bill Haywood. To previous generations of radicals that name would draw an automatic response. Today’s radicals, and others interested in social solutions to the pressing problems that have been bestowed on us by the continuation of the capitalist mode of production, may not be familiar with the man and his program for working class power. Professor Dubofsky’s little biographical sketch is thus just the cure for those who need a primer on this hero of the working class.

The good professor goes into some detail, despite limited accessablity, about Haywood’s early life out in the Western United States in the late 19th century. Those hard scrabble experiences made a huge imprint on the young Haywood as he tramped from mining camp to mining camp and tried to make ends mean, any way he could. Haywood, moreover, is the perfect example of the fact that working class political consciousness is not innate but gained through the hard experiences of life under the capitalist system. Thus, Haywood moved from itinerant miner to become a leading member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and moved leftward along the political spectrum along the way. Not a small part in that was due to his trial on trumped up charges in Idaho for murder as part of a labor crack down against the WFM by the mine owners and their political allies there.

As virtually all working class militants did at the turn of the 20th century, Big Bill became involved with the early American socialist movement and followed the lead of the sainted Eugene V. Debs. As part of the ferment of labor agitation during this period the organization that Haywood is most closely associated with was formed-The Industrial Workers of the World (hereafter IWW, also known as Wobblies). This organization- part union, part political party- was the most radical expression (far more radical than the rather tepid socialist organizations) of the American labor movement in the period before World War I.

The bulk of Professor Dubofsky’s book centers, as it should, on Haywood’s exploits as a leader of the IWW. Big Bill’s ups and downs mirrored the ups and downs of the organization. The professor goes into the various labor fights that Haywood led highlighted by the great 1912 Lawrence strike (of bread and roses fame), the various free speech fights but also the draconian Wilsonian policy toward the IWW after America declared war in 1917. That governmental policy essentially crushed the IWW as a mass working class organization. Moreover, as a leader Haywood personally felt the full wrath of the capitalist government. Facing extended jail time Haywood eventually fled to the young Soviet republic where he died in lonely exile in 1928.

The professor adequately tackles the problem of the political and moral consequences of that escape to Russia for the IWW and to his still imprisoned comrades so I will not address it here. However, there are two points noted by Dubofsky that warrant comment. First, he notes that Big Bill was a first rate organizer in both the WFM and the IWW. Those of us who are Marxists sometimes tend to place more emphasis of the fact that labor leaders need to be “tribunes of the people” that we sometimes neglect the important “trade union secretary” part of the formula. Haywood seems to have had it all. Secondly, Haywood’s and the IWW’s experience with government repression during World War I, repeated in the “Red Scare” experience of the 1950’s against Communists and then later against the Black Panthers in the 1960’s should be etched into the brain of every militant today. When the deal goes down the capitalists and their hangers-on will do anything to keep their system. Anything. That said, read this Haywood primer. It is an important contribution to the study of American labor history.