In The Struggle Against British Imperialism-Part II- Symbol Of An Age- 'Old Hickory' Andrew Jackson

Book Review

Andrew Jackson-Symbol for an Age, John William Ward, Oxford University Press, London, 1962

American democratic politics, as can be easily seen in this year's presidential nominating processes, has always been encumbered with symbols. That fact is hardly new or news. What is news is that today's seemingly modern notion of proper electoral technique has a fairly ancient pedigree. Although Parson Weems did more than his share to establish the iconic figure of George Washington, arguably the subject of this work, Andrew Jackson, really was the first president to get the full public relations `spin' treatment that we take as a matter of course in today's politics.

The present volume builds the case for Jackson symbolic virtues at a time when America, after a series of nasty encounters with the British, notably the War of 1812, developed an inward look westward and away from the `degeneracy' of the seaboard. If Jackson did not fit the bill to a tee then his agents, paid or otherwise, filled in the blanks. First place in those efforts goes to highlighting his military prowess and soldierly concerns in defeating (to what real purpose no one knows since the war was over by this time) against the British at the tail end of the War of 1812 at the Battle of New Orleans.

From there it was fairly simple to make him a man of the' people'. In this case the people being empathically not the residents of the eastern seaboard but the `fresh' yeomanry of the Westward trek. You know- the ones who exhibited all the plebian virtues as solid tillers of the soil, holders of folk wisdom against the effete nabobs of the cities and the true patriots of rising American agricultural capitalism. The author builds his case by using a series of fairly common references beginning his work with an analysis of a Jackson poetic tribute `The Hunters of Kentucky' and dissects that bit of work to see how it fit into the scheme of making Jackson the first "people's" president. All the other tributes and, at the end eulogies, then fall into place.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then his Whig opponents do that by learning from his handlers by the time of the `Tippecanoe' Harrison campaign of 1840. And from there we are off to the races. Note this- as if to reinforce the argument presented by the book- can anyone today deny that that myth around Jackson built so long ago still, with the exception of a dent caused by his savagery against the Native Americans, stands as the way he is thought of in the American pantheon? The Democrats continue their traditional Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinners without blushing. Enough said.

Workers Vanguard No. 1033	1 November 2013

Boston Job Action: No Reprisals Against School Bus Drivers!

Ever since Veolia Transportation took over the operation of the Boston Public Schools bus fleet in July, some 700 drivers, organized in United Steel Workers (USW) Local 8751, have endured a steady stream of abuse from this vindictive employer. Trampling on the union contract negotiated by its predecessor, the new management has flouted long-established work rules, including by arbitrarily reassigning routes, and made a practice of shortchanging drivers on their paychecks when finally getting around to distributing them. Such a declaration of war on the unions is nothing new for Veolia, which is part of a multinational conglomerate with its hooks in several major industries across the globe. It is no coincidence that Bay Area Rapid Transit shelled out nearly $400,000 to bring in Veolia’s Thomas P. Hock as the chief negotiator with its unions earlier this year and had this notorious outfit run scab shuttles when union members went on strike (see article on page 12).

Boston’s embattled school bus drivers, who are largely Haitian, Cape Verdean and Latino, fought back. On the morning of October 8, they reported to work at their assigned hours but refused to board their buses until management agreed to meet with the union. The bosses would have none of it: workers were ordered off company property, and the gates were locked behind them. Pickets went up at all four bus yards in protest, even though the USW district director criminally disavowed the job action. The next day, bus service resumed as Veolia sat down with representatives from Local 8751. Here the union reps presented a list of demands, beginning with “complete and total amnesty” for all members.

In response, the company served letters of suspension to Local 8751 grievance committee chairman Stevan Kirschbaum and vice president Steve Gillis. A few days later, recording secretary Andre Francois and stewards Garry Murchison and Richard Lynch were also suspended. Even as the threat of further reprisals hangs over their heads, the workforce remains unbowed. Large numbers of drivers and other supporters turned out for rallies outside the disciplinary hearing for the “School Bus Union 5” on October 23 and 28. With Veolia gunning for their jobs, the hearing is scheduled to continue. All Boston city labor should demand: Reinstate all suspended union officials! No reprisals against bus drivers!

The city rulers and their kept media have fanned the flames against Local 8751, with Democratic Party mayor Thomas Menino vowing to “make sure this illegal behavior has consequences.” Ripping a page from the “red scare” playbook, the mayor especially wants the heads of Kirschbaum and Gillis, who are supported by the reformist Workers World Party (WWP), because they are a “rogue element” and “rabble rousers who cause trouble.” In a thinly veiled attempt to stoke the city’s ever-glowing embers of anti-black and anti-immigrant hostility, he also berated the workforce as “selfish people who only want to cause disruption in our city.” A City Hall aide contemptuously added that “most of these drivers did not know what was going on.”

The very opposite is true: the drivers knew the score all too well. They did not fold in the face of Veolia’s intransigence or the efforts of the USW regional leadership to squash the walkout. When the Local 8751 president tried to convince the drivers at the Readville bus depot to resume work with nothing to show for their protest by pleading that “we have to do it legally,” he was shouted down with cries of “no!” If workers over the years had confined themselves to what the bosses deem legal, as the labor bureaucrats preach, there never would have even been unions in the first place.

The school bus drivers union traces its history back four decades to the fight to integrate Boston’s public schools through busing. When these plans were defeated by an alliance of liberals in Congress and howling mobs of racists in the streets, the floodgates were opened to a nationwide assault on school desegregation, foreshadowing the rollback of hard-won civil rights for black people nationwide. (See “As Racist Mobs Rampaged, Liberals and Reformists Knifed Busing,” WV No. 921, 26 September 2008.)

At the time, the Spartacist League intervened into the struggles to defend busing as a minimal application of the elementary democratic right of black people to equality in education. We called on the integrated union movement, including the city’s bus drivers, to mobilize labor/black defense of the besieged black school children. But the WWP and Socialist Workers Party acted as lackeys for black Democratic Party liberals who sought to channel outrage over the racist backlash into calls for state intervention, spreading the illusion that the same capitalist state that murderously repressed black militants could be relied on to defend black rights. Workers World is still very much into burnishing the credentials of black Democrats, such as councilman Charles Yancey, for purportedly “fighting racism and injustice in Boston” (workers.org, 2 December 2007).

Countless defeats have resulted from hitching struggles to the Democratic Party—one of the two main parties of the class enemy. Yancey, who accompanied union officials to Veolia offices during the lockout, later announced on his Facebook page that he “DID NOT support the actions taken by the bus drivers.” He might take a different posture than the mayor, who wants to strangle Local 8751 and bring back neighborhood schools. Yet “friend of labor” Democrats are no less committed to maintaining the capitalist system of exploitation in which the roots of black oppression are lodged. Avowed socialists who are respected by their co-workers, such as Kirschbaum and Gillis, can help give militant expression to the immediate demands of a workforce. But lacking a program for the political independence of the proletariat, they cannot chart a way forward for the labor movement, much less for getting rid of the system of capitalist wage slavery altogether.

Stop Prosecution of ATU Militant!

The following letter was sent by the Partisan Defense Committee on October 28 to the Alameda County District Attorney.

The Partisan Defense Committee strongly protests the criminal charge filed by the District Attorney’s office against ATU 1555 union member George Figueroa, BART employee.

While working in Oakland as a BART station agent on June 8, Figueroa was physically accosted by an angry patron. As required by BART policy Figueroa, who sustained injury, filed an incident report for management, and also filed a report with BART police.

In the service of BART management’s public position that the unions’ concerns over safety problems at BART were a “fake issue” during contract negotiations, management sought criminal misdemeanor charges against Figueroa for allegedly making a “false report of a crime to a police officer.”

While assisting in preparing union picket line teams on the eve of the July 1 strike, Brother Figueroa was targeted by management because he is an outspoken union activist.

This bogus charge against him is all part of the attempt by BART management to intimidate transit union members during their recent labor strikes.

We demand: Drop the charge against George Figueroa now!

From the Archives of Marxism-On The Anniversary Of The Bolshevik Revolution

Workers Vanguard No. 1033	1 November 2013

From the Archives of Marxism

The Proletarian Revolution in Russia

By Louis Fraina

To mark the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution, we print below excerpts from Louis Fraina’s introduction to The Proletarian Revolution in Russia (1918). The book mainly consists of articles by Bolshevik leaders V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky that were written, as Fraina noted, “during the actual course of the Revolution,” from the overthrow of the tsar in February to the workers’ seizure of power and the birth of the Soviet state.

In 1919, Fraina and other members of a left-wing faction in the Socialist Party who were expelled for advocating Bolshevism went on to found the Communist Party of America that September. James P. Cannon, a leader of the early Communist Party and later of American Trotskyism, remarked that Fraina in that period “did more than anybody else to explain and popularize the basic program of the Russian Bolsheviks” (First Ten Years of American Communism [1962]). In later years, Fraina, writing under the name Lewis Corey, renounced Communism. But as Cannon put it, “The best part of Fraina—the young part—belongs to us.”

*   *   *

The persistence of Czarism in Russia after its historical necessity had ceased, its clinging to power after Capitalism had come into being, produced a dual political and social development. Within the shell of Czarism developed the bourgeoisie, the class of capitalists, and the proletariat,—a mature and aggressive proletariat. As the bourgeoisie developed power, the proletariat simultaneously developed its own power, while politically and officially Czarism retained ascendancy. When the shell of Czarism was burst by revolutionary action, Czarism disappeared as easily as a dream upon awakening, in violent and suggestive contrast to the painful and prolonged struggles required to overthrow the absolute monarchy in France, and in England; and the failure of the revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848. This unparalleled rapidity of accomplishment in Russia was directly and largely traceable to the development of the revolutionary proletariat.

Upon the overthrow of Czarism, the bourgeoisie and proletariat faced each other in battle array; where previous revolutions found the proletariat scattered and without decisive power, the Russian Revolution found the proletariat disciplined and inspired by traditions of revolutionary struggle, organized by the mechanism of capitalist production itself,—stronger than the bourgeoisie, and able to conquer for itself the power of the state.

This emergence of the proletariat, its independent class policy and class organizations, the Soviets, constitutes the decisive feature of the Russian Revolution,—an emergence definite and sufficiently aggressive to conquer power for the revolutionary proletariat....

As the tendency of action of the Russian proletariat was adumbrated [prefigured] in previous revolutions, so its class organizations, the Soviets, are, in general features, partially, incompletely apparent in these previous revolutions in which the proletariat instinctively tried to emerge for the conquest of power.

The revolutionary masses of the people, during the French Revolution, particularly in Paris, organized their own forms of revolutionary struggle and government, the sections and the Commune. While the average historian dwells minutely upon the action of the various parliaments and the Clubs, the sections and the Commune of the masses were of decisive importance. These sections and the Commune were not alone instruments of revolutionary action, but usurped certain functions of government, the tendency being to place all government power in the Commune, which was simply the organized masses trying to act independently of parliamentary forms and bourgeois representatives. This tendency was expressed in a more definite form in the Paris Commune of 1871, which completely dispensed with the forms and functions of the bourgeois parliamentary state, its purpose being to unite all France by means of self-governing communes, and from which Marx derived that fundamental canon of the proletarian revolution: the proletariat can not simply lay hold of the ready-made machinery of the bourgeois state, and use it for its own purposes.

The Soviets, the Councils of Workers and Peasants, are a much higher form and definite expression of this tendency of the proletarian masses to become the state. Originally created as instruments of the revolution, the Soviets have become organs of government, functioning through a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviets are revolutionary organizations of the masses; but they are more: they are forms for the creation of a new type of government, which shall supersede the bourgeois political state. Instead of being amorphous “mass organizations” as were the sections and Communes in the French Revolution, the Soviets are industrial organizations uniting the functions of industry and government. In the Soviets appears the true form of government of the proletariat, based upon the producers organized in the workshops. In the workshops lies not only the power of the workers for the revolution, but equally the groupings upon which is based the self-government of the oncoming communist society of Socialism. And the Soviets, combining temporarily political and industrial functions, are developing the forms out of which will emerge the communist, industrial “government” of the days to come. The tendency of previous revolutions is the dominant fact of the Russian Revolution.

The proletarian revolution in Russia has revealed clearly and in definite form the methods and the purposes, the action and the “state” by means of which the proletariat can conquer power and accomplish its emancipation.

The definite success of the proletarian revolution in Russia depends not alone upon the Russian masses, but much more upon the revolutionary action of the masses in the rest of Europe. The Russian Revolution cannot accomplish that which the French Revolution accomplished—wage war upon the whole of Europe. The strength and the weakness of the proletarian revolution in Russia is precisely that the other European nations are much more highly developed economically. Revolutionary France was the most advanced nation economically in Europe (except England), and this greater economic power was a source of unparalleled political and military vigor to France, making feasible a war against all of Europe. But the proletarian revolution in Russia is vulnerable to a concerted attack of European Imperialism, because the other nations of Europe can mobilize infinitely superior economic forces; simultaneously, this situation is one favorable to the Russian Revolution, since the higher stage of economic development in the other nations prepares the conditions for supplementary revolutionary action, which alone can ultimately preserve the Russian Revolution. Monarchic Europe could not produce a revolution in accord with that in France; modern Europe can produce a proletarian revolution in accord with that in Russia. The proletarian revolution in Russia requires and struggles for the Social Revolution in Europe. The revolution of the proletariat is an international revolution.

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Folk Blues Revival Night- The 1963 American Folk Blues Festival- A CD Review

CD Review

American Folk Blues Festival, various artists, Optimism Records, 1981
Let’s go by the numbers, the musical year numbers for my generation, the generation of ’68. We all came of musical age, more or less with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee in the mid-1950s when the music was hot, we were naïve (or worse), and just let it go from there. After a musical counter-revolution in the late 1950s where we put up with some awful Bobby Vee/Fabian/Johnny Somebody stuff we stepped right into the hard rock and roll of the Rolling Stones and later groups that based their early work on the blues, the American- etched blues. Go figure.

Yes, go figure. Go figure that much of early rock and roll was derived from the blues, city blues mainly, Chicago mainly, but those self-same city blues were derived from you guessed it, the old country blues from down in the Delta, the North Carolina Piedmont and the hills and hollows of Appalachia where all the hip Chicago cats (Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Well, etc.,) came from. All of this is just around about way to pay tribute to the roots of our generational genre.

But more than that it was a question of revivals, here the American Folk Blues Festival of 1963, which was indirectly brought about by our generation of ’68’s search for roots to explain our angst and alienation, including the search for authentic roots music. See once rock and roll hit our brains like a, well like an atomic bomb,we lose sight of where the music came from. More importantly what happened to those who created the music that once was the staple of hip music. Yes, the boys (mainly) were still around in places like Maxwell Street in Chicago or down picking cotton in the Delta or holed up in some skid row hotel just waiting to be “discovered”.

That may not be the exact genesis of the folk blues revival when that movement hit high stride in the Newport folk festivals of the early 1960s reintroducing a young audience to the likes of Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James and Son House but it will do here. And of course the artists on this CD-the likes of Muddy Waters, Lonnie Johnson, Victoria Spivey (a personal favorite on this CD) and legendary producer and writer Willie Dixon. This is history, maybe not world-shaking history but a very important slice of the people’s history. Listen up.

***On The Nature Of Love-For Kat Richards (and her unnamed Bicycle Boy), Adamsville High School Class of 1964

Peter Paul Markin comment:
For those astute enough to recognize a fundamental flaw in the dedication I will attend to your hurts in a moment. For those who are not insanely raider red-bled or who don’t recognize the “flaw” in the dedication you can pass this introductory comment by and go straight to the “moral” of this little sketch. As for those who do faintly recognize something wrong in the heavens an explanation, an unnecessary explanation as far as I am concerned, is in order.

Yes, one thousand times yes, I am dedicating this piece to a member of the class of 1964 from our hated cross-town rivals, the blue and white of Adamsville High. I can feel free to do so in the knowledge that our beloved raider-bled red and black trounced her fellow classmates in that glorious senior year Thanksgiving football game in 1963. So for just this minute, or as long as it takes to tell the story, all that business about “never the twain shall meet” and “don’t cross the line” (that Boyles Avenue dividing line that separated North Adamsville from the blue and white heathens of Adamsville) is off. I have called a truce, an armed truce considering the adversary’s usual unscrupulous ways, for this one. I think the story that this “innocent” woman who fell afoul of that alluded to line by, as far as I know, no evil design on her part is worth that consideration. Okay.
*******
I want to speak of love. No, not the coquettish, coy, cream puff, arch, Shakespearean wordplay, rhymed couplet, sonnet love (or whoever really wrote those things, I suspect Kit Marlowe, but we will leave that little academic pursuit for another time). Mere pretty words. Soft ashes to the bitter tongue and blown to some ocean wind with no more substance than the air that carries those cobbled sugars.

Neither shall I speak of rarified, sense and sensibility-driven, ethereal Robert Browning bon mots to one Ms. (formerly Miss) Elizabeth Barrett. Mere Victorian claptrap. High- tide suppression of the finer instincts beneath many bustles and bows. And worthy of that same ashen, sooted air send-off. Nor will I utter one word of the mock-heroic, blood-drenched deeds done in the name of love, the love of the face that launched a thousand ships, Helen of Troy. Or Rowena, Rebecca, Rosamon, hell, even Betty and their sighing faint airs and perfumed handkerchiefs pinned death-prone to lanced braveheart chests. Humankind has had more than its fair share of such epic, red earth-bleeding battles, although not always done to satisfy lust for a woman.

And you should blush, you really should, if you expect me to hype roses sent, valentine reds or off-occasion whites, candies (are you kidding me that went out with garter belts and spats and with the life and death struggle slim down diets, get real) ordered, and fine dinners, (with wines and candle lights even) purchased as tokens of love.

Today I wish to speak of love. Simple, coming-of-age-love, plebeian love, but love that will now transcend all the noisy clamor of the above quizzed sentiments. Hear me out, it will not take long. Actually, the details are minimal. Adamsville South Elementary School down in the Adamsville projects classmate, Kat Richards, related a story to me about the old days, our 1950s old days, when coming-of-age love was handled more discreetly, with more naiveté and with a bit more pathos than today.

In those old days Kat had a boyfriend, unnamed, maybe unnamable, but unnamed to me for her own reasons, honorable I hope but her own reasons. Let’s call him Bicycle Boy because a bicycle figures into the story. This lad lived in Centerville a couple of towns over from Adamsville going toward Mechanicsville out on Route 3. Fair enough. Somehow, and the details really don’t matter, there was a conflict, a mother conflict I presume or older sister, who knows, and it was necessary for the pair to meet clandestinely.

And here is where the thing turns epic. In order to see his beloved he biked from Centerville to Mechanicsville, no mean task given the hills and miles that separated the two towns. Not just any part of Mechanicville though but the part directly across from the Adamsville projects by the Squaw River Bridge. And from there he swam, swam through the tide shifts and eddies, swam through the freighter-brought fetid, oil-slicked waves, swam as if his very life depended on it, to meet his love on a scrappy, shell-strewn beach on the other side. More importantly, after their rendezvous he had to swim back across that same treacherous channel.

Know this. When someone speaks pretty sonnet love words dismiss him or her out of hand. When someone speaks of heavenly love cast a jaded eye his or her way. When someone offers to die, and gladly, for battle love laugh in his or her face. And if someone tries to piece you off with some tasty tidbits or fragrant smells start walking the other way. For now, and for all cyberspace eternity, you have heard the siren song of real love.

***Those Oldies But Goodies-Folk Branch-Tell Me Utah Phillips Have You Seen “Starlight On The Rails?”

A YouTube film clip of Rosalie Sorrels (a dear friend of Utah's) performing Starlight On The Rails.


STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS

(Bruce Phillips)


I can hear the whistle blowing

High and lonesome as can be

Outside the rain is softly falling

Tonight its falling just for me



Looking back along the road I've traveled

The miles can tell a million tales

Each year is like some rolling freight train

And cold as starlight on the rails



I think about a wife and family

My home and all the things it means

The black smoke trailing out behind me

Is like a string of broken dreams



A man who lives out on the highway

Is like a clock that can't tell time

A man who spends his life just rambling

Is like a song without a rhyme



Copyright Strike Music

@train @lonesome

**********

“Hey, Boston Blarney, lend me a dollar so I can go into Gallup and get some Bull Durham and, and, a little something for the head,” yelled out San Antonio Slim over the din of the seemingly endless line of Southern Pacific freight trains running by just then, no more than a hundred yards from the arroyo“jungle” camp that Boston Blarney had stumbled into coming off the hitchhike highway, the Interstate 40 hitchhike highway, a few days before. Pretending that he could not hear over the din Boston Blarney feigned ignorance of the request and went about washing up the last of the dishes, really just tin pans to pile the food on, metal soup cans for washing it down, and “stolen” plastic utensils to put that food to mouth, stolen for those enthralled by the lore of the road, from the local McDonald’s hamburger joint. Like that corporation was going to put out an all- points bulletin for the thieves, although maybe they would if they knew it was headed to the confines of the local hobo (bum, tramp, someone told him once of the hierarchical distinctions but they seemed to be distinctions without a difference when he heard them) jungle.



That washing up chore fell to Boston Blarney as the “new boy” in camp and before he had even gotten his bedroll off his sorely-tried back coming off that hard dust Interstate 40 hitchhike road, it was made abundantly clear by the lord of the manor, the mayor of the jungle, Juke Duke, that he was more than welcome to stay for a while, more than welcome to share a portion of the unnamable stew (unnamable, if for no other reason than there were so many unknown ingredients in the mix that to name it would require an act of congress, a regular hobo confab, to do so, so nameless it is), and more than welcome to spread his bedroll under the conforms of the jungle night sky but that he was now, officially, to hold the honorific; chief bottle washer, pearl-diver to the non-hobo brethren.



So Boston Blarney washes away, and stacks, haphazardly stacks as befits the ramshackle nature of the place, the makeshift dinnerware in a cardboard box to await the next meal as a now slightly perturbed Slim comes closer, along with his bindle buddy, Bender Ben, to repeat the request in that same loud voice, although the last Southern Pacific train is a mere echo in the distance darkening Western night and a regular voiced-request would have been enough, enough for Boston Blarney. This though is the minute that Boston Blarney has been dreading ever since he got into camp, the touch for dough minute. Now see Boston Blarney, hell, William Bradley, Billy Bradley to his friends, on the road, and off. That Boston Blarney thing was put on him by Joe-Boy Jim the first night in camp when Joe-Boy, who was from Maine, from Maine about a million years ago from the look of him, noticed Billy’s Boston accent and his map of Ireland looks and, as is the simple course of things in the jungle that name is now Billy’s forever moniker to the moniker-obsessed residents of the Gallup, New Mexico, yah, that's one of those square states out in the West, jungle, although don’t go looking for a postal code for it, the camp may not be there by the time you figure that out.



Now here are the Boston Blarney facts of life, jungled-up facts of life is that no way is he going to be able to beg off that requested dollar with some lame excuse about being broke, broke broke. (by the way I will use this Boston Blarney moniker throughout just in case anybody, anybody Billy does not want to know of his whereabouts, is looking for him. In any case that moniker is better, much better, than the Silly Willy nickname that he carried with him through most of his public school career put on his by some now nameless girl when rhyming simon nicknames were all the rage back in seventh grade.) See everybody knows that San Antonio Slim, who belies his moniker by being about five feet, six inches tall and by weighing in at about two hundred and sixty, maybe, two-seventy so he either must have gotten that name a long time ago, or there is some other story behind its origins, has no dough, no way to get dough, and no way to be holding out on anyone for dough for the simple reason that he has not left the camp in a month so he is a brother in need. Boston Blarney is another case though, even if he is just off the hitchhike highway road, his clothes still look kind of fresh, his looks look kind of fresh (being young and not having dipped deeply in the alcohol bins, for one thing) and so no one, not Slim anyway, is going to buy a broke, broke story.

The problem, the problem Boston Blarney already knows is going to be a problem is that if he gives Slim the dollar straight up every other ‘bo, bum, tramp, and maybe even some self-respecting citizens are going to put the touch on him. He learned, learned the hard way that it does not take long to be broke, broke on the road by freely giving dough to every roadster Tom, Dick, and Harry you run into. “Here, all I have is fifty cents, until my ship comes in,” says Boston Blarney and Slim, along with his “enforcer”, Bender Ben, seem pleased to get that, like that is how much they probably figured they could get anyway. Blarney also knows that he was not the first stop in the touch game otherwise old hard-hand veteran Slim would have bitten harder.



Well, that’s over, for now Blarney says to himself softly out loud, a habit of the single file hitchhike road time when one begins to talk, softly or loudly, to oneself to while away the long side of the road hours when you are stuck between exits in places like Omaha or Davenport on the long trek west. And just as softly to himself he starts to recount where his has been, where he hasn’t been, and the whys of each situation as he unrolls his bedroll to face another night out in the brisk, brisk even for a New England hearty and hale regular brisk boy, great west star-less October night. First things first though, no way would he have hit the road this time, this time after a couple of years off the road, if THAT man, that evil man, that devil deal-making man, one Richard Milhous Nixon, common criminal, had not just vacated, a couple of months back, the Presidency of the United States and had still been in office. After that event, after that hell-raising many months of hubris though, it seemed safe, safe as anything could be in these weird times, to get on with your life. Still, every once in a while, when he was in a city or town, big or small, large enough to have sidewalk newspaper vending machines he would check, no, double check to see if the monster had, perhaps, “risen” again. But Blarney’ luck had held since he took off from Boston in late August on his latest trip west in search of ...



Suddenly, he yelled out, no cried out, “Joyel.” Who was he kidding. Sure getting rid of “Tricky Dick” was part of it, but the pure truth was “woman trouble” like he didn’t know that from the minute he stepped on to the truck depot at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike in Cambridge and hailed down his first truck. And you knew it too, if you knew Billy Bradley. And if it wasn’t woman trouble, it could have been, would have been, should have been, use the imperative is always woman trouble, unless it was just Billy hubris. Nah, it was woman trouble, chapter and verse. Chapter twenty-seven, verse one, always verse one. And that verse one for Joyel, lately, had been when are we going to settle down from this nomadic existence. And that Joyel drumbeat was getting more insistent since things like the end of the intense American involvement in Vietnam, the demise of one common criminal Richard Milhous Nixon, and the ebbing, yes, face it, the ebbing of the energy for that newer world everybody around them was starting to feel and had decided to scurry back to graduate school, to parents’ home, or to marriage just like in the old days, parent old days.



Blarney needed to think it through, or if not think it through then to at least see if he still had the hitchhike road in him. The plan was to get west (always west, always west, America west) to the Pacific Ocean and see if that old magic wanderlust still held him in its thrall. So with old time hitchhike bedroll washed, basics wrapped within, some dollars (fewer that old Slim would have suspected, if he had suspected much) in his pocket, some longing for Joyel in his heart, honestly, and some longing that he could not speak of, not right that minute anyway, he wandered to that Cambridge destiny point. His plan with the late start, late hitchhike start anyway, was to head to Chicago (a many times run, almost a no thought post-rookie run at one point) then head south fast from there to avoid the erratic rockymountainhigh early winter blast and white-out blocked-in problems. Once south he wanted to pick up Interstate 40 somewhere in Texas or New Mexico and then, basically because it mostly parallels that route “ride the rails,” the Southern Pacific rails into Los Angeles from wherever he could pick up a freight. Although he never previously had much luck with this blessed, folkloric, mystical, old-timey, Wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World, IWW) method of travel a couple of guys, gypsy davey kind of guys, not Wobblie guys, told him about it and that drove part of his manic west desire this time.



As he eased himself down inside his homemade bedroll ready for the night, ready in case tomorrow is the day west, the day west that every jungle camp grapevine keeps yakking about until you get tired of hearing about it and are just happy to wait in non-knowledge, but ready, he started thinking things out like he always did before the sleep of the just knocked him out. Yes sir, chuckling, just waiting for the ride the rails west day that he had been waiting for the past several days and which the jungle denizens, with their years of arcane intricate knowledge, useful travel knowledge said “could be any day now,” caught him reminiscing about the past few weeks and, truth to tell, started to see, see a little where Joyel was coming from, the point that she was incessantly trying to make about there now being a sea-change in the way they (meaning him and her, as well as humanity in general) had to look at things if they were to survive. But, see if she had only, only not screamed about it in those twenty-seven different ways she had of analyzing everything, he might have listened, listened a little. Because whatever else she might have, or have not been, sweet old Joyel, was a lightning rod for every trend, every social and political trend that had come down the left-wing path over the past decade or so.



Having grown up in New York City she had imbibed the folk protest music movement early in the Village, had been out front in the civil rights and anti-war struggle early, very early (long before Billy had). She had gone“street” left when others were still willing to go half-way (or more) with LBJ, or later, all the way with Bobby Kennedy (as Billy had). So if she was sounding some kind of retreat then it was not just that she was tired (although that might be part of it) but that she “sensed” an “evil” wind of hard times and apathy were ahead. She was signaling, and this is where they had their screaming matches, that the retreat was the prelude to recognition that we had been defeated, no mauled, as she put in one such match.



So, as Billy got drowsier from having taken too many rays in the long hard sun day and was now fading nicely under the cooling western night he started connecting the dots, or at least some dots, as he thought about the hitchhike road of the past several weeks. He, worse, started to see omens where before he just took them as the luck of the road, the tough hitchhike roads. Like how hard it was to get that first ride out of Boston, Cambridge really, at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike down by the Charles River where many trucks, many cross-country traveling trucks begin their journey from a huge depot after being loaded up from some railroad siding. A couple of years ago all you had to do was ask where the trucker was heading, whether he wanted company, and if yes you were off. Otherwise on to the next truck, and success. Now, on his very first speak to, the trucker told him, told him in no uncertain terms, that while he could sure use the “hippie” boy‘s company (made him think of his own son he said) on the road to Chicago the company (and, as Billy found out later, really the insurance company) had made it plain, adamantly plain that no “passengers” were allowed in the vehicle under penalty of immediate firing. And with that hefty mortgage, two kids in college, and a wife who liked to spent money that settled the issue. He left it at, “But good luck hippie boy, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”



He finally got his ride, to Cleveland, but from there to Chicago it was nothing but short, suspicious rides by odd-ball guys, including one whose intent was sexual and who when rebuffed left Billy off in Podunk, Indiana, late at night and with no prospects of being seen by truck or car traffic until daybreak. Oh yah, and one guy, one serious guy, wanted to know if anybody had told him, told sweet-souled Billy Bradley, that he looked a lot like Charles Manson (and in fact there was a little resemblance as he himself noticed later after taking a well-deserved, and needed, bath, although about half the guys in America, and who knows maybe the world in those days, looked a little like Charles Manson, except for those eyes, those evil eyes of Manson’s that spoke of some singularity of purpose, not good).



And thinking about that guy’s comment, a good guy actually, who knew a lot about the old time “beats” (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and had met mad man saint Gregory Corso in New York City), and for old times’ sake had picked Billy up got Billy thinking about a strange event back in Cambridge about a year before. Although he and Joyel had lived together, off and on, for several years there were periods, one of those chapter twenty-seven, verse one periods when they needed to get away from each other for one reason or another. That had been one of those times. So, as was the usual routine, he looked in the Real Paper for some kind of opening in a communal setting (in short, cheap rent, divided chores, and plenty of partying, or whatever, especially that whatever part). One ad he noticed, one Cambridge-based ad looked very interesting. He called the number, spoke to one person who handed him off to the woman who was handling the roommate situation and after a description of the situation, of the house, and of the people then residing there was told, told nonchalantly, to send his resume for their inspection. Resume, Cambridge, a commune, a resume. Christ! He went crazy at first, but then realized that it was after all Cambridge and you never know about some of those types. He quickly found a very convivial communal situation, a non-resume-seeking communal situation thank you, in down and out Brighton just across the river from hallowed Cambridge but at more than one of those whatever parties that came with this commune he never failed to tell this story, and get gales of laughter in response.



But that was then. And here is where connecting the dots and omens came together. On the road, as in politics, you make a lot of quick friends who give you numbers, telephones numbers, address numbers, whatever numbers, in case you are stuck, or need something, etc. A smart hitchhiker will keep those numbers safely and securely on him for an emergency, or just for a lark. One night Billy got stuck, stuck bad in Moline and called up a number, a number for a commune, he had been given, given just a few weeks before by a road friend, a young guy who gave his name as Injun Joe whom he had traveled with for a couple of days. He called the number, told of his plight and received the following answer-“What’s Injun Joe’s last name, where did you meet him, where do know him from?”Not thinking anything of it Billy said he didn’t know Injun Joe’s last name and described the circumstances that he met Injun Joe under. No sale, no soap, no-go came the reply. Apparently, according to the voice over the telephone, they knew Injun Joe, liked him, but the commune had been “ripped” off recently by “guests” and so unless you had been vetted by the FBI, or some other governmental agency, no dice. That voice did tell Billy to try the Salvation Army or Traveler’s Aid. Thanks, brother. Yah, so Joyel was not totally off the wall, not totally at all.



And then in that micro-second before sound sleep set in Billy went on the counter-offensive. What about those few good days in Austin when a girl he met, an ordinary cheer-leader, two fingers raised Longhorn Texas girl, who was looking to break-out of that debutante Texas thing, let him crash on her floor (that is the way Billy wants that little story told anyway). Or when that Volkswagen bus, that blessed Volkswagen bus stopped for him just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in, as Thomas Wolfe called them, one of the square western states that he now still finds himself imprisoned in, and it was like old times until they got to Red Rock where they wanted to camp for a while (hell, they were probably still there but he needed to move on, move on ocean west).



But Red Rock was more than some old time hippie community, including passing the dope freely. Red Rock was where he met Running Bear Smith, who claimed to be a full Apache but who knows(and where did the Smith part come in).Now Running Bear was full of mystery, full of old-time stories about the pride of the dog soldiers, about his ancestors, about the fight against the ravages and greed of the white man. And about the shamanic ceremonial that he learned from his grandfather (his father had been killed, killed in some undisclosed manner when he was very young, about three), about dancing with the spirits of by-gone days, and dancing he added, or Billy added, under the influence of communion wafer peyote buttons. Several days ago, or rather nights, just a few days before he encamped in this broken down jungle Running Bear and he had “walked with the ‘Thunder Gods,’” as Running Bear described it. Billy described it somewhat differently, after the buttons took effect, and Running Bear stoked the camp fire with additional wood to make a great blazing flame that jumped off the wall of the cavern adjacent to where they were camping out. The shadows of the flames made “pictures” on the cavern walls, pictures that told a story, told Billy a story that one man could fight off many demons, could count later on many friends coming to his aid, and that the demons could be vanquished. Was that the flame story or the buttons, or Billy’s retort to Joyel? All he knew was that Running Bear’s “magic” was too strong for him and he began “smelling”the ocean some several hundred miles away. Time to leave, time to get to Gallup down the road, and the hobo jungle wait for the ride on the rails.



Just then, just as he was closing accounts on the past several weeks by remembering his reactions on entering this ill-disposed jungle that was in no way like the friendly, brotherly, sisterly Volkswagen encampment at Red Rock, old-time stew ball “Wyoming Coyote” yelled, yelled almost in his ear, although Billy knew that he was not yelling at him personally, but that the Southern Pacific was coming through at 4:00AM. The Southern Pacific going clear through to Los Angeles. Billy’s heart pounded. Here he was on the last leg of his journey west, he would be in L.A. by tomorrow night, or early the next morning at the latest. But the heart-pounding was also caused by fear, fear of that run to catch that moving freight train boxcar just right or else maybe fall by the wayside.



This was no abstract fear, some childhood mother-said-no fear, but real enough. On the way down from Chicago, after being enthralled by the gypsy davies talk of “riding the rails” he had decide that he needed to try it out first in order to make sure that he could do it, do it right when a train was moving. Sure he had caught a few trains before but that was always in the yards, with the trains stationary, and anyway as a child of the automobile age, unlike most of the denizens of the jungle he was more comfortable on the hitchhike road than the railroad. So, as practice, he had tried to catch an Illinois Central out of Decatur about a half-mile out just as the train started to pick up steam but before it got under full steam and was not catchable. He ran for it, almost didn’t make it, and cursed, cursed like hell those coffin nails that he smoked, and swore to give them up. So he was afraid, righteously afraid, as he fell asleep.



At 3:30AM someone jolted Billy out of his sleep. He woke with a start fearing someone was trying to rob him, or worst, much worst in a grimy jungle camp trying to sexually assault him, some toothless, piss-panted old drunken geezer caught up in some memory fog. Damn, it was only San Antonio Slim shaking him to wake him up for the Southern Pacific coming, just in case it came a little early, although according to the jungle lore it came on time, with maybe a minute or so off either way. Billy asked for a cigarette and Slim rolled him a choice Bull Durham so smartly that Billy blinked before he realized what Slim had produced. He lit up, inhaled the harsh cigarette smoke deeply, and started to put his gear quickly in order, and give himself a little toilet as well. Suddenly Slim yelled out get ready, apparently he could hear the trains coming down the tracks from several miles away. Nice skill.



The few men (maybe seven or eight) who were heading west that night (not, by the way, Slim he was waiting on a Phoenix local, or something like that maybe, thought Billy, a Valhalla local) started jogging toward the tracks, the tracks no more than one hundred yards from the jungle. The moon, hidden for most of the night under cloud cover, made an appearance as the sound of the trains clicking on the steel track got louder. Billy stopped for a second, pulled something from his back pocket, a small weather-beaten picture of Joyel and him taken in Malibu a few years before in sunnier days, and pressed it into his left hand. He could now see the long-lined train silhouetted against the moonlit desert sands. He started running a little more quickly as the train approached and as he looked for an open boxcar. He found one, grabbed on to its side for all he was worth with one hand then with the other and yanked himself onto the floor rolling over a couple of times as he did so. Once he settled in he again unclasped his left hand and looked, looked intensely and at length, at the now crumbled and weather-beaten picture focusing on Joyel’s image. And had Joyel thoughts, hard-headed Joyel thoughts in his head “riding the rails” on the way to the city of angels.

***A Master Of The American Historical Novel- Gore Vidal's 1876 (Hail To The Thief)

BOOK REVIEW

Hail To The Thief

1876: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1976

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible.

That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the late old bourgeois historical novelist and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics were somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period (I don’t think he ever got over being related to Jacqueline Kennedy) he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

After the events of the recent past it may not be inappropriate to look back to an earlier time when another presidential election was seriously in dispute. No, not the hanging chads of Florida in 2000 but the granddaddy of bourgeois electoral boondoggles with the Electoral College victory (but not popular vote) of Ohio Governor Rutherfraud B. Hayes over Governor Samuel Tilden of New York in 1876. Vidal, as is his style, combines fictional characters with the makings and doings of real characters who brought the American experience to the brink of another 'civil war' just shortly after the end of the truly bloody one that preserved the union and abolished slavery in 1865. He does this by using a literary man, a long time American expatriate journalist (who else, right?) the fictional Charles Schuyler to narrate the scenes (and who also narrated Vidal's novel Burrback in the early part of the 19^th century). To add motive to his literary efforts and carry the story line along, dear Charles, is desperate for Governor Tilden to win the presidency so that he can return to Europe in some style as an American ambassador to France under a Tilden administration.

Along the way brother Schuyler (and his noble, but penniless, widowed daughter Emma) brings into focus the beginnings of the dominance of the “robber barons”, up close and personal, that we have heard about from our high school history tests, during the last part of the 19th century. Interestingly, this novel is populated with plenty of characters who came of political age during the immediate Civil War period and who populated the Lincoln administration or the various Union military commands of the Civil War period. Gone are those political figures like Seward, Chase and obviously Lincoln who actually led that political fight. This is the age of the upstart General Grant, for better or worst.

This is, moreover, a period that had more than its fair share of political graft and boondoggles. Seemingly half the book is spend explaining why some politician be he a Grant Administration official, Roscoe Conkling, James Blaine or some other ‘angel of mercy’ should not be behind bars. Today’s politicians seem tame compared to these giants of out-front, in-your-face corruption. In the end, one is not really surprised when the America presidency goes on sale to the highest bidder- it’s just another day of politics. All of this with the American Centennial celebration as a backdrop. Fortunately Vidal tells this tale with some wit and some kind of hope that all will work out for the best- in short this American Republic the “last, best hope of mankind” will muddle through. Remember the 2000 presidential election though as a sobering thought about how far we have not come. That undemocratic but decisive Electoral College is still there, for starters. More on Vidal’s works later.

***Out Of The Be-Bop Retro-Jazz Age 2000s Night- Woody Allen’s “Midnight In Paris”

DVD Review

Midnight In Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Rachael McAdams, written and directed by Woody Allen, Sony Picture Classics, 2011
Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda (no last name needed for Jazz Age aficionados, right?), Cole Porter, T.S. Eliot, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, hell even Djuana Barnes are names from the Jazz Age and the American post- World War I expatriate night that get bandied about in Woody Allen’s 2011 comedic effort, Midnight In Paris. There were plenty of other names dropped as well but the above popped out in memory’s eye and serve my point. This film is a paean to that by-gone age just far enough back for Woody (and me) to not have been splashed by the Jazz Age karma but wishing, wishing like crazy, we could have lived at that time –in that city, Paris, and been washed by the spectacular antics and struggles that went on there to create a modern literary and cultural world. And in the end that is Woody’s point, as he has one of his throw-back jazz Age characters pine for an even earlier time- the last quarter of the 19th century-La Belle Epogue. Nice spin, Woody.

But to the plot that brings this whole thing together in a magic realistic way and without being too ham-handed on the “moral”. Woody (oops) Gil (played with some Woody-like physical and expressive mannerism by Owen Wilson) is a thoroughly modern frustrated Hollywood screenwriter who yearns to write the great American novel, or at least something other than the drivel that passes for language in most of his screenwriting. He and his fiancée, Inez (played by Rachael McAdams), are in Paris on a lark before getting married. Gil loves Paris, his version of Paris, the Paris of the American ex –pat 1920s Jazz Age when the great creative spirits of the early 20th century held forth and lit up the cultural post-war wasteland night. Inez is a little, no, a lot more bourgeois, and just wants Gil to keep making the kale so they can afford that high-end La-La land lifestyle. This will not be a match made in heaven, no question.

Gil though through cinematic magical realism finds his way back to the Paris of the 1920s around midnight each night and from there is able to find his true self, or what he thinks is his true self. Naturally a women (Pablo Picasso’s, mistress, or one of them) is there to goad him along but also to pose the question about what craving for earlier unattainable times mean. In the end Gil is “liberated” from Inez (she was two-timing him anyway with some pedantic prof) and can walk the rainy 2010s streets of Paris and really make his literary breakthrough. This is one of Woody’s better recent efforts. Proof. A person whom I respect very much as a cinematic aficionado said this is the first Woody Allen film that she could sit through to the end and wish that it didn’t end. High praise indeed.

On The Anniversary Of The Bolshevik Revolution- The Great 20^th Century Revolutionary Leon Trotsky 

 

Markin comment:

Below this general introduction is another addition to the work of creating a new international working class organization-a revolutionary one fit of the the slogan in the headline.

Markin comment (repost from September 2010):

Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
**********
The Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist Movement by the Editors of Fourth International-New York, November 16-19, 1944
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Written: November 16, 1944.
First Published:November, 1944
Source:Fourth International, New York, December 1944, Vol. 5, No. 12, pages 356-60
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido and David Walters, December, 2005
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskism On-Line, 2006. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the address of this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.

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With clenched fists upraised and defiant voices confidently singing the International , 400 delegates and visitors closed the four day convention of the Socialist Workers Party held November 16-19 in New York City. This was the Eleventh Convention in the sixteen-year history of the American Trotskyist movement. A number of unique features make this national gathering outstanding.

This was the second convention since Leon Trotsky, founder and inspirer of the world Trotskyist movement, was murdered by one of Stalin’s hired assassins. It was the second convention since we were deprived of the genius of Trotsky’s Marxist appraisal and analysis of world events, his wise counsel, his inspiring leadership. In addition, we were deprived at this convention of the guidance and participation of the outstanding leaders of the American Trotskyist movement. As a consequence of a conspiracy hatched by Roosevelt and Tobin in the summer of 1941, they were put behind prison bars on the eve of U. S. entry into the war.

The convention was, therefore, expressive of a double test the party has undergone: the testing of the party’s temper under conditions of capitalist persecution; the testing of the party cadres, their ability to carry forward the work of the party in the absence of the imprisoned leadership and to supply the necessary ideological and organizational guidance to the vanguard movement for the Socialist liberation of mankind.

How the party met this test was summarized in the Organization Report to the convention by Comrade Stein, Acting National Secretary, as follows:

“The imprisonment of our 18 comrades confronted the party with its most serious test. Included among the prisoners were the outstanding leaders of the party—its National Secretary, Labor Secretary, Chairman of the National Committee, editors of the press, New York organizer, Minneapolis organizer, and others—all comrades with many years of experience in the revolutionary movement behind them. Comrades who occupied key posts in the party organization and in its leadership. By striking this blow at us the conspirators in Washington hoped to paralyze our will and our ability to struggle. They calculated that this imprisonment would not merely decapitate the party, but also terrorize it.

“But they failed to accomplish their purpose, by our tenacity and hard work we frustrated the aims of Roosevelt, Tobin and Co. We turned the blow of the imprisonment into a party victory. The Minneapolis case—the imprisonment of the 18—symbolized our party banner. We raised it high as the banner of uncompromising Trotskyist struggle against capitalism, against imperialist war, and for a socialist society. This was no banner for faint-hearts and cowards to flock to. But many revolutionary militants did rally to this banner and joined our party. Our recruitment has been greater since the imprisonment than in any comparative previous period.

“How and why was this possible?

“Because we’ve always been entirely free of illusions about capitalism and what it has in store for us. The imprisonment did not come as an unexpected blow. What has capitalism to offer a revolutionist except frame up and persecution? We knew this when we first came into the revolutionary movement. We knew this when we joined it to be participants in a life-and-death struggle. But we also knew that this fight is the only fight worth the sacrifice of one’s freedom and even one’s life.

“Our party was not caught unawares. Through years of preparatory work we steeled a cadre capable of assuming the responsible tasks of the imprisoned comrades and carrying on the work of the party with devotion and confidence. The substitute leadership did not come out of nowhere. They are no apparatus appointees. They are all comrades who have distinguished themselves by their work in the revolutionary movement for many years. They were not imposed upon the party but came into their positions naturally, as a matter of course. And this is how the party accepted them, placing full confidence in the substitute leadership and displaying a magnificent spirit of cooperation. Not for a moment was there the least sign of jitteriness or panic in the party ranks following the imprisonment. The party as a whole remained steadfast throughout and confident of its own strength and ability to carry on.

“The substitute leadership was assembled from various parts of the country. A number of the comrades in the substitute leadership hardly knew each other except that they had met at national party gatherings every now and then. Very few of us had had the opportunity of working together for any period of time. But we were united by a common program, which is the firmest of all bonds. We were united in the determination to demonstrate to the whole world the vitality of our party. We were united by the common training we had received in the same school of Bolshevism. That is why we could work so harmoniously, not only when there was unanimity on questions, but also whenever differences arose over policy or tactics.

“We were always mindful of our responsibility to the party and to the world Trotskyist movement, a responsibility which demanded that differences be resolved in a democratic way by majority vote rather than by the method of factional struggle, personal recriminations, etc. In a word, we functioned in the true spirit of a collective leadership where the collectivity gives greater strength and greater wisdom to each individual. This is, after all, the true meaning of the Bolshevik party. It is only through the party that a worker finds strength and capacity to struggle, that he finds the wisdom with which to carry on his struggle most ably and most successfully.”

Temper of Convention

The temper of the convention, evident from the first session, was likewise reflected in the attendance figures. While the regular delegates representing the branches throughout the country numbered only 56, with 24 alternate delegates, in addition to the New York visitors some 250 comrades came, on their own slender resources and despite transportation difficulties, from states as distant as California, Washington, Minnesota, etc., thus demonstrating their devotion to the party.

Conventions are the truest expression, in a concentrated form, of the party’s actual condition. This is certainly true of the Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist movement which was, in this sense, a demonstration of a young, vigorous, serious party whose enthusiastic membership is rooted in the country’s basic mass production industries.

The party activists gathered to draw a balance sheet of the work done during the two years that had elapsed since the previous convention; hard work which produced some not inconsiderable achievements. They had worked with might and main to rouse the labor movement against the threat of the Smith “Gag” Act and in behalf of the 18 who were the first to be railroaded to the penitentiary under this infamous law. As a result some 400 trade unions, Negro organizations and other labor and fraternal bodies representing approximately 4,000,000 workers came to the support of the Civil Rights Defense Committee in its struggle to free the 18 and to revoke the Smith “Gag” Law.

Through the unflagging efforts of the party membership, The Militant was enlarged from four to six pages, and circulated among ever broader layers of worker-readers and subscribers. Equally widespread was the literature relating to the Minneapolis trial of the Trotskyist: Socialism on Trial , by James P. Cannon, a pamphlet containing his testimony at the trial; In Defense of Socialism , a pamphlet with Goldman’s speech for the defense; and Why We Are in Prison , with the farewell speeches of the defendants. These three excellent pamphlets, together with the CRDC pamphlet on the biographies of the 18, presented not only the record of this historic trial but the most timely type of literature for revolutionary Socialism that could be offered to militant workers. Through them tens of thousands of American proletarians have become familiarized with the case and the basic issues involved: Marxist opposition to imperialist war, the advocacy of revolutionary Socialism and the struggle for the establishment of the Workers and Farmers Government in the United States. These and other important achievements were recorded by the delegates to the Eleventh Convention of the American Trotskyist movement.

The convention met under the inspiration of achievement; armed with confidence and imbued with the awareness of great opportunities ahead. These opportunities are both explicit and implicit in the altered objective situation, this long-awaited change which is coming after the long, hard years of isolation amid triumphant reaction. It was during these years that the Trotskyist had prepared, persevered and girded themselves for action. The hour is now approaching when the viability and power of Trotskyism will be demonstrated under conditions working not against but in favor of the revolution. It was in this spirit that the convention proceeded to its first and main job, that of hammering out the political line for the period ahead.

International Standpoint

For Marxists this line is never nationalist but invariably internationalist in character. Marxists arrive at their political line on the basis of the closest, all-sided examination of the interplay of class forces on the world arena and in the light of the inner logic of the development of these forces. In the last analysis this is what determines the political tasks they set themselves, the slogans they raise, the immediate tactic they undertake, and so on. This, we repeat, was the point of departure for the convention. It started with an examination of the world situation.

Our confidence in the correctness of our program had never for a moment faltered. Our program had been vindicated time and again, but, unfortunately, hitherto only in the negative. That is to say, the workers led by the traditional parties of the Second and Third Internationals were made to suffer defeat upon catastrophic defeat in one country after another. Each time the workers paid a terrible price for the successive defeats because their treacherous leaders departed from the program of revolutionary Marxism, trampling underfoot their false pledges to lead the fight for Socialism. Thanks to Social Democratic and Stalinist misleader-ship and sellouts, capitalism was given another breathing spell and was enabled to temporarily reestablish its equilibrium in society.

But so decrepit, so thoroughly rotten is this system that it could do nothing with this new lease on life, this borrowed time, but to plunge the peoples of the world into another holocaust. No sooner had the internal convulsions of capitalism been overcome through fascist barbarism (as in Germany and 1taly) or by means of “People’s Front” treachery (as in France) or through a combination of both (as in Spain); no sooner was this accomplished than the inter-imperialist conflicts of the most violent nature commenced. And today, while these inter-imperialist conflicts have far from subsided, a new wave of internal convulsions is sweeping over the European continent; and on the morrow it will extend to the Orient, to England and the United States and throughout the whole world.

Shallow observers and would-be Marxists had predicted a new organic era of capitalist stabilization and development, and a new flowering of bourgeois democracy. In fact, this was precisely the avowed goal of the “People’s Fronts” in the prewar period. The war, and the events flowing from it, have shattered these opportunist illusions. Whence do these illusions arise? At the root of opportunism and all opportunist deviations is to be found, on the one hand, an overestimation of the strength and viability of the bourgeoisie in general, and of bourgeois democracy in particular; and on the other, the underestimation of the power, the creative ability, the initiative and fighting capacity of the working class.

All the countries which in the past year have been occupied by Allied troops in the wake of the defeated and retreating Nazi armies are now in the throes of a colossal revolutionary crisis.

Far from resolving the crisis of capitalism, the war has aggravated this crisis many times over. To the prewar reign of exploitation, misery, unemployment and slow death has been added sudden death by the millions and the terrible devastation of war. What can the peoples of the world look, forward to under a continued rule of capitalism? Only to horror without end, as Lenin put it.

That is why it is universally acknowledged even by the capitalist press that the European masses desire a decisive change and are groping for such a change; they are seeking the revolutionary way out of the bloody blind-alley of capitalism. Only that party which is able to offer them a bold and realizable program for the revolutionary transformation of society, and lead them to the broad highway toward Socialism will in the end gain the confidence of the masses and conquer the leadership of the movement. This is the motivation of the international resolution submitted to and adopted by the 1944 Convention of the Socialist Workers Party by a vote of 51 to 5. The text of this resolution: European Revolution and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Party appears in this issue of Fourth International.

Convention Minority

The convention minority which took issue with this resolution had its origin at the party plenum of October 1943, where a dispute arose over the plenum resolution (for the full text of the latter, see December 1943 Fourth International ). Comrade Morrow’s article, likewise published in this issue, was written in criticism of the plenum resolution. Contained in it are three main flaws:

1) The contention that American imperialism is less predatory in character than German imperialism; that “this difference between the two great imperialisms aspiring to subjugate Europe is based on the difference in the economic resources of the two”; and that therefore “it is quite false” to refer to them as “equally predatory.”

2) From this appreciation of the “less predatory” character of American imperialism Morrow proceeds to construct his theory that the European masses will in the period ahead fall prey to illusions centering around the character and role of US imperialism. He contends that these illusions will persist because:

Unlike Nazi occupation, American occupation will be followed by improvement in food supplies and in the economic situation generally. Where the Nazis removed factory machinery and transportation equipment, the Americans will bring them in. These economic contrasts... cannot fail for a time to have political consequences.

On this double foundation of a “short-time” improvement in European living standards and the consequent reinforcement of bourgeois-democratic illusions, Morrow greatly exaggerates the role of bourgeois democracy in Europe.

3) The contention that “the main danger within the Fourth International” lies “in the direction of ultra-leftism.”

The convention rejected as false from the standpoint of both theory and fact the contention relating to the “less predatory” role of American imperialism. This is false from an analysis of the relative roles of American and German capitalism, their motive force, their respective programs, aims, etc., as well as from the factual standpoint: Anglo-American occupation of Europe has brought a worsening and not an improvement in the conditions of the European masses. As the adopted resolution points out:

Today, the Allies under the hegemony of the Wall Street plutocracy, enter Europe as the new imperialist overlords. For their part, they aim not to unify Europe; but to keep it Balkanized. The Allied imperialists do not desire the revival of European economy to a competitive level. On the contrary, the program of the Allies calls for the dismemberment of the continent to render impossible the revival of an economically strong Europe. Their program of dismemberment, despoliation and political oppression can only deepen Europe’s ruination. Allied occupation, as already demonstrated in Italy, spells not the mitigation of Europe’s catastrophic crisis, but its aggravation.

False Contentions

The convention rejected Morrow’s contention concerning the prospects of bourgeois democracy in Europe. Developments since the downfall of Mussolini have reinforced the party’s prognosis that the program of Anglo-American imperialism is so reactionary that the initial illusions of the masses concerning the intentions and plans of the Allied occupying authorities are swiftly dispelled by their own experiences. In other words, the crisis in Europe is so catastrophic in nature that bourgeois democratic illusions can find no fertile soil. This is further attested to by the recent events in France, Italy, Belgium and Greece. Viewing the process dialectically, the resolution states:

Bourgeois democracy, which flowered with the rise and expansion of capitalism and with the moderation of class conflicts that furnished a basis for collaboration between the classes in the advanced capitalist countries, is outlived in Europe today. European capitalism, in death agony, is torn by irreconcilable and sanguinary class struggles.

Implicit in Morrow’s criticism and in the position of the convention minority is an exaggerated appraisal of the role of bourgeois democracy, its potentialities, etc., in the next period. The party resolution gives the following correct estimate:

Bourgeois democratic governments can appear in Europe only as interim regimes, intended to stave off the conquest of power by the proletariat. When the sweep of the revolution threatens to wipe out capitalist rule, the imperialists and their native accomplices may attempt, as a last resort to push forward their Social Democratic and Stalinist agents and set up a democratic regime for the purpose of disarming and strangling the workers’ revolution. Such regimes, however, can only be very unstable, short-lived and transitional in character. They will constitute a brief episode in the unfolding of the revolutionary struggle. Inevitably, they will be displaced either by the dictatorship of the proletariat emerging out of the triumphant workers’ revolution or the savage dictatorship of the capitalists consequent upon the victory of the counter-revolution.

The convention rejected the contention that ultra-leftism is the main danger within the international Trotskyist movement. Such a prognosis is borne out neither by the history of the proletarian revolutionary movement, nor by an analysis of the causes underlying either ultra-leftist or opportunist deviations in the revolutionary movement, nor by a concrete examination of the various sections of the Fourth International.

Comrade Logan’s criticisms of the draft resolution, which were likewise rejected by the convention, are in essence an elaboration of Morrow’s views. (Comrade Logan’s article will appear in our next issue.) Logan fails to take cognizance of Morrow’s estimate of the role of American imperialism; he does not say whether he accepts or rejects it, but goes on instead to repeat and even multiply all the other errors of the Morrow position. Whereas Morrow at least made an effort to supply an economic foundation (false though it is) for his exaggerated estimation of the role of bourgeois democracy in Europe, Logan simply ignored this decisive aspect of the problem, as if it had no bearing at all on a Marxist prognosis and the tasks ahead.

Nothing could be more false than to attempt, as do Morrow and Logan, to characterize the convention resolution as “ritualistic” or “over-optimistic.” The resolution clearly states:

We cannot anticipate how long the revolutionary process will take. That will be decided only in the struggle. The European revolution is not to be viewed as one gigantic apocalyptic event, which will with one smashing blow finish with capitalism. The European revolution will probably be a more or less drawn out process with initial setbacks, retreats and possibly even defeats. The might of the Anglo-American imperialists and the Kremlin oligarchy, and their joint plans of counter-revolution represent only one side of the European situation. Far more decisive is the other side: the continued disintegration of capitalism, the inexhaustible resources of the European proletariat and the power of the European revolution. There is absolutely no foundation for pessimistic conclusions.

That is, the resolution declares:

There are no blueprints on how to make a revolution. We do have, however, the program, the strategy and tactics which brought victory to the Russian Revolution. These need to be mastered and correctly applied. What is necessary now is to organize the party and plunge into battle!

This isn’t “ritualism” nor “over-optimism; this is revolutionary realism.

The Morrow-Logan criticisms as a whole along with the proposed Logan amendments were overwhelmingly rejected by the convention.

The Soviet Union

The convention reviewed the Trotskyist position on the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state, and its defense against all imperialist attacks. The convention adopted a shift in emphasis in the slogans to be advanced in the next period. The altered relationship of forces in which the Soviet Union now finds itself, thanks to the victories of the Red Army, and the shift in objective conditions have brought sharply to the fore the problems and tasks of the European revolution which today take precedence over all others and make it mandatory for the party to place full emphasis on the slogan: Defend The European Revolution Against All Its Enemies! In the words of the resolution:

Throughout the period when the Nazi military machine threatened the destruction of the Soviet Union, we pushed to the fore the slogan: Unconditional Defense of the Soviet Union against Imperialist Attack . Today the fight for the defense of the Soviet Union against the military forces of Nazi Germany has essentially been won. Hitler’s “New Order in Europe” has already collapsed. The present reality is the beginning of the European revolution, the military occupation of the continent by the Anglo-American and Red Army troops, and the conspiracy of the imperialists and the Kremlin bureaucracy to strangle the revolution. We therefore push to the fore and emphasize today that section of our program embodied in the slogan: Defense Of The European Revolution Against All Its Enemies! The defense of the European revolution coincides with the genuine revolutionary defense of the USSR.

The Soviet Union is today more than ever confronted with the sharp alternative: Forward to Socialism or Backward to Capitalism . The present transition period cannot long endure. We, mindful of the counter-revolutionary role of the Kremlin bureaucracy both inside and outside of the Soviet Union, remain ever vigilant to all developments in the Soviet Union. Our policy of unconditional defense of the Soviet Union against imperialist attack retains all its validity, however, while the nationalized property relations remain. The struggle for the preservation of the fist workers’ state remains an essential task of the world proletariat. We fulfill this task by working to develop and heighten the European revolution and to secure its victory.

In adopting the line of the resolution, and, conversely by rejecting the line implicit in the Morrow-Logan criticisms, the convention assured the party that compass without which it is impossible to chart a revolutionary course in the period ahead. Today, more than ever before, mankind is confronted pointblank with the choice of two historic paths: Either regression into barbarism, or advancement through Socialism. There is only one way forward. That leads through the establishment of the Socialist United States of Europe as a stage toward the formation of the World Socialist Federation.

The convention, after thoroughly discussing the resolution as well as the minority criticisms, placed its seal of approval upon the resolution by an overwhelming vote. The discussion, which culminated in the convention, was extremely broad in scope. For more than two months, in keeping with the traditions of fullest democracy within the party, especially during pre-convention periods, the party membership carried on a concentrated discussion of all the issues involved; the various points of view were presented in articles published in eleven internal bulletins, as well as orally at local, branch, and general membership meetings. The party thus arrived at its definitive judgment after a full and thorough debate, closing the issues in dispute.

By unanimous vote the convention passed the following motion:

“ l) The Political (International) Resolution of the National Committee having been adopted by the Convention by a vote of 51 to 5, after a free, democratic discussion in the party ranks, the press and all public activities of the Party must strictly conform to the convention decisions.

“2) The discussion may at the discretion of the National Committee be continued in the internal bulletin.”

In these pages we begin publication of the main documents of the convention on the European questions in order to familiarize our readers at home and abroad with the disputed questions and the convention discussions. The next issue of Fourth International will carry additional material.

After settling the line of the party on the international field, the convention next took up the problems of the American scene. The resolution on United States and The Second World War , supplemented by a report on the Negro question and the discussion revolving around them, occupied the entire sessions during the second day of the convention. This resolution and the report on the Negro question were unanimously adopted. Exigencies of space prevent the publication of the American resolution in this issue. Its text will appear in the January 1945 issue of Fourth International .

The Party Expansion Program

The revolutionary struggles in Europe and their inevitable reverberations, the increasing discontent and restlessness of the American workers, provoked by the capitalist masters and their war, expressed most recently by the struggle to rescind the no-strike pledge and by the rising sentiments in favor of an independent labor party—eloquent harbingers of the coming radicalization and politicization of the American masses—motivated the convention’s adoption of a rounded program for an expansion of SWP activities.

The convention proposed that The Militant be enlarged to eight pages as soon as practicable; and increase its circulation to 50,000, through a series of subscription campaigns. Furthermore, the subscription price of The Militant is to be reduced to $1 a year. Concurrently, the convention decided to expand the organizing activities of the party. Likewise to be increased is the party’s publishing activity, the issuance of books by Trotsky along with a series of popular pamphlets on timely topics, and similar material.

The convention took cognizance of the need of a systematized educational program in view of the party’s growth, the influx of recruits without previous political affiliation and the new and greater tasks ahead. To this end, it was decided to establish a new system of education of the party membership—the Trotsky School System—which as Comrade Stein reported: “would take care of the Marxist educational requirements of the new recruits, promising candidates for leadership and all the categories in between.” The National Educational Department has been established. With its aid the educational work of the branches will be guided and coordinated. As part of the educational program a National Training School will be organized next summer.

In its miseducation and deception capitalism has at its command the best brains money can buy. It is helped in addition by the petty-bourgeois confusionists of all schools including the self-styled “Marxists” of reformist and centrist varieties. The revolutionary party must carry on an increasing and unceasing ideological struggle for its program, for its policies, for its philosophy. The membership as well as the leadership must be trained as revolutionary Marxists who know how to fight in the class struggle, to fight not only with physical courage and power, but also with the sharpest ideological weapons.

To finance the program of expansion the convention authorized the raising of an $18,000 Party Expansion Fund. This sum was set because it is realizable and, moreover, because it symbolizes the imprisonment of our 18 comrades and the party’s reply to this attempt by Roosevelt and Co., to “behead our movement. This expansion program and the $18,000 Party Expansion Fund will be the best possible welcome home for our comrades when they are released.

* * *

The Eleventh National Convention of the American Trotskyist is a great milestone in the growth and development of our movement. It marks the long distance traveled by the movement since its emergence from the American Communist Party in 1928 as a small, isolated and persecuted handful of pioneers. These pioneer Trotskyist began their work under conditions of capitalist reaction and at a time when the Second and Third Internationals held sway, with the Comintern, in particular, appearing in the eyes of workers as a revolutionary force. Thus both the objective and subjective conditions seemed to raise an impenetrable barrier between the revolutionary vanguard of the vanguard and the toiling masses.

This barrier is now breached. Both of these internationals have since collapsed under the impact of war. The “socialists” and Stalinists act as the avowed agencies of capitalism and the counter-revolution. The parties of the Fourth International are emerging from the war, unswervingly true to their revolutionary program. They stand out today as the only revolutionary parties in the world, the only parties fighting irreconcilably and audaciously for the Communist future of mankind. Under this banner of Trotskyism the SWP convention met, deliberated and adopted its great decisions. Under this banner the Socialist Workers Party continues its march forward.