*Honor The Three L's- Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht- Heroes Of The International Working Class Movement

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  

Click on title to link to V.I. Lenin's 1914 article "The European War and International Socialism". Timely, right? Change Europe to Afghanistan and Iraq (you can throw in Pakistan, too) and there you have it.

Every January militants of the international communist movement, the European sections more than the American, honor the Three L’s, the key leaders of the movement in the early 20th century- Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht. Since opening this space in early 2006 I have paid individual honor to all three in successive years. For this year’s (2009)and future January observances, in that same spirit, I will to add some other lesser figures of the revolutionary pantheon or those who contributed in some way to the development of this movement, some previously noted others not, including other pro-communist, or pro-socialist trends in the international movement as well. The theme of the series will fall under the headline of "Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits".

I will also be including a selection of writings from the Three L's under the heading "From The Pen Of....." this year and in the future.

*From The Pen Of V.I. Lenin In 1914-"The European War And International Socialism"

Click on title to link to V.I. Lenin's 1914 article, "The European War And International Socialism".


On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  

Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. 

*From The Pen Of Rosa Luxemburg-The Famous "Junius Pamphlet"

Click on title to link to Rosa Luxemburg's famous anti-war work, the "Junius Pamphlet". Still makes the key anti-war points for today. Listen up!


On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  

Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. 

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-In Honor Of The Three L's-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-Our Anthem-"The Internationale"

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-In Honor Of The Three L's-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-Our Anthem-"The Internationale"


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  

Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. 

A link to YouTube's film clip of our international working class anthem ,"The Internationale".

As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement “The Internationale” in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!

The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]

Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.




________________________________________

L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.


________________________________________

Die Internationale

Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!

Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht

Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!

In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben

dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!

On The Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-From The Archives Of Marxism-Honor Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-Karl Liebknecht's Statement In Opposition To The German War Budget In 1914

On The Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-From The Archives Of Marxism-Honor Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-Karl Liebknecht's Statement In Opposition To The German War Budget In 1914

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  

Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. 

Markin comment:

The name Karl Liebknecht stands on its own and needs no additional comment from me. Except this. Every time some bourgeois congressman decides to get up the nerve to vote against one of the various parts of the American war budget just remember he or she, at worst, at least at worst for now, might not get reelected. Karl Liebknecht's stand led to charges of treason and jail. Yes, Karl Liebknecht's  name stands on its own and needs no additional comment from me.

Workers Vanguard No. 972
21 January 2010

Honor Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht

(From the Archives of Marxism)

In the tradition of the early Communist International, each January we commemorate the “Three Ls”: Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, who died on 21 January 1924, and revolutionary Marxists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were assassinated in Berlin on 15 January 1919 by the reactionary Freikorps as part of the German Social Democratic government’s suppression of the Spartakist uprising.

Although not well known today, Karl Liebknecht’s name is synonymous with intransigent opposition to one’s “own” bourgeoisie in the crucible of imperialist war. Despite his individual opposition to German imperialism from the outset of World War I, on 4 August 1914 Liebknecht submitted to the discipline of the Social Democratic Party and voted for war credits along with the rest of the party fraction in the Reichstag (parliament). But Liebknecht became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the party’s betrayal of the proletariat. When the party fraction resolved to support a new vote for the Kaiser’s military budget at the Reichstag session of 2 December 1914, Liebknecht broke ranks and cast the sole vote opposing war credits.

Liebknecht was prohibited from delivering a statement motivating his vote on the floor of the Reichstag or having it printed in the body’s official record. Barred from the German press, the statement was published in a Dutch socialist newspaper and translated into English in the Socialist New York Call. Below we reprint the statement as it appeared in the February 1915 issue of the U.S. leftist journal The Masses. Liebknecht’s stand inspired proletarian militants in Germany and internationally, not least in Russia, where the working class under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would seize power in the October Revolution of 1917.

In a May 1915 leaflet, Liebknecht declared, “The main enemy is at home,” which for generations afterward became the watchword for revolutionaries at a time of war between imperialist powers. As he denounced the slaughter of World War I at a May Day rally in 1916, Liebknecht was dragged from the platform and thrown into prison on charges of treason. Released in October 1918, Liebknecht along with Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party at the end of the year. They were assassinated two weeks later.

In honoring the Three Ls, we fight to carry on their revolutionary tradition. As Liebknecht declared the day before his murder: “Whether or not we are alive when it arrives, our program will live, and it will reign in a world of redeemed humanity. Despite everything!”

* * *

My vote against the war credit is based upon the following considerations:

This war, which none of the peoples engaged therein has wished, is not caused in the interest of the prosperity of the German or any other nation. This is an imperialistic war, a war for the domination of the world market, for the political domination over important fields of operation for industrial and bank capital. On the part of the competition in armaments this is a war mutually fostered by German and Austrian war parties in the darkness of half absolutism and secret diplomacy in order to steal a march on the adversary.

At the same time this war is a Bonapartistic effort to blot out the growing labor movement. This has been demonstrated with ever-increasing plainness in the past few months, in spite of a deliberate purpose to confuse the heads.

The German motto, “Against Czarism,” as well as the present English and French cries, “Against Militarism,” have the deliberate purpose of bringing into play in behalf of race hatred the noblest inclinations and the revolutionary feelings and ideals of the people. To Germany, the accomplice of Czarism, an example of political backwardness down to the present day, does not belong the calling of the liberator of nations. The liberation of the Russian as well as the German people should be their own task.

This war is not a German defense war. Its historical character and its development thus far make it impossible to trust the assertion of a capitalistic government that the purpose for which credits are asked is the defense of the fatherland.

The credits for succor have my approval, with the understanding that the asked amount seems far from being sufficient. Not less eagerly do I vote for everything that will alleviate the hard lot of our brothers in the field, as well as that of the wounded and the sick, for whom I have the deepest sympathy. But I do vote against the demanded war credits, under protest against the war and against those who are responsible for it and have caused it, against the capitalistic purposes for which it is being used, against the annexation plans, against the violation of the Belgian and Luxemburg neutrality, against the unlimited authority of rulers of war and against the neglect of the social and political duties of which the government and the ruling classes stand convicted.

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-HONOR LENIN, LUXEMBURG AND LIEBKNECHT- THE THREE L’S OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  


HONOR LENIN. LUXEMBURG AND LIEBKNECHT- THE THREE L’S
COMMENTARY

EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR, LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. HERE’S WHY WE HONOR LIEBKNECHT.

In honor of the 3 L's. The authority of Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, and Luxemburg, the Rose of the Revolution, need no special commendation. I would however like to comment on Karl Liebknecht who has received less historical recognition and has had less written about him. Nevertheless, Karl Liebknecht apparently had the capacity to lead the German Revolution. A man whose actions inspired 50,000 Berlin workers, under penalty of being drafted to the front, to strike against his imprisonment in the middle of a World War is self- evidently a man with the authority to lead a revolution. His tragic personal fate in the aftermath of the Spartacus uprising, killed by counterrevolutionaries, helped condition the later dismal fate of the German revolution, especially in 1923.

History has posed certain questions concerning the establishment of socialism that remains unresolved today primarily to due the crisis of leadership of the international labor movement. Although Liebknecht admittedly was not a theoretician I do not believe that someone of Lenin's or Trotsky's theoretical level of achievement was necessary after the Russian experience. To these eyes the Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution and Lenin's Bolshevik organizational concepts have stood the test of time, if mainly by negative experience.

What was necessary was a leadership that assimilated those lessons. Liebknecht, given enough time to study those lessons, seems to have been capable of that. A corollary to that view is that one must protect leading cadre when the state starts bearing down. Especially small propaganda groups like the Spartacists with fewer resources for protection of leadership. This was not done. If you do not protect your leadership you wind up with a Levi, Brandler or Thalheimer (successively leaders of the German Communist Party) who seemed organically incapable of learning those lessons.

One of the problems with being the son of a famous politician is that, as founder of the early German Social Democratic Party Wilhelm Liebknecht's son, much was expected of Karl, especially on the question of leading the German working class against German militarism. Wilhelm had done a prison term (with August Bebel) for opposition to the Franco-Prussian War. As for Karl I have always admired that famous picture of him walking across the Potsdam Plaza in uniform, subject to imprisonment after lost of his parliamentary immunity, with briefcase under arm ready to go in and do battle with the parliamentary cretins of the Social Democratic Party over support for the war budget. That is the kind of leadership cadre we desperately need now. REMEMBER HIS FAMOUS SLOGANS- ‘THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME’-‘ NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE PERSON (updated) FOR THE WAR’.

Wilhelm would have been proud.

On The 70th Anniversary- Magical Realism One-On-One- With Humphrey Bogart And Lauren Bacall’s “Dark Passage” (1947)

On The 70^th Anniversary- Magical Realism One-On-One- With Humphrey Bogart And Lauren Bacall’s “Dark Passage” (1947)

By Seth Garth

[At this point I am not involved in the so-called controversy between the younger and older writers of which I am one since I have moved on, have been actually trying to put stories together not let my bile jump up at me. Yes, I voted to retain my old friend Allan Jackson, but what of it-S.G]

It is a funny thing about breaks, about how things twist and turn in this crazy old world. Hey I should know, I, Pat Lynch, who has been in the private detection business for the past thirty-five years ever since I got out of the Army back at the end of World War II. (By the way private detection, detective is the way I like to hear it said not shamus, gumshoe, key-hole peeper like they say on television or in those silly crime detection novels as much as I liked reading guys like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler back before I got into the real profession and found they were mostly blowing smoke.) Take the Humphrey Bogart case, or what turned out to be the name of the case, a name I was told he did not use among his various names, his aliases, his akas as we say in the business, since he hated it from childhood when the kids thought he was humpty-dumpty and later when dope, marijuana was exotic and illegal hipsters would say “don’t bogart that joint.”

This Bogart case I worked off and on for the better part of twenty years in the days when the coppers, the public coppers, were offering five thou, big money then for the whereabouts dead or alive of the guy. Big money especially to a guy starting out a few years after the war in order to bring this guy to justice, or back to justice since he had escaped San Quentin, the Q and while on the lam he killed his best friend, some frail, some ex-girlfriend and some two-bit small time crook, con man really. They laid the whole mess on it in any case so it was the same thing.  Never did find him and I went to South America and Europe to try to collar him so he could be dead or alive some place. All I know is the case had plenty of twists and turns and Bogart got his share of bumps and breaks along the way so what I just said is true about breaks. And a little idea that maybe Bogart didn’t commit all those murders and was framed. Like I said breaks.            

Maybe you don’t remember the Bogart case? Back in the late 1940s it was all the rage in the papers for about six months in the days when they would run with a news story like that forever not like today when even murder cases get a day or two and then go with the breeze. This Bogart was supposed to have killed his wife in a rage with an iron from the fireplace. He did admit to having a quarrel with that wife before he left but he never hit her that day (neighbor testimony told a story that he was on other occasions abusive, had hit her at least one and she had had a black-eye to show for it). At trial which like I say was “page one” for weeks in Frisco though he was done in by that ex-girlfriend he later allegedly killed during his escape. She claimed she saw him hit that wife from the window outside the Bogart residence and the defense could never shake her story. So that and Bogarts’ being the only fingerprints on the iron doomed him. On defense Bogart claimed that this frail, this ex-girlfriend, Agnes, had never been his girlfriend, that she was jealous of the wife and despite their marital troubles he never had plans to leave that wife. The jury didn’t buy the story-life, life without parole.                

Which who knows should have been the end of the story and the only place Bogart should next have been seen anyway outside the Q was at his potter’s field funeral. But this Bogart was not only lucky in some ways which you have to be to escape any serious secured prison but he had planned it for years staying mostly to himself working out plans in his head (he had been an engineer before he fell down, before he took the big fall). Easy as pie from what I gathered as long as you don’t care about placing yourself in a garage barrel when they come to get rid of the trash on the outside. And Bogart didn’t. The next parts are a little murky since it was mostly pieced together from a lot of information that seemed contradictory-seemed to tempt the fates too much.     

He got out okay and along the road he jiggles the barrel enough to have it flip off the road down an embankment the clueless driver not noticing anything fall off the truck. In any case the coppers, once the warden declared an escape, were on the trail fast-caught up with that truck driver who knowing nothing noticed one barrel missing. So the cops started heading back up the road they had just come from.  Here is where luck plays a small role, part one, Bogart after discarding his shirt grabbed a ride from a passing car, from that two-bit small time con man. That funny little con man asked too many questions though and he bonked him one leaving him off to the side of the road. While he was doing that a stray car, a station wagon since she had to carry her art supplies around, pulled up and told him to get in, told him by name. This Lauren, Lauren Bacall, known in the Bay Area as something of an artist but also with dough left by a step-father who killed her mother and got the big sent-off, step-off really at Q for it had been following his case for years, had been at the trial (shades of her father’s case where she thought he too was innocent) and hearing the police reports over the radio decided to help Bogart along. Yeah, I know.

That’s the story anyway, once I heard the story from Bob, the dame’s boyfriend at the time who got wise once things didn’t add up about why she was giving him the deep freeze, the heave-ho really and she told him flat out she had another man after he found men’s clothing in her bedroom. But this was well after the whereabouts of Bogart, and Lauren, reached a dead end and I was looking for anything to get back on track.            

The way it figures from there is that she brought him to her place over on Russian Hill to keep him under wraps for a while. But a guy who every copper in California was looking for needed to hide out somewhere else. Needed that hideaway since he was going to get some plastic surgery done to change his looks enough to blow town, head to South America where they don’t ask questions, especially from gringos with a little dough to stop the questions. That is where his good friend, a stand-up guy, George was supposed to help keep him undercover after the surgery. No play. After the surgery Bogart went back to George’s place but he had been murdered by a party or parties unknown, and so back to Lauren’s place and some better plan because six, two and even he was going to take the fall for that George one too which if you at the frozen dead-ass cold files today you will see the Frisco coppers did.

So the surgery took after a week under the bandages. It was during this period that boyfriend Bob started getting the cold shoulder and later that is where his speculation started. Problem at this point is that nobody including Lauren would have known it was Bogart (Lauren would know once the bandages came off before all she had seen was a guy like a million other guys turned in another guy like a million other guys.) I had heard a rumor that a cabdriver was bragging to his buddies at the Irish Grille over off Fisherman’s Wharf that he would have the last laugh since he was probably the only guy alive who knew what Bogart looked after he tied him onto a disbarred plastic surgeon. Young and raw as I was at the time I still had some waterfront, skid row dive contacts who would have known who that surgeon was, or if there was more than one, it would be small work to locate him.

Bingo Doc Jamison who had been on the back alley work for several years after he botched a big-time starlet’s face so that not even her parents would recognize her. Doc was very upfront that he had done the job and what of it. The beauty for him is that after putting on the bandages he was as clueless as anybody about Bogart’s appearance, so he said. I could never shake anything out of him even after offering money. All we knew was he was five foot-ten, brown hair, brown eyes.           

Once Bogart was up and around, going out, with or without Lauren, was when he started going by the name of Parry, Victor Parry, which is ironic since that was the name of another guy in the Q who had murdered his wife. They got that bit of information from the real Victor Parry, a couple of months later after the trail was dead-ass cold, when he bargained for a reduction of sentence. So we had a name although a name which petered out after a place called Benson, Arizona. Benson is important to the story because that has been a jump-off point for people on the run since the old Wild West days. Once in Mexico, as I subsequently found out, the trail got even colder, colder than a witch’s tit as we used to say as kids, maybe they still do.           

So you know Bogart got away, you know Lauren blew town shortly after so it figured they had a meet-up place who knows where. End of five thou dreams. That is when I started working on the case from a different angle purely for professional reasons. Started to work an angle that he might have been framed, been the fall guy. When you think about it why would a guy who was on the lam bump off his best friend, a guy he had drinks with, a guy who just wanted according to Jimmy Lee at the Kit Kat Club to blow high white notes out to the China seas. That brings you up to who else had a motive to bump off Bogart’s wife. After talking to Bob, that ex-boyfriend of Lauren’s given the colds by her brought up that Agnes, that so-called ex of Bogart’s. According to Bob she was venomous like a snake enough to take advantage of what she saw looking into the Bogart apartment. Hated that wife with a passion the way she told it later after she put the big frame around Bogart. Problem, big problem which you might not remember from when I started. Agnes fell out a window under mysterious circumstances and shortly after a tenant saw a guy who’s over-all characteristics fit Bogart to a tee. So the coppers tagged him for it and let it sleep. What the hell he was going to hang for the other raps anyway so let him have every unsolved crime that needed cold storage.              

So you see where I was blocked even trying to work that other angle. Nothing, nothing except that added murder rap of that small time hood who may have had some information because when you put two and two together he might have been a guy who knew both ends of the Bogart face. He had after all picked Bogart upon that escape route before being tossed. Being, by all accounts, a guy who was always looking for the silver lining, he told one of his confederates that he was going to make a big score, a very big score , although cagey enough not be give details. So what if he figured the Bogart-Bacall connection. We’ll never know because he fell down on the rocks under the Golden Gate Bridge. See what I mean by breaks-both ways.   

*Honor The Three L's- Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht

Click on title to link to V.I. Lenin's 1914 article "The Europeon War and International Socialism". Timely, right? Just change to Afghanistan and it is.

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  


Commentary/Book Review

Post World War II Socialist Blahs

Every January militants of the international labor movement, the European sections more than the American, honor the Three L’s, the key leaders of the movement in the early 20th century- Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht. Since opening this space in early 2006 I have paid individual honor to all three in successive years. For this year’s and future January observances, in that same spirit, I will to add some other lesser figure of the revolutionary pantheon or those who contributed in some way to the development of this movement, mainly American at first as befits the title of this blog but eventually others in the international movement as well. So to honor the Three L’s this year I will start with an American revolutionary figure from the mid-20th century who I have written extensively on in this space, James P. Cannon. Cannon, pound for pound warts and all, represented to this militant’s mind the most accomplished (if not the most successful and therein lies the bitter irony) communist of that first American generation who formed the core of cadre directly influenced to the left by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The following review is another in a fairly large series of books featuring the writings of James P. Cannon published by Pathfinder Press (or its subsidiaries) the publishing arm of the party that Cannon was instrumental in organizing and leading, the Socialist Workers Party. I will, as I have done with previously reviewed Cannon writings, use the same couple of introductory paragraphs that sets out the important questions concerning Cannon’s place in the revolutionary pantheon.

The Struggle For Socialism in the “American Century", James P. Cannon, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1977

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to the victorious American (mainly) outcome to World War II then this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that were published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), in the 1970's, a few years after his death in 1974. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series on this important American Communist.

In their introduction here the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of this book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon's leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist SWP so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show?

This is certainly a continuation of the period of Cannon's political maturation after a long journeymanship working with Trotsky. The period under discussion starts as Cannon reaches his mid 50's, shortly after his release from federal prison for his principled (along with 17 other leaders of the SWP and Minneapolis Teamsters Union) opposition to America's entry into World War II. The party at that time needed to adjust strategy in order to come to terms with the ramifications of a victorious American imperialism in that war, some internal opposition (to be discussed below) from those who wanted to, again, fight out the "Russian" question that seemingly had been firmly resolved in 1940 and the fight to determine whether it was appropriate to "unite" with that opposition that split from the party and formed its own organization (also addressed below). One thing is sure- in his prime which, arguably, includes this period Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so.

It is almost axiomatic in the Marxist movement to state that war is the mother of revolution. Certainly the experiences of World War I would serve those formed by those years as a signpost. Trotsky, in his various manifestoes, pamphlets and other writings from shortly before the outbreak of World War II in Europe until his murder by a Stalinist assassin in Mexico in 1940 hammered away on this theme. With the proviso that the forces around the Fourth International, including importantly the SWP, had to redouble their efforts at programmatic clarity and cadre recruitment in order to take advantage of the post-war possibilities (if not before).

It is that spirit that animated the worldview of the SWP in the immediate post-war period. The party had been recruiting based on its black liberation perspective and its opposition to the various Communist Party and AFL and CIO labor bureaucracy efforts to continue to enforce a war time 'no strike' pledge. There were other empirical examples such as increased readership and efforts in the GI movement that further buttressed their upbeat prognosis. Moreover, as a practical matter, in the hard, hard tasks of trying to create a new society by overturning the old one completely revolutionaries better be animated, at least in part, by optimism.

That said, the post-war program prognosis got totally undermined from the beginning by the virulent campaign by the American ruling class to clamp down on "reds", especially in light of the foreign policy disputes with an emergent and militarily strong Soviet Union and the domestic fights by organized labor for wage increases to play catch up after the wage stagnation of the war period. Reading the SWP programmatic notes of this period, the rather Pollyannaish expectations in light of what really happened and a certain denial of reality did not stand the party in good stead for the oncoming "red scare" that effectively politically defeated a whole generation of militants- Stalinist, Trotskyist and others- for at least a decade. We, those of us who came of political age later, have faced other such periods such as during the Reagan years and partially in the 9/11 period where we were also isolated so we are painfully aware of that optimistic/ pessimistic dichotomy that runs through every revolutionary movement.

Many of the articles in this book center around Cannon's leadership of the fight against an internal opposition, the so-called Morrow-Goldman faction. That faction formed based on an reflexive anti-Sovietism, a conciliation toward American imperialism and, more importantly, a craven desire to forge unity with the previously-mentioned 1940 anti-Soviet opposition that split from the SWP and formed the Workers Party, led by former Cannon associate Max Shachtman, with a rightward social democratic orientation. Moreover, the glue that held the whole cabal together was the inevitable question of the party "regime", meaning always the leadership of one James P. Cannon.

In the American revolutionary socialist milieu the so-called "Russian question", that is, practically, the need for militants to military defend the Soviet Union as the blemished but fundamental example of the baseline for socialist evolution was fought out in the SWP in 1939-40. The results were that a significant minority of the party, led by Shachtman, split and formed the Workers Party. During the war years both organizations led very separate and different existences. In the immediate post-war period, at a time when the question of defense of the Soviet Union was NOT a burning issue there was considerable talk about a unification of the two organizations. This is the impact of the so-called Morrow-Goldman dispute that takes up much of this book. In the end no unification came about, nor was one truly possible under any rational standard of political discourse, especially as the American-led anti-Soviet Cold war heated up with the introduction of the Truman Doctrine and the ratcheting up of the "reds scare". The later personal fates of Morrow and Goldman (and Shachtman's and his various organizational incarnations, as well) as apologists for American imperialism only highlight the differences between Cannon's party of the Russian Revolution and Shachtman's "State Department" socialism- that is craven support for every American imperialist adventure they could get their hands on.

Although this dispute, seemingly, is strictly for insiders or aficionados of the esoterica of extreme left-wing politics there are many points made by Cannon that still ring true today for those of us who still wish to create a revolutionary party capable of making the revolution. Those include the role of the press as a party organizer (Cannon gives a very good description of the sometimes absurd prior socialist practice in this regard.), a serious attitude toward the question of unification and splits as a means for creating a revolutionary party unlike the SWP-WP fiasco, the very different tasks and obligations that confront a propaganda group as a opposed to a mass party (and the former's stronger need to have a homogeneous political and organizational line) and, most importantly, as has been true since 1917 a correct evaluation of that thorny "Russian Question".

Although defense of the Soviet Union is not an issue today that issue is still with us in the form of the question of China (and other non-capitalist states like Cuba). China is that Russian Question for today's militants. For a still relevant analysis of what to do (and what not to do) about Stalinism in its Chinese form Cannon's long article here "American Stalinism and Anti-Stalinism" reads, in part, like it was written today.

That said, let's place Cannon in prospective. Earl Browder, William Z. Foster, Jay Lovestone, Max Shachtman, Albert Glotzer, these now obscure names were political associates of James P. Cannon's at various stages of his political development as a communist. Some became hardened Stalinist leaders; some became hardened social democratic leaders but a comparison of the political profiles of them and Cannon shows that they lacked one thing that Cannon did not. That evident capacity to lead a socialist revolution in America, if circumstances arose to permit such a fight.

No one can read Cannon's works from early in his career as a rising Communist functionary in the 1920's through to his adherence to Trotsky and not notice that here was a man who was trying to work these problems through. Of course, to his opponents, particularly those who one way or the other split from the Trotskyist movement and who always placed their opposition in the context of the abhorrence of the "regime" meaning, basically, they could not do just as they pleased Cannon was like their worst political nightmare. They, in turn, however had not problems touting the virtues of American imperialism when the political situation warranted their essentially literary inputs thereafter.

Finally, no one has to take Cannon for a political saint to realize that, on the record, the various "regimes" that he ran based on political support from the worker cadre would cause the so-called `free spirits" to chaff at his acknowledged policy of not suffering fools gladly (if at all). This reviewer having personally been in and around, as a youth, various Stalinist organizations before coming over to Trotskyism knows that the mere fact that there were vigorous factions and other political oppositions INSIDE the SWP and that they survived leaves the charges of Cannon as a crypto-Stalinist, or better, a Zinovievist, as so much hot air. Read Cannon's Struggle For A Proletarian Party along with this book to see what I mean.

When The Deal Went Down December 7, 1941- Humphrey Bogart’s “Across The Pacific” (1942)-A Film Review

When The Deal Went Down December 7, 1941- Humphrey Bogart’s “Across The Pacific” (1942)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Phil Larkin

Across The Pacific, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, 1942

Free, free at last, good god in Heaven free at last-for the moment anyway. All readers, young and old, recent or longtime, interested or disinterested, movie aficionados or not, but at least breathing will note, or should be expected to note, that one Phillip Larkin did not start out his usually beautifully-etched film review with an expletive (which one for the young, recent, disinterested, not aficionado brethren although I assume still breathing is a book sealed with seven seals). Why? Finally, good God in heaven finally, the divinely-inspired site impresario Greg Green and he hard-working thoughtful minions on the recently established Editorial Board have by unanimous assent permitted me to go through my paces on a real movie review, an Bogie- aficionado drenched review of one of his lesser classics-Across the Pacific.  

For those who have been out of the country, have been hospitalized, have been up the Amazon with no means of transportation or communication here is a quick primer on why what should have been a routine past through quickie review by me is worthy of every hosanna in the book. Through inexperience, newness to this site, or bad advice from that hither-to-fore deadbeat Ed Board our esteemed guru Greg Green had the bizarre idea that I should do kiddie film reviews, you know things like Captain America, The Avengers, Batman. All that silliness that passes for film experiences among the younger set for the simple fact that the eight to maybe twenty-one audience they are geared to do not have the energy or ability to sit for twenty minutes and read a freaking comic book. Instead are popcorn-addled and soft drink-doped for a couple of hours to listen to grunts and two word sentences, physically violent action every thirty seconds warranted or not, and some silly mid-credit come-ons to the next so-called adventure film. The reasoning at the time and I am not sure reasoning is the right word is that unlike the old regime under the now fully deposed, some unkind older writer-types saying purged, and exiled former site manager, my old growing up friend Allan Jackson who let us do whatever interested us as long as we did it well, the whole writing staff should “broaden their horizons by random assignment. Sorry, bullshit, sorry. 

Moreover that whole policy, and I used that word advisedly, was to let the self-designated “Young Turks” who rebelled against the old Jackson regime and led the ugly purging process get to write some decent stuff and not a rehash of what the older writers threw away as drafts. Under Allan mostly stuff about that growing up in the 1960s during that paradise time to be living, Allan and the older writers time which they could have given a damn about. Couldn’t know things about like the Summer of Love, 1967 for the simple fact that were in swaddling clothes or not yet born. In my case I drew that kiddie stuff because Greg fell weak-kneed for the line this young kid, Jesus, twenty-five years old, Kenny Jacobs gave him about how his movie-addled film noir parents dragged his young ass to a bunch of film festival retrospectives when he was about eight. As against my spending real-time, real-time growing up teenager, young adult, adult, old adult time starting on those lonely Saturday afternoon matinees Strand Theater double-features to get out of my turbulent household haunting the retros every chance I got. Won my spurs on doing Bogie, Robert Mitchum, Glenn Ford Gloria Grahame, Lauren Bacall, Mary Astor, Jane Greer, background reviews under the old regime which loved to mix it up with the older material. (Allan Jackson frowned on most of the modern stuff saying that other more informed sources could provide those kind of reviews quite nicely in places like the American Film Gazette where he had started out and that our job was to do films, books, music, culture, etc. which reflected the broader history of the American experience which this site is committed too.)          

Without tooting my own horn too much I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how I got back on top. Maybe provide an object lesson in how to work through the increasing bureaucracy of even barebones on-line operations which supposedly don’t have the hassles of brick and mortar hard copy publications to slow things down and make everybody a speck. At first I resented being “demoted” via the Greg Green so-called democratic new regime from being a longtime Associate Film Critic to just another generic writer. I let that pass figuring eventually the bureaucratic mentality would catch up to the new crowd and they would be handing out titles like candy. What ate at me and I am not afraid to say so now that the situation has been permanently resolved was being pushed aside on my specialty (they wouldn’t dare sent me back to the comics they don’t need the seven kinds of hell I would bring down which would make beautiful super-hero Thor’s hammerings seem like some street junkie’s).

I already gave you what the kid tried to pull with his lame parent story. What I did in response was my classic belly-aching in print, okay in cyberspace, moaning and groaning leaving about three lines for the review (for films probably bam-bam kick worth about two) against that punk kid, Kenny Jacobs, you have seen his weird reviews I am sure. Did it enough to switch gears on the wily young bastard. Got my old route back and here I am ready to dig deep into this low-rent 1940s Bogie pic that will never make his top ten films list but who cares because given the actors lined up in this one I can hit a homerun with The Maltese Falcon and make everybody forget this clunker.            

**********

Everybody, at least everybody over the past few generations has certain touchstone events which affect, even if indirectly, their lives.   

Will know exactly where they were when they heard the news. For mine John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963 (informed over the high school PA system by a distraught headmaster). For younger generations 9/11 and you need not say more, need to throw a year date in. For my parents, the ones who came of age in the 1930s Great Depression and slogged through World War II on two oceans, December 7, 1941, the day of FDR’s famous infamy, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor is that touchstone and sets the framework for this film. (And Greg Green, no many how many reviews he oversaw over at American Film Gazette before coming here, must have had blinders on when young Kenny Jacobs begged him to do this review. What possible frame of reference, other than he had seen the film when he was a kid with those film freak parents, could he bring to any such review.)          

That sets the plot-line frame. The other component is the cohort of actors here led by Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet who the previous year under the original director here, John Huston, who signed on to the Army before the finish, starred in one of the great movies of all time, The Maltese Falcon. Although this veiled propaganda film does not come close the three artists work through the problems presented by such a film fairly well although as I mentioned this will not go down as one of Bogie’s best.  

As my old friend and former boss as Senior Film Critic now retired, Sam Lowell, would say at this point (and encourage us to do so as well) here’s the “skinny.” Captain Leland, Bogie’s role, has been cashiered out of the Coast Guard for some petty crime. All that a ruse so that he can work an operation as a secret agent against those who were working their asses off for the soon-to-be formal enemies, the Japanese, as the war clouds thicken in late 1941. Number one agent is a sociology professor, Doctor Lorenz, out of the Philippines (whose citizens will be treated very badly when Japanese invasion time comes), played by the nefarious slippery Sydney Greenstreet who admires the Japanese way of doing things. The joker in the deck is the good-looking footloose woman, Alberta, played by Mary Astor, not a femme fatale this time but eye candy to Leland’s eyes. The Captain is not sure where she fits in but he takes an under the sheets run at her anyway. Their meeting place, a Japanese freighter which is heading, well, across the Pacific via the short route Panama Canal in the days when that meant a considerably shorter trip than around the Cape, maybe now too since it had been upgraded for the super-tankers.       

Things go along as they do with Leland making it clear to Lorenz he is a hired gun, a mercenary, a soldier of fortune ready to throw lead for the highest bidder. Willing too to tell what he knows about gun emplacements when the time comes. Al the while playing footsie with Alberta and while trying to figure out what the good Doctor is up to. Things start getting dicey when the Japanese ship is not permitted to enter the canal locks and things get hairy with Lorenz and Alberta departing for whereabouts unknown. The day, December 6, 1941 telegraphed through a newspaper popped on screen, so you know something bad is going to happen when all trails lead Leland to a plantation. To a place where it turns out Alberta’s drunken father lives and where the damn Japanese were painfully constructing a torpedo plane piece by piece to blow the strategic canal locks to kingdom come (my father a Pacific War battle-tested Marine never until he died called them anything but Nips, with a snarl, never.)   

Of course you know that is never going to happen as Bogie pulls the plug in the plan blasting every Japanese in sight (not going to happen as it didn’t in history but the reason here one heroic Bogart saving the day). Just like in The Maltese Falcon the evil Greenstreet bites the dust on his dreams. Here though innocent Alberta is not subject to being sent-over, sent to face the big step-off. Hey, I did pretty well with this period piece loser. Yeah I’m back in the saddle.