HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS UPRISING- 1956- HONOR PAL MALETER

COMMENTARY

HONOR THE 5OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AGAINST STALINISM AND FOR SOCIALISM-HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC PAL MALETER-MILITANT FIGHTER FOR SOCIALISM

In June of 2006 I wrote a blog concerning the meaning of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 after United States President George W. Bush on a tour of Eastern Europe falsely claimed the valiant efforts of the Hungarian workers in 1956 to create a workers democracy there on behalf of Western imperialism. (See June 2006 archive, dated June 22). Now, as we approach the 50th anniversary of that uprising I am paying honor to that event at its proper time. I stand by the ideas expressed in the above-mentioned blog. Especially so, as I have read more about the extraordinary Pal Maleter. Forget Imre Nagy, who has received far more notice and acclaim- Defense Minister Maleter was the real, if flawed, thing in a world of stodgy Stalinist bureaucrats. The world Stalinist movement produced few such leaders. It produced many more rank and file subjective revolutionary militants. We could have used them then and we sure as hell could use more subjective revolutionaries now.

The world Communist movement would be in a very different place if there had been more militants like Maleter (and “Che” Guevara as well, to name another, for lack of a better term, Left Stalinist ). These were not our people- but they were our people. I would also include an additional point to that June posting mentioned above.

The official Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party in 1956 splintered under the impact of working class pressure from below. In that case, the mass of lower and middle (and in a few cases, such as Maleter's, leadership) cadre went over to the side of the working class revolutionaries. That fracture of the official party and state bureaucracies was observed more fully in the demise of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union in the 1989-1992 period. The difference between the two periods, however, was in the latter case the Stalinist bureaucracy was by then a house of cards easily blown away in the wind. The Stalinist bureaucrats were no longer interested in saving socialism (as they perceived it) but in saving their hides. Such is the contrary nature of Stalinism. Why the use of the word is instead of was in the last sentence? Events within the Stalinist Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state bureaucracy are heading slowly toward such a crisis as occurred during both the above-mentioned events . One would have to assume that the same fracture in the Stalinist bureaucracy of the party and the state will occur there as well. Which way will the bureaucracies go? Hungary-1956 or the Soviet Union/ Eastern Europe 1989-1992? More later.

ON A LEFT-WING MILITANT'S HEDGING OF BETS

COMMENTARY

SHAME-FACED CONFESSION OF A POLITICAL JUNKIE


As part of a series of collective commentaries in a previous blog (see October 2006 archive, dated October 1) this writer was rash enough to project that the Republicans would hold on to both Houses of Congress in the upcoming November elections. And I put my money where my mouth was. I offering 3/2 odds on that proposition, desperately looking for takers. I then assumed it was like finding money on the ground. In the interest of full disclosure please refer to that blog. What I have to say here is that I am, as it were, in the processing of refining my position on that prediction (how do you like them weasel words?). In short, the odds of a Democratic takeover of either House in my book have gone to even-take your pick. However, the same political landscape that made me so rash as to bet on the Republicans is still intact. A Democratic win in November of one or both the Houses would still not represent a sea-change in the nature of capitalist political options such as occurred in let us say 1932 or 1960. So what gives?

The long and short of it is the Republicans are so incompetent and scandal-ridden on such wide-ranging subjects as sex and the matter of “personal” finances that the Democrats just by staying in place and not stealing as much as the Republicans look good by comparison. Add Iraq and it takes no pyschic to predict the results. Prime evidence for this is the fate of Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. He was pistol-whipped by upstart anti-war candidate Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary in August. He thereafter decided to run as an "independent". The latest polls show him with a commanding lead over Lamont. That case has been repeated elsewhere where marginally anti-war Democrats are leading Iraq-scarred Republicans. Let antiwar activists, however, face an extremely hard reality- the Democrats have no more of an idea of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq than the Bush Administration does. Although I do not relish playing the role of Cassandra those who wish for a Democratic victory next month will soon enough see what I have been saying for the past several months comes to pass. Stay tune for the final line on the elections. Meanwhile, I eat my pie humbly.

ADDED NOTES: October 22, 2006. Christ, even the Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush fiasco in Iraq. First it was Senators Warner and Hagel arguing for more options and tactical flexibility (except, of course the obvious one of immediate withdrawal). Now 'ole Texas gal'- Republican Senator Kay Bailey Richardson has stated that had she known then what she knows today she would have not voted to give the green light for war in Iraq. Hell, these guys ( and gals) had far more access to 'intelligence' about Iraq than the average citizen would ever had. These people WANTED to go to war assuming that it would be a walkover. When they got walked over they started deserting that ship like fleeing rats. I have been saying for months, jokingly, that only the immediate Bush entourage was still committed to this misadventure. Now it looks like this may be almost literally true. Let me repeat the message I have been hammering home all election season-GET THE HELL OUT OF IRAQ NOW!

Apparently, however, not every pro-war activist is ready to call 'uncle'. Despite the fact that even the editors of National Review are starting to buckle and call Iraq a mistake Boston Globe Op-Ed columnist Jeff Jacoby, last heard from preaching moral relativism to the poor Amish (see October 2006 archives, HANDS OFF THE AMISH, dated October 10), had a commentary in the October 22, 2006 edition drawing every possible historical analogy at his command in order to justify "staying the course" in Iraq. He drew on analogies to the American War of 1812, the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and that last refuge of every rascal-the American Civil War to buttress his argument to show one never knows what the outcome will be once one starts down a particular slippery slope. Damn, you know your position is very, very shaky when you have to bring out this kind of historical ammunition for a war that was consciously fudged from the start. Hopefully, some future administration will not be "staying" that course in Iraq when Mr. Jacoby's young son comes of military age.

*FOR REAL JUSTICE-FREE LYNNE STEWART!

Click on title to link to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee site.

COMMENTARY

WE NEED LAWYERS WHO ARE FUSS-
MAKERS NOT RAINMAKERS

FREE CO-DEFENDANTS YOUSRY AND SATTAR

Well, the Bush Administration has finally got New York Attorney Lynne Stewart (DESPITE HER DISBARMENT I WILL CONTINUE TO CALL HER ATTORNEY) where they want her. Ms. Stewart had previously been indicted on the vague and flimsy charge of "materially" aiding terrorism by essentially, on the record presented by the government at the trial, providing zealous advocacy for her client, Sheik Rahman, who had been convicted in various terrorist schemes including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. At a trial in Federal District Court in New York City where the prosecution used every scare tactic in the post- 9/11 “War on Terror” playbook she was convicted. On October 16, 2006 she was finally sentenced on the charges. The federal judge in the case noting the severity of the crime but also the invaluable service that Ms. Stewart had rendered to the voiceless and downtrodden sentence her to 28 months.

This sentence has been described as victory of sorts by Attorney Stewart and other commentators. The ever upbeat Ms. Stewart is quoted as stating that she, like some of her clients, could do that time “standing on her head”. Well, that may be, but the fact of the matter is that Ms. Stewart should not have been indicted, should not have been convicted and most definitely not sentenced for her actions on behalf of her client. Only the fact that the judge did not totally surrender to the government’s blatant appeals to “national security” issues and sentence her to the thirty years that they requested makes this any kind of “victory”. That joy over any lesser sentence could be considered as such is a telling reminder of the times we live in.

This case and the publicity surrounding it has dramatically warned any attorney who is committed to zealous defense of an unpopular or voiceless client to back off or face the consequences. The chilling effect on such advocacy, in some cases the only possible way to truly defend a client in this overheated reactionary atmosphere, is obvious. Moreover, the whole question of “material” aid to terrorism is a Pandora’s box for any political activist or even a merely interested non-political participant in any organization on the government’s “hit” list.

The government has the possibility of appealing the sentence to the Federal Court of Appeals so as of today October 18, 2006 the travails of Ms. Stewart are not over. Moreover, her conviction is still on appeal. From what I can gather in any reasonably quiet appeals court some of more blatant actions by the prosecution at trial would warrant, at minimum, a new trial if not the overturning of the conviction. Again, in these times such confidence may be unwarranted. In short, the “people’s lawyer” Lynne Stewart needs financial help to wage these new battles. Please consider sending a donation to the Lynne Stewart Defense Fund or to the organization I support- the Partisan Defense Committee- which will forward the donation. You can google either organization for addresses.

REVISED: NOVEMBER 2, 2006

ADDED NOTE: IN ANOTHER TELLING TALE OF THE TIMES THE INFORMATION THAT I RECEIVED FROM THE MASS MEDIA "NEGLECTED" TO INFORM THAT MS. STEWART'S ARAB TRANSLATOR , MOHAMED YOUSRY RECEIVED A 20 MONTH SENTENCE AND PARALEGAL ABDEL SATTAR RECEIVED 24 YEARS- NO THAT IS NOT A MISPRINT-24 YEARS. I MAKE UP OF THAT EGREGIOUS MISTAKE HERE. NEED LESS TO SAY- FREE STEWART, YOUSRY AND SATTAR.

SOFT-CORE SELL OF A STALINIST HENCHMAN

BOOK REVIEW

KHRUSHCHEV, ROY MEDVEDEV, ANCHOR PRESS, NEW YORK, 1983

At one time in the seemingly distant pass the name Roy Medvedev was associated very closely with the left-wing elements of the opposition movements into the former Soviet Union at the time of Khrushchev’s leadership. One would hardly know from reading this biography that the two were, at least formally, political opponents. Mr. Medvedev has produced a biography that beyond acting as catalogue of Mr. Khrushchev’s travels and activities as leader of the former Soviet Union is little more than a soft-core sell of an old Stalinist henchman. This tact on the part of the author may be due to the fact that book was published in 1983 when the Soviet Union was in the early process of going to hell in a hand basket and so the Khrushchev period appeared, in retrospect, to be a Golden Age of Stalinism-without Stalin. Nevertheless if one is looking for a more profound analysis of a key personality of the immediate post-Stalin period one will have to look elsewhere.

That said, Mr. Medvedev cannot be faulted for his general factual presentation. He dutifully, if superficially, goes through Mr. Khrushchev’s rise to the top layer of the Stalin entourage, the struggle for power after Stalin’s death in 1953, the monumental revelations of the crimes of Stalin at the 20th and later the 22nd Russian Communist Party Congresses, the various domestic crises particularly the continuing problems in agriculture that years later would contribute to the downfall of the Soviet Union, the international disputes within the world Communist movement, the at times very heated struggle with the West during various episodes of the Cold War and his eventual downfall from power in 1964.

The reviewer grew up in America at the time of the rise and fall of the Khrushchev regime and it was useful to be reminded of those events, their importance in the history of that period and as a refreshing of my memory of my reaction to the events at the time. For those who have forgotten or do not know of the key events such as the attempts at nuclear disarmament, the crisis in Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis this book provide a competent review of those events.

The stumbling block to any further credit to Mr. Medvedev’s book is his rather fawning attitude over Mr. Khrushchev’s achievements in the post-Stalin period. Yes, Mr. Khrushchev performed an important, if not adequate, service to the international communist movement by his revelations of Stalin’s crimes. But any leftist critic of Stalinism has the right to ask- Mr. Khrushchev what were you doing at the time of all these acknowledged crimes while a henchman of Mr. Stalin? It is not enough to argue that there was little one could do. The history and fate of the Left Opposition in the Russian Communist Party and that of other oppositionists in the wastes of Russia testify to other routes for those who considered themselves Bolsheviks. No, this gloss-over will not do.

Mr. Khrushchev, Mr. Medvedev and I shared one thing in common. At one time we all stood for the defense of the Soviet Union against attack by world imperialism and internal counterrevolution. Beyond that we part ways. I note that all through this paean to the intrepid Mr. Khrushchev there is very little sense that in the Khrushchev era, despite some obvious thawing of the internal political environment, that workers and farmers councils could have been a more appropriate way out of the impasse of Soviet society than just playing musical chairs with the top levels of the Soviet bureaucracy. The gap between that Leninist understanding of the road to socialism and Mr. Khrushchev’ s top-down operation certainly did its part to weaken the Soviet Union and cause its ultimate collapse. Stalinism certainly represented the political expropriation of the working class, the labor camps, the judicial murders, the bureaucratic perks and all of that. However, in the final analysis the Stalin regime also meant the practice of "socialism in one country" which placed natural limits on the internal developments of the Soviet Union. Stalin liked it that way. Nothing in the book indicated that Khrushchev saw the world any differently.



SOME OF THE BOOKS REVIEWED HERE MAY NOT BE READILY AVAILABLE AT LOCAL LIBRARIES OR BOOKSTORES. CHECK AMAZON.COM FOR AVAILABILITY THERE, BOTH NEW AND USED. YOU CAN ALSO GOOGLE THE MARXIST INTERNET ARCHIVES.

*IT AIN'T GOING TO BE POPULAR BUT-HANDS OFF NORTH KOREA!

Click on the headline to link to a Workers Vanguard article U.S. Imperialism Hands Off North Korea!, dated January 17, 2003.

COMMENTARY

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM- WHEN YOU LET THE GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE –WATCH OUT-AND DON’T CRY ABOUT IT

In a recent blog commenting on Massachusetts Senator John Forbes Kerry’s emerging presidential campaign for the elections of 2008 (see October 2006 archives, dated October 13th) this writer commented on Mr. Kerry’s hue and cry over the fact that North Korea had recently detonated some small nuclear devise and his call for America to take ‘appropriate action’ including, presumably a preemptive first strike against that country. That position has also been echoed by others in the liberal and Democratic Party establishments. At that time I wrote that I would have further comments later. Here goes.

The hard realities of international politics and military policy in the year 2006 are that any “third world” countries that are in the crosshairs of the American imperialists(or other imperialists) need nuclear weapons in order to survive. I warned from the start this commentary would not be pretty. The two destructive wars in Iraq over the past 15 years, where a marginally harmful figure to imperialists interests like Saddam Hussein was dealt severe conventional military blows, when the West even had a tiny thought that he had the potential (in some distant future) to produce such weaponry dramatically brings that point home. In the current one-superpower world dominated overwhelmingly by a far-flung American military presence this fact cannot have been lost on any leader of a small nation-least of all Kim Jung Il of North Korea.

Western imperialism’s hypocrisy over the occurrence of the blast and the media’s treatment of it, replete with vintage film footage reminiscent of old Soviet May Day parades, like some central event of the presumably long past Cold War seems strikingly irrational in the context of current American military capabilities.
Let me cite the standard leftist comments on such hypocrisy. While such comments might seem tired and reflect an old Cold War reality they nevertheless should underline any leftist response to the international situation today. Hell, for all practical purposes it is starting to look like that kind of world again. To begin- America, after all, let the genie out of the bottle when it first developed the atomic bomb for use in the waning days of World War II. Those who let the genie out of the bottle should not cry- over 60 years later- when some upstarts come along, use the simplification of that technology to develop their own weaponry and want to play in the same sandbox.

Commentators , in defending American leadership of an exclusive nuclear club, have placed great emphasis on the deterrent effect, based on mutually assured destruction, of the then escalating nuclear arms race during most parts of the Cold War which ended with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. Two comments should disabuse the reader of the notion of firm stewardship by American imperialism over that time. One, the Americans ruling class did in fact use nuclear weapons on essentially defenseless and defeated people in Japan. And has been the only power in history to do so. Two, the American imperialists today have several thousand serious nuclear weapons with the capacity to launch them anytime, anywhere and if history is any judge with little compunction to use them. “Third World” tin-pot dictators, quasi-socialist bureaucrats and other assorted rulers are not the only ones that should be worried by such facts. Damn, I am worried too.

Among the first political activities that I engaged in as a youth was the fight for unilateral nuclear disarmament. I admired the struggles of the British Labor Party to make Great Britain a nuclear-free zone during the height of the Cold War. As an advocate today for a socialist world that youthful dream still holds sway in the back of my mind- but now with a much better understanding of the nature of world politics and far less naiveté about the nature and intentions of the American capitalist system. Iraq today is only the most graphic example of the ruthlessness of that system. However, unlike such groups as the hard-line Stalinist Workers World Party which apparently wants the North Korean U.S. political franchise (for what it is worth) I do not see Kim Jung Il as one of nature’s noblemen. Nor is North Korea a “workers paradise” by any stretch of the imagination. However it is up to the workers and peasants of North Korea (along with their brethren in the South) to take care of that question of "regime change" and move forward to a socialist society. That task cannot be outsourced under the bloody dictates of international imperialism and its hangers-on. Until that future socialist time , however, make no mistake I join others, including the Workers World Party, in demanding- HANDS OFF NORTH KOREA!

Revised October 20, 2006