Click on title to link to news article about Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's attempts to pressure the faculty and students at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst for permitting former Ohio 7 member Ray Luc Levasseur to speak at their campus.
Markin comment:
This is a simple democratic question. Brother Levasseur has a right to speak and the faculty and student at U/Mass/Amherst have the right to hear what he has to say about politics or whatever subject he is scheduled to discuss. Moreover, as a supporter of an organization, the Partisan Defense Committee, that supports class war political prisoners, which Brother Levasseur most certainly was, there is also the continuing issue of freedom for the last two imprisoned Ohio Seven members, Jaan Laaman and Tom Manning. They should not die in jail. Free them now!
The following is reposted from a 2006 entry in this space concerning the fate of the Ohio Seven.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Link
*Free The Last Of The Ohio Seven- Jaan Laaman And Tom Manning Must Not Die In Prison!
Click on title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee web site. The Partisan Defense Committee has defended the Ohio Seven, and particularly through the annual Holiday Appeal has provided stipends for Brothers Laaman and Manning over the years.
COMMENTARY
ONE OF THE OHIO SEVEN -RICHARD WILLIAMS- RECENTLY DIED IN PRISON. THAT LEAVES JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON. IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM. FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.
The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants, some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution.
In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and also by desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.
The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionist Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.
Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- the Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.
YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE- THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE OHIO 7 DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE JAAN LAAMAN DEFENSE FUND
Markin, What you don't get is that Luc is not a free man yet. He's a federal parolee. His movements and thus his freedom to speak where he wishes is curtailed. As for the UMass students having the right to hear him speak, I agree. They can travel to Waldo, ME and if they are invited into his home, then they can hear all they want.
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