Click on the title to link to a "The Boston Globe" article, dated January 30, 2010, in which American President Barack Obama defends himself against Republican charges that his ill-fated (and totally inadequate) health care program is a "Bolshevik plot".
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“A specter is haunting Europe- the specter of communism … "(from the start of the Marxist classic, “The Communist Manifesto”)
Most of the time the entries in this blog, givens its purposes, require me to think about some long lost historical event that needs to be mentioned or to recall some political memory that may be of help in today’s struggle for our communist future. Every once in a while though, and fairly infrequently of late, the daily news serves that purpose. The latest internal capitalist ruling class squabble between President Barack Obama and a caucus of Republican congressmen down in Baltimore the other day is a case in point. As part of the proceedings Mr. Obama felt the need to defend himself from the crackpot old-time Cold War charges of being a “Bolshevik”. This comment will serve as a certificate of authenticity that, indeed, President Obama is not a Bolshevik, has never been a Bolshevik, and has never knowingly uttered the names Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky in mixed company, or in his sleep.
Actually, my first reaction on reading the “news” of “comrade” Imperial Commander-in-Chief Obama’s conversion to hard communist politics was to question the quality of the drinking water in Maryland, or the quality of the dope and booze, or the air ventilation system down at that resort. The last time anyone used the word “Bolshevik” in American presidential politics was probably back in Woodrow Wilson’s time, around the time of the Russian October Revolution of 1917, and then only to justify running every known red, radical or Wobblie they could get their hands on out of the country. That happened in a capitalist reactionary panic but things settled down a little shortly thereafter as the American republic entered the “Jazz Age”. Today, twenty years after the demise of the Soviet Union, that characterization in “high” bourgeois politics is crazy, right? All this brouhaha has done is increased exponentially the number of hits on the “Wikipedia” site for the “Bolshevik” entry for those millions of people who are clueless about what the reference is all about.
I will just give, for the readers here who may not know, a very quick snapshot of what a Bolshevik is and see if the shoe fits the President. A Bolshevik is from that wing (the Leninist wing) of the pre-World War I Russian social-democracy that stood on the ground, one way or the other, that the workers, supported by the peasants, would lead the impeding social revolution. The Mensheviks, and I mean no dishonor to one of the left leaders of that wing of Russian social democracy, Julius Martov, who would, like Lenin and Trotsky, turn over in his grave to be compared to a two-bit bourgeois politician like Obama, preferred that the liberal capitalists lead the revolution in economically backward Russia. Does that dispute within the Russian social democracy over the stages of the course of REVOLUTION sound anything like any of the sound bites coming out of Maryland? Or Washington?
Additionally, the Bolsheviks, when the deal went down in 1917, stood for the expropriation of the banks, not bailing them out. For worker control of socialized industrial, leaving the capitalist owners to cooperate or leave. For land to the tiller including the breakup of the large landed estates, with or without the landlord’s consent. For free, quality health care for all, not a bonanza for the insurance industry. And, most importantly, for our immediate tasks here today in America, an end to Russian participation in the imperial slaughter that was World War I, not sending troops to all four corners of the globe in the interests of the American imperial state. Not only does one Barack Obama not stand for those political propositions I do not believe that he is intellectually or emotionally capable of, and certainly his Republican opponents are not, of comprehending such a program.
President Obama can thus plead with a true heart “not guilty” (we will not accept that “no lo” plea that is the natural refuge of bourgeois politicians) to any such thoughts. In fact, the only nodding acquaintance that any of the parties in this current flare-up might have with Bolshevik practice is their version of the organizational principle of democratic centralism, that is once a decision is made by the group then publicly its stand behind that one line. The one line here that these two wings of the capitalist class agree on is- capitalism must be defended to the bitter end. So there is a little modicum of rationality to their worry about Bolshevism but it is not from the Obama White House. That will come from those red flag-draped masses, now beaten down, isolated, and frustrated, that will be coming to their doors if they decide to get in our way when the time for real Bolsheviks to show their stuff comes around.
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