*A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY- The View From Professor Irving Howe's Chair

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Professor Irving Howe.

BOOK REVIEW

THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY-A CRITICAL HISTORY (1919-1957), IRVING HOWE AND LEWIS COSER, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, 1957

I have reviewed the two volume set on the history of the early American Communist Party by Theodore Draper elsewhere in this space. There I noted that as an addition to the historical record of the period from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the formation and consolidation of the legal, above ground party in 1923 The Roots of American Communism and its companion volume detailing the period from 1923 to 1929-American Communism and Soviet Russia are the definitive scholarly studies on the early history of the American Communist Party through the Stalinization of the American party.

The present volume by Irving Howe, who had been long time editor of the social democratic journal Dissent, and fellow professor Lewis Coser took that story up to 1957. Although Howe and Coser also covered the early period covered by Draper including the pre-World War I radical milieu, the split of the left wing of the Socialist Party, the creation of two communist parties, the underground period , the eventual reunion of the two parties, the resurfacing and finally the Stalinization of the party since I believe that Draper did an extremely thorough job on the early period I therefore will limit my comments on this book to the period after that from the ‘third period’ Communist policy of about 1929 through the Popular Front, the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and the various makeshift popular front policies of the World War II and post-war period.

That said, I will pose the same question here that I did in the Draper reviews. Why must militants read these works today? After the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe anything positively related to Communist studies is deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America when it became primarily a tool of Soviet diplomacy. Now is the time for militants to study the mistakes and draw the lessons of that history.

Needless to say the very title of this study gives its perspective-a critical study- and that attitude, sometimes mockingly, sometimes with disgust at Communist strategy and tactics mars this work as one would expect from a political opponent of communism. But we are after all political people (assuming that today’s reader of such material has to be political) and we know how to take those kinds of opponent's remarks in stride. The book nevertheless provides a wealth of information about what was going on in the American Communist party, how subservient it was to Moscow at any particular time and the difficulties inherent in a radical approach to American labor politics during that period (and now, for that matter).

For my money the most important contribution in this volume is the study of the ‘third period’. For those unfamiliar with the terminology Communist International language, codified in its theses and tactics, had set 1917-1924, the first period, as one of revolutionary opportunities, 1924-28, the second period, of capitalist stabilization and beginning about 1929 the ‘third period’-the collapse of capitalism and the final confrontation between the two main forces in world politics- the bosses and the workers. A good shorthand way to describe this period was the slogan- Class Against Class. Well we all know the results- the most important being the victory of Hitler in Germany without so much as a fight by the working class. I will confess that in my youth I was intellectually very drawn to ‘third period’ Comintern politics, that is, until I got hold of a copy of Leon Trotsky’s The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany and realized that the whole Stalinist policy was a house of cards. There were no places of exile for the mass of the German working class who borne the brunt of Hitler’s vengeance as a result of this strategy. They took it on the chin and never really recovered from that defeat. So much for ultra-radical sloganeering. Although the effects on the American scene were not as traumatic it was nevertheless a period of isolation and some very serious labor defeats in struggles here.

If in my youth I was enamored of the ‘third period’ that was not the case of the next period-the period of the popular front. As a reaction to the sterility and foolishness of the ‘third period’ and the isolation internationally of the Soviet Union in the face of the Hitler menace the class against class approach was abandoned to be replaced by one in which the communists were basically undifferentiated from the mass of bourgeois politics- they were just the ‘guys and gals’ next door. Although this was the period of greatest influence for the American party in the unions, in the universities, in cultural life and in American politics in general it too proved a house of cards when the Moscow line changed during the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-41. The authors present a very interesting description of how the party maneuvered through ‘front’ groups during the popular front period to gain apparent influence on the cheap. They list a whole catalogue of organizations that the party controlled, a few that I was not previously aware of, and what happened went the deal went sour in 1939. In short, a lesson that latter radicals, including today’s radicals, should have permanently etched in their brains when one counts how much influence we really have in such things as the current anti-Iraq war movement.


After the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941 the party’s influence grew but for all the wrong reasons- it was the most patriotic and conservative factor in labor politics, all ostensibly in the interest of defending the Soviet Union. In the post-war period, however, the party reaped what it had sown as it faced a steep decline of influence in the labor movement due to its own policies and the ‘red scare’ that developed during the Cold War build up. It is during the discussion of this period that the authors show their greatest degree of contempt for the American party mainly arguing that that party was solely an agent for the Soviet Union and therefore not part of the labor movement. While those of us today who are anti-Stalinist can quote chapter and verse the crimes of Stalinism as well as Howe and Coser could it is a very grave mistake to have assumed that Stalinism was not a current of the international labor movement and therefore did not have to be defended. We have paid a steep price for that social democratic view. It was necessary to defeat Stalinism within the labor movement but not by 'outsourcing' that task to American imperialism. Read this book with a very jaded eye.

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- *ANOTHER SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LOOK AT LEON TROTSKY-Albert Glotzer's View

Click on title to link to the Albert Glotzer Internet Archive for samples of his writing while was in the Socialist Workers Party in the 1930s and later after he split from that party in the famous Shachtman-led exit in 1940 over the question of defense of the Soviet Union. That was the touchstone issue for his, and later generations, and one can see in the later writing the slip-slide into the defense of "democratic" imperialism. A cautionary tale, for sure.

BOOK REVIEW

TROTSKY-MEMOIR AND CRITIQUE, ALBERT GLOTZER, PROMETHEUS BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1989

THIS MONTH MARKS THE 67TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER OF LEON TROTSKY BY A STALINIST AGENT-ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE GREAT RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY

As readers of this space may know I make no bones about being an admirer of the work of Leon Trotsky (see archives). I have noted elsewhere that I believe that the definitive biography of the man is Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume set. Nevertheless, others have written biographies, or in this a case a memoir and critique (naturally-the memoir alone in this case would not sustain a book) on Trotsky that are either less balanced than Deutscher’s or come at it from a different angle with a different ax to grind. Mr. Glotzer’s take on Trotsky’s legacy is a classic post World War II social democratic one driven by the effect of the ravages of American imperialism during the Cold War on the right wing of that international political tendency. The post war period was not kind to those who fell away from the politics that sparked their communist youth, but more on that at another time.

Despite our extreme politic differences Mr. Glotzer’s reminiscences of how he became a communist are welcome. I am always fascinated by how those who came to political maturity a couple of generations before me and who are the real living links to the Russian Revolution felt about that event. Moreover, Mr. Glotzer is no mere chronicler of Trotsky’s life. During the 1930’s before the political temperature in the American left intellectual milieu got too hot for some of them Mr. Glotzer was part of the leadership of the American Trotskyist movement and was a key lieutenant, factional operative and personal friend of a central founder- one Max Shachtman. That these two, along with another “Young Turk” one Martin Abern, spent as much time plotting for organizational control of the movement against the wily ‘bureaucratic’ old timer and founder James P. Cannon during that time as in constructive political work is a separate issue. Needless to say only a few cryptic references to that experience surface in this work- a very selective memoir, as is usually the case. For more on that political struggle read Cannon’s The Struggle for a Proletarian Party and Trotsky’s In Defense of Marxism and make up your own mind.


As always the critique of Trotsky, or more correctly, Bolshevism is centered on the question of the organizational principles of that party. That is democratic- centralism or as the critics would have it bureaucratic-centralism-long on the bureaucratic, short on the democratic. Trotsky is seen here to have escaped that bad practice until he linked up with the Bolsheviks in 1917. This is his 'original sin' in the eyes of liberals and social democrats like Glotzer. The reduction of an organizational principle of a political party to the decisive reason for the degeneration of a revolution defies belief.

The model for all European social democratic parties, including both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in Russia, at the turn of the 20th century was the German party. One does not have to read to far into the history of that party to know that even without state power to buttress its organizational practice that party was as bureaucratically run as any Stalinist party cell. The real question then is not the principle of democratic centralism but the question of a ‘vanguard party’ versus a ‘party of the whole class’. In the end that was what the dispute in the Russian social democracy turned on. And later on the international movement, as well. History has demonstrated, if it has demonstrated anything on this question, that a ‘party of the whole class’ with its implication of inclusiveness toward socially backward workers can never take state power, if that was the idea of those who argued for this type of party in the first place. All of the above said, the question of bureaucracy in the process of transforming society from capitalism to socialism is one that has, in the light of the history of Stalinism, has to be taken as a real question. There are no a priori guarantees on the bumpy road to socialism but that is hardly the decisive question for now.

The rest of Glotzer’s critique is a more or less quick gloss on his politics and a rather annoying gloating over what proved to be the incorrectness of some of Trotsky’s predictions. The central argument Glotzer presents here is that capitalism rather than being in its death throes as Trotsky (and before him, Lenin) suggested still had, and has, a life and is not ready to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, those social democrats, like Glotzer, did more than their fair share of ideological work of behalf of preserving the imperialist status quo. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had ended his memoirs in his Communist youth in the 1930’s when he helped to try to create an international Trotskyist youth movement -that is the Glotzer who interests me. The rest I have heard a million times before.

*A Slight Irving Howe Confession-The Sins Of An Ex- Social Democrat

Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's copy of the chapter on "Dual Power" from Trotsky's "The History Of The Russian Revolution" mentioned below in today's entry.

Commentary

In two recent commentaries I have done my fair share of kicking Professor Irving Howe, the late social democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around. And I am not finished by any means. (See "The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals" and "Who ‘Lost’ the Sixties?" in the May 2008 archives) But today, as this is as is oft-quoted a confessional age, I have a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about my connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it takes to write this commentary up I will call an armed truce with the shades of the professor.

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent". The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read latter left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro". I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his Howe biography notes that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent", at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was suppose to be an independent 'socialist' magazine. Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water.


Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist world view. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution", a section called "On Dual Power". I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- Guest Book Reviews

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
***************
Reviews

Max Adler, A Socialist Remembers, Duckworth, London, 1988, pp174, £16.95

This memoir, with its dedication:

To the memory of my parents

Rudolf and Selma Adler

(Theresienstadt and Auschwitz 1942)

and for my wife Janka

is distinguished by many features, features lacking in similar books dealing with the same period and circumstances. Although certainly not a theoretical work, it is objective, self-critical and devoid of self-pity or hysteria. The writing is clear, especially on the complicated national and ethnic problems following the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into which the author was born, in Pilsen, now Plzen, in western Bohemia.

The story of his school life is a tale of constant revolt against teachers and parents. He relates how:

Czechoslovakia was very tolerant in religion. At 14 you could go to a government office and declare, either that you wanted to change your religion, or that you wanted to contract out of a religious community altogether without entering another. There is even a German and a Czech term for this which does not exist in English: you could become ‘konfessionslos’, in Czech ‘bez nabozenstvi’, i.e. without any religion. On my fourteenth birthday I promptly declared myself ‘Konfessionslos’. As a consequence I no longer had to attend religious instruction. There was a rabbi in Pilsen, a Dr Golinsky, a wise and learned man. Like most of the clergy he was underpaid and poor, and to supplement his income he undertook religious instruction himself. According to the educational laws there had to be a minimum of 10 pupils for a non-obligatory class. We had been 10, and when I left there were only nine. The rabbi was not a very religious man: he was far too wise and worldly for that. But he needed the money, and he went to my father, who had had no idea that I had renounced my religion, and told him the story.

My father took a step which shows what a good and intelligent man he was. He did not scold me, for he knew that I had the backing of the law, but he appealed to me by pointing out how poor the rabbi was, that he needed the money and that I, as a Socialist, should support him. The result was that I agreed to attend the class on condition that I need not prepare the lessons, and that I kept quiet.

As a student in Vienna he was an active member of the Austrian Socialist Party. He collected the dues of the party members in his district, one of whom was Otto Klemperer, the conductor. The Prague Social Democratic paper appointed him their Vienna correspondent. He gave lectures at the Austrian party school, where he also studied ‘Marxian economics’ under Dr Benedikt Kautsky, son of Karl Kautsky. As a member of the Schutzbund (the military section of the Socialist Party) he took part in the 15 July 1927 ‘Bloody July’. Here is his account:

It is a sad story. In the smallest of the Länder of which Austria was composed, the Burgenland, which formerly belonged to Hungary and in which Germans, Magyars and Croats lived together peacefully, two members of the Social Democratic Party, simple workers, were murdered by the Austrian Fascists. This was at the beginning of July, and the whole working class movement was deeply shocked. At the trial the murderers were discharged, in spite of all the evidence, by reactionary judges. When it became known in Vienna that the murderers of Schattendorf had got off scot free, tens of thousands of workers assembled before the Ministry of Justice. At first there were peaceful demonstrations. The Schutzbund was mobilised to keep them in order, and I was in the middle of it.

Suddenly the building was set on fire. We in the Schutzbund tried our best to prevent it, but we could do little with an enraged working class who felt that the judgement of Schattendorf was directed against the whole working class movement, as in fact it was. This gave the police a good excuse to shoot at the demonstrators. Eighty-five were killed outright and hundreds were wounded ...

I will never forget the burial of the victims at the cemetery in Vienna when Otto Bauer, the party leader, spoke before the 85 coffins of the victims. It was very moving. We felt that a chapter in the history of the Party was closed. In fact, this event was the beginning of the end of the once-powerful Austrian working class movement. A few years later they lost the civil war.

Next year he was involved in a less serious incident:

There was a strike of the waiters in the Cafe Pruckl, a well-known coffee house in the Ringstrasse patronised by the rich. To help the strikers the Socialist student organisation arranged for about 40 students to go there early in the morning, order a glass of soda water (the cheapest drink available, served by blacklegs) and sit the whole day to prevent paying patrons finding a place. We took food and books with us, and remained completely silent so as not to give the police an excuse to expel us. Also present were various prominent Social Democrats, including a member of parliament. It was no good: at five o’clock the police attacked the coffee house and arrested a number of students, among them myself. We were taken to the police prison, which I had known well enough from previous arrests, accused of having offended the police by shouting at them (which was not true) and then released.

The case made a stir in Vienna, and all the newspapers reported the trial. Of course they slanted their reports according to their political leanings. Thus the Nazi Deutschösterreichische Tagezeitung ran the headline “Prague Jew demonstrates against Cafe Pruckl”. Even the Communist daily, the Rote Fahne (Red Flag), printed a hostile report.

While still studying in Vienna he was offered, and accepted, the co-editorship of a new paper, Friegeist in Reichenberg (now Liberec). Opposite Reichenberg on the German side was a small town in which was advertised a Fascist meeting. In spite of the notice at the entrance, “Entry forbidden to dogs and Jews”, Max attended and reported. The speaker was Adolf Hitler. The year was 1930. In 1931 Max took over the secretaryship of the German Social Democratic party in Slovakia and the Carpatho-Ukraine. In the chapter headed Gun running for the Schutzbund, is the following report:

In 1932 the situation in Austria became critical. There was danger of a civil war between the Socialist Schutzbund and the Fascist Heimwehr; a year later it broke out. Czechoslovakia had an extensive common frontier with Austria, and it was in her interest to help save democracy in that country. In real terms this meant that the Schutzbund should be provided with weapons. Having been a member of the Schutzbund myself in my Viennese days, I knew a good deal about this organisation.

The problem was how to smuggle weapons over the border. The German Social Democratic Party urged the government to make Pressburg the focal point of the weapon smuggling, because Pressburg was close to the Austrian border, and there was also the Danube. My comrade Wagner and I were the central figures in this affair. Money was plentiful, because it came from the government.

Railway carriages were secretly loaded with rifles, ammunition, dynamite and machine guns near the Pressburg railway station. The problem was how to get all this into Austria, and into the right hands. There were two possibilities: either to send the stuff by way of the Danube to Vienna, or to use lorries to take it over the Austrian border. We dispatched several loads on Danube boats, and the rest by lorry.

My wife proved very brave. Many times she went to Vienna to the Austrian Party Presidium, especially to the leader, Otto Bauer, and to General Deutsch who was in command of the Schutzbund. In her overcoat were sewn messages noting when a new load was ready for dispatch.

After the civil war in Austria, which the Socialists lost, many members of the Schutzbund were sentenced to imprisonment or death. Otto Bauer sent a letter to Max warning him not to cross into Austria, as his name was prominently mentioned in the Schutzbund trial. With the Munich agreement and the Nazis’ occupation of the Sudetenland, Chamberlain gave the German Social Democratic Party 1,000 visas for the same number of families. Adler’s wife obtained one for themselves and their five year old son. They flew out of Prague to Britain. There the book ends.

One of the first places he stayed in Britain was a Welsh village, where, with his aptitude for and interest in minority languages, he learned Welsh from the village school mistress. With his knowledge of statistical methods, which he had studied at Vienna, he got himself a job as a statistician with the Daily Herald, where he was elected Deputy Father of the NATSOPA Chapel (National Amalgamated Society of Operative Printers). From about 1952 he was a member of the Workers’ League, and assisted in its publication, the Workers News Bulletin. I am indebted to a member of the Workers League at that time, Joe Thomas, for the above information.

I have also before me a copy of a letter Max wrote to the Jewish Socialist Group in March 1985, when he was 80 years old, saying he would like to join their organisation, but, because of his frail health, he would not be able to attend meetings, demonstrations, etc, but he would support them modestly with some contributions, and had recently been supporting the miners’ strike with a contribution of £100 a month.

He died in 1986.

Ernest Rogers

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain"- Fight For "The Big Rock" Dream- Fight For A Workers Party!

Click on the title to link a YouTube film clip of Harry McClintock performing his classic Big Rock Candy Mountain.

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

************

Big Rock Candy Mountain- Harry McClintock

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
The winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain't no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
....
I'll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

*Writer's Corner- The Life And Times Of Jack London- A Guest Book Review/Interview

Click on the headline to link to National Public Radio's On Point for an interview with a new Jack London biography, Wolf: The Lives Of Jack London, by James Haley

Markin comment:

I don't know that I have still gotten over the sense of hunger, hard, right to the nub hunger, after reading Jack London's Call Of The Wild (or the look of food in the same way afterwards). Whoa! Stand back this guy London can write. His politics, ostensibly socialist, were a little more problematic. More on that later, for now though listen to this informative interview.

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-In Honor Of Paul LaFargue-"The Right To Be Lazy"

Click on the headline to link to a "Marxist Internet Archive" online copy of Paul LaFargue's (Karl Marx's son-in-law)most famous work, "The Right To Be Lazy."

Markin comment:

In a humorous and sardonic way LaFargue's point in "The Right To Be Lazy" is, in the final analysis, what those of us who fight for our communist future are fighting for now. Let's get to it.

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Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

From The Archives Of The “ Revolutionary History” Journal-In Honor Of Paul LaFargue

Click on the headline to link to the “Revolutionary History” Journal entry listed in the title.

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-In Honor Of Paul LaFargue

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

*On Using The "C" Word- "C-------t" In Public- A Note

Click on the headline to link a website that features George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

Markin comment:

Politics, including revolutionary politics, has its up and down moments; this one is an up one and moreover is also a “teachable” moment to boot. Recently I received a message from a young leftist militant, or at least that is how I would categorize him politically, asking about the various terms used in our left-wing movement to define sundry political types and trends. He was, not surprisingly, when one thinks about it confused over the common use and interchangeability (whoa!), including by this writer, of terms like left-wing militant, leftist, socialist , revolutionary socialist, workers party, revolutionary labor party, workers government, dictatorship of the proletariat, Bolshevik, and, the holy of holies, Communist, the “C” word of the headline.

Well, frankly, part of the interchangeability is to vary up the usage in an article or series of articles, depending, sometimes, on the subject and to whom the entry is directed. I will, however, let the old socialist writer George Orwell take me to task on this one. For those not familiar with Orwell’s work, “Politics and the English Language”, I have linked that gem above. Now Orwell had many political faults, including that funny little quirk of a touching faith in British imperialism in the early Cold War period of the 1940s shortly before his death in 1949, but he had it exactly right about the virtues of political precision. I can only say, as I have on other occasions, that I have honored that wisdom in the breech more than in the observance on more occasions that I care to recount.

But to address the young militant leftist’s point more fully I will try to draw some differences in terminology starting with the categorization of "militant leftist". I would say today that political designation would include someone against the American imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other imperial adventures and willing to go into the streets on the question. Someone also, perhaps, vaguely disenchanted with international capitalism but with no particular strategy to change it beyond some “tinkering” with the system. In short, the predicament of the vast majority of those, especially of the young, who are looking for a way out of the impasse posed by capitalism. Today, one may wear the badge “militant leftist” with some honor. Whether that will remain true in the future will depend on not yet known circumstances.

Beyond that general political characterization in order to see whether our fellows fall on “the side of the angels” or not, there is something of real and defining history in the usage of certain terms in the socialist movement. Before World War I, and the overwhelming betrayal by many of the European Social Democratic parties in supporting their own country’s capitalist government's war efforts, that term was in general usage and highly regarded. Even then, as factions developed within these “party of the whole class” organizations, reformist and revolutionary socialist wings were apparent. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the clear defining line was between the now committed reformist Social Democrats and the equally committed revolutionary Communists. That distinction reflected the Bolshevik “hard” position that it was necessary to overthrow the capitalist governments of the world and create new working class institutions that would serve to put society on the road to socialism. I submit that that distinction is still a good approximation for the differences between ostensibly socialist organizations today.

I want to give special attention to the terms revolutionary labor party, workers party, dictatorship of the proletariat, and workers government, terms that are strewn all over many of the entries in this space. These expressions are terms of art in the revolutionary movement so some clarity is necessary. When I propagandize for a workers party my idea is not some generic version of the old Labor Party in Great Britain that serves at the sufferance of the Queen but of a revolutionary labor party based on a transitional program of demands that require a socialist overturn of society to be implemented. And that overturn is reflected in the idea of a workers government. That, my friends, is nothing less than the old Marxist idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” –the first tentative step to the socialist stage of development and then to communism, the classless society. Now if this information does not help let me put it this way. If I have a preference as to what I want to be called, politically, and would be happy to have etched on my grave marker then inscribe the “C” word please. And you should be too. In the meantime I will,and hopefully you will also, continue to fight for our communist future-the classless society.

*The Latest From The "Internationalist Socalist Organization" Website

Click on the title to link to the latest from The "Internationalist Socialist Organization" Website.

*Again, An Anniversary of Sorts- On Keeping (Or Trying To Keep) A Revolutionary Perspective In Hard Political Times

Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's copy of pages from Leon Trotsky's Journal for 1936 and 1937, a tough period for him politically and personally before the Mexican exile came through.

Commentary

Parts of this entry were used last summer (An Anniversary of Sorts, July 2007 archives) to mark my 35th year as a follower of Karl Marx. Most of these remarks are also pertinent here as I celebrate my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky.

This summer (2007) marks the 35th year of my commitment to Marxism. Those who have been reading my commentaries for a while know that I try to commemorate, and comment on, important anniversaries in our common working class and leftist history like the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti or the start of the Paris Commune. Those same readers also know that I have been rather short with bourgeois politicians like John Kerry who have a habit of commemorating every little political move they have taken. The winner for me was Kerry’s very public celebration at historic Fanueil Hall in Boston in 2006 of the 35th anniversary of his anti-war testimony before Congress in 1971. Christ, I still chuckle over the absurdity of that one. But hear me out on this. I want no pat on the back but to just make a comment about why, despite the current historic trend away from socialist solutions to the world’s problems, I still proudly carry the title communist.

I once remarked in a review of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto that the third section of that document where he polemicizes against the various liberal and so-called socialist groups of his day that in my search for political solutions in my early days I had probably held virtually every position that he argued against. And believe me, dear reader, that is no exaggeration-except maybe I did not advocate for feudal socialism. But the rest, liberalism, both tactical and principled versions of pacifism, anarchism, guerrilla warfare, and ...well you get the drift I was right in the thick of. This is probably why when I headed, reluctantly I might add, to Marxism it stuck. And that is the main idea I am trying to get at in this piece. That is the power of Marxism as a tool for looking at and changing the world. The only other point I would add is that over the past thirty-five years nothing in politics, our few victories and our many, too many defeats at the hands of the capitalists, has made me regret that I took the road back to my working class roots. I have made many a political mistake in my life, that is for sure. But this is not one of them. LONG LIVE THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!!!

2008

Recently in an entry (A Slight Irving Howe Confession, May 2008 archives) I mentioned Professor Howe’s role in my introduction (at least conscious introduction) to the work of Leon Trotsky. As mentioned below it was not enough back in 1972 to come to a Marxist understanding of the world it was also necessary to trace the threads through to the thoughts of more modern Marxist thinkers. I repost the section on how I was introduced to Trotsky’s thought here as a little reminder that fate takes some funny turns in this wicked old world.

Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist worldview. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, a section called On Dual Power. I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.

Once Again in 2008- Long Live The World Socialist Revolution!

*Who 'Lost' The Sixties?- The Culture Wars In America Up Close And Personal

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), a central organizational expression of all the theoretical and strategic impulses that made the 1960s "very heaven" and, as well, a fount of confusion in the struggle against American imperialism. For those who are only familiar with the current version of SDS this is your parents' (or grandparents', ouch)SDS. On reflection, those were the days, warts and all.

Commentary

I recently reviewed a biography of the late social democratic editor of Dissent, Irving Howe (by Professor Gerald Sorin, New York University Press, 2002), in this space. One of the grievous faults that I laid at Professor Howe’s door step was that he and his cohort of “greatest generation” intellectuals, mainly from New York City, had so thoroughly made their peace with bourgeois society that the bulk of the New Left in the 1960’s dismissed their efforts out of hand. Professor Sorin’s biography spent some time on this question and draws the conclusion that Howe and his compatriots were essentially right in their scorn for the confrontational tactics of the New Left. Furthermore, he argues that Howe was correct in his estimation that such New Left efforts would ‘turn people off’ and that a backlash would occur as a result. Thus, the question is posed point blank- who ‘lost’ the Sixties?

I titled my review of Professor Sorin’s biography The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals for a reason. If nothing else the professor’s narrative of Howe’s political progression (if that is the correct word for such a trajectory) simply confirms that retreat. A quick synopsis of that odyssey is in order here. In the mid-1930’s Howe became an ardent anti-Stalinist socialist drawn to the American Socialist Party in New York City. As elements of that party moved leftward, responding to the labor struggles and general political turmoil of that period, he became a follower of Leon Trotsky. When the international situation heated up and the question of which side of the class divide one was on was unavoidable he slipped out the back door with the anti–Soviet defensist wing of the Trotskyist movement led by Max Shachtman.

Thereafter Howe spent the bulk of the Forties laboring to find a ‘third camp’ in a world that was becoming extremely polarized by the onrushing Cold War. By the early 1950’s he had begun his long-term position of ‘critical support’ to American imperialism. Perhaps out of old sentimental attachments he nevertheless still considered himself a socialist, at least as he understood socialism. The Trotskyist movement had another less kind, but apt, name for his type of politics- “State Department socialism”. Does that profile, and Howe was by no means the worst of the lot in this regard, read as if he was ready to ‘storm heaven’ in the 1960’s? To pose the question is to give the answer.

I have on more than one occasion been at pains to convey the fact that we of the New Left in the 1960’s made every political mistake in the radical/revolutionary handbook. (I have discussed my own political evolution in past entries and will make separate commentary on it in connection with this question in a future entry.) Part of the purpose of this blog site is to discuss and analyze those mistakes. What was not a mistake, because we were under the gun if for no other reason especially those in the black liberation struggle, was bringing our politics out into the street rather than solely relying on the good offices of the imperial state. One would think that those socialists who came of political age in the 1930’s, another great era of extra- parliamentary political struggle, would have taken that lesson as the ABC’s of political organizing.

To buttress my argument here is a graphic case in point. One of the defining issues of the Sixties was the question of the socialist position on the Vietnam War that was raging and tearing up (along with the effects of the black liberation struggle) the fabric of American society. One would think, and here we can use the current apparently never-ending Iraq war as a guidepost, that as an elementary political position that the call for immediate, unconditional withdrawal of American forces would be an early driving force behind the anti-war struggle of the times, say in about 1965 when the first mass escalations of troops were occurring. Howe, and not he alone, did not endorse such a slogan until 1968, rather late in the game. Of course, 1968 is one of those defining year in American politics. One of the reasons that it is so is that the North Vietnamese Army and the South Vietnamese Liberation Front also initiated their own version of the immediate, unconditional withdrawal slogan for American troops- it was called the Tet offensive. Frankly, I liked their version better.

Finally, Professor Sorin has favorable comments on Howe’s analysis that the confrontational tactics of the Sixties ‘turned the American people off’. We will put the question of whether socialist politics should be determined by polling the heartbeats of the population at any given moment to one side. We will further let the question of whether Howe’s take on the pulse of the American population was correct. We will even put aside the thorny question of whether, and which, tactics were or were no appropriate on the part of the New Left experience. Professor Howe, in his youth, saw social ills in the 1930’s and did something righteous about it. We of the generation of ‘68 saw social ills and did something righteous about it. There are social ills (mainly the same kind as it turns out) now to be righteously addressed. I think a little more of the Thirties and Sixties spirit is called for. What about you?

*Never Forget Greensboro 1979- The Struggle Continues

Click on title to link to a YouTube film clip about the events of that day in 1979 when right wing thugs in Greensboro, North Carolina murdered five communist workers.

COMMENTARY

This is a repost of last year's commemorative commentary. The struggle remains the same.

REMEMBER SLAIN LABOR MILITANTS-CESAR CAUCE, MICHAEL NATHAN, BILL SAMPSON, SANDI SMITH AND JIM WALLER

For those too young to remember or who unfortunately have forgotten the incident commenmorated here this is a capsule summary of what occurred on that bloody day:

On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, five anti-racist activists and union organizers, supporters of the Communist Workers Party (CWP), were fatally gunned down by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi fascists. Nine carloads of Klansmen and Nazis drove up to a black housing project-the gathering place for an anti-Klan march organized by the CWP. In broad daylight, the fascists pulled out their weapons and unleashed an 88-second fusillade that was captured on television cameras. They then drove off, leaving the dead and dying in pools of blood. From the outset, the Klan/Nazi killers were aided and abetted by the government, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who helped train the killers and plot the assassination to the "former" FBI informer who rode shotgun in the motorcade of death and the Greensboro cop who brought up the rear. The five militants listed above died as a result. The Greensboro Klan/Nazis literally got away with murder, acquitted twice by all-white juries.

This writer has recently been raked over the coals by some leftists who were appalled that he called for a no free speech platform for Nazis and fascists (see below) and argued that labor should mobilize its forces and run these vermin off the streets whenever they raise their heads. Despite recent efforts to blur the lines of the heinous nature of and political motivation for these murders in Greensboro by some kind of truth and reconciliation process militant leftists should etch in their brains the reality of the Klan/Nazis. There is nothing to debate with this kind. The niceties of parliamentary democracy have no place in a strategy to defeat these bastards. The Greensboro massacre is prime evidence that any other way is suicidal for militants. No more Germany, 1933's. No more Greensboro, 1979's. Never Forget Greensboro.

REPOST FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2006

In a recent blog (dated, September 4, 2006) this writer mentioned that one of the Klan groups in this country held a demonstration at the Gettysburg National Cemetery over the Labor Day 2006 weekend around a list of demands that included bringing the troops home from Iraq in order to patrol the borders. Symbols mean a lot in politics and the notion that Klansmen were permitted to demonstrate at a key symbol in the fight to end slavery and preserve the union raised my temperature more than a little. As I said then Gettysburg is hallowed ground fought and paid for in great struggle and much blood. At that time the writer posed the question of what, if any, opposition to the demonstration leftists had put together to run these hooded fools out of town. In response, this writer was raked over the coals for calling for an organized fight by labor to nip these elements in the bud. Why? Apparently some people believe that running the fools out of town would have violated the Klan's free speech rights. Something is desperately wrong here about both the nature of free speech and the nature of the Klan/fascist menace.

First, let us be clear, militant leftists defend every democratic right as best we can. I have often argued in this space that to a great extend militant leftists are the only active defenders of such rights- on the streets where it counts. That said, the parameters of such rights, as all democratic rights, cannot trump the needs of the class struggle. In short, militant leftist have no interest in defending or extending the rights of fascists to fill the air with gibberish. Now that may offend some American Civil Liberties Union-types but any self-respecting militant knows that such a position is right is his or her 'gut'.

In the final analysis we will be fighting the Klan-types on the streets and the issue will no be rights of free expression (except maybe in defense of ours) but the survival of our organizations. A short glance at history is to the point.
One of the great tragedies of the Western labor movement was the defeat and destruction of the German labor movement in the wake of the fascist Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In the final analysis that destruction was brought on by the fatally erroneous policies of both the German Social Democratic and Communists parties. Neither party, willfully, saw the danger in time and compounded that error when refused to call for or establish a united front of all labor organizations to confront and destroy Hitler and his storm troopers. We know the result. And it was not necessary. Moreover, Hitler's organization at one time (in the mid-1920's) was small and unimportant like today's Klan/Nazi threat. But that does not mean that under certain circumstances that could not change. And that, my friends, is exactly the point.