Click on the headline to link to "Workers Vanguard", dated November 9, 2007, for the article on the subject noted above.
Showing posts with label american revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label american revolution. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Saturday, September 24, 2016
RUSSIA 1905-A DRESS REHEARSAL
DVD REVIEW
THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, SERGE EISENSTEIN, 1925
The Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, among others, once called the aborted Revolution of 1905 that stormed over Russia in the wake of the abject defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (the one that American President Teddy Roosevelt acted as peace broker for, in case the reader is unfamiliar) the dress rehearsal for the victorious October Revolution in 1917. With that thought in mind one can see a slice of that dress rehearsal reenacted in Serge Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin. Cinematically, Eisenstein demonstrates the old revolutionary adage about revolution occurring when the rulers cannot rule in the old way and the ‘people’ refuse to be ruled in the old way. That is the paradox of the 1905 Revolution and of the crew. The outrage, particularly after the events of Bloody Sunday of January of that year set the stage but the haphazardness of the actions as shown by the fate of the Potemkin showed that the times were not fully ripened for successful revolutionary action. In the end the fate of the sailors on the Potemkin demonstrated that a mutiny, for after all that was what occurred, must be linked to forces outside the ship to be successful. The vanguard role of the Kronstatdt sailors of the Baltic Fleet in 1917 under Bolshevik influence bears witness to that hard won piece of wisdom.
As I have written in a review of another Eisenstein classic, October (Ten Days That Shook The World), he was the master of montage, stage direction and reenactment of historical scenes. That skill does not fail him here. The widely acclaimed scene from the Steps of Odessa bears eloquent witness to that ability. As was the case in October it shows here in the faces of the actors used to portray the various participants. One may criticize this work as being too didactic in its portrayal of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys but my friends that is what this film is all about. It is a propaganda film made in the 1920’s and reflects the state of the art and the state of working class politics. The sailors were not society’s ‘beautiful’ people. And that is exactly the point. The intent of the revolution was to turn that world upside down with the forces at hands, warts and all. That Eisenstein captured that feel in a silent film that is driven by sober classical Russian music played as background is a tribute to his work. His on and off again relationship with Stalin, while not irrelevant, does not negate its grandeur.
Friday, September 09, 2016
SDS 1969
This article is passed on as an item of historical interest to the radical movement. I would only comment that some of the analysis reads as though it could have been written today. Except today there is no mass radical youth movement to direct such sentiments toward. At that time radical youth, including radical black and white working class youth, were looking for ways to fundamentally change society and to fight against that generation’s war in Vietnam. In those days radicals, moreover, after the experiences of 1968, for the most part, stood point blank against the bourgeois parties and were out in the streets. Today those who are trying to ‘brain-trust’ a new SDS for this generation of youth seem to have regressed to a point early in the evolution of old SDS where the youth were directed toward 'going half-way with LBJ ( Lyndon Baines Johnson)' and the Democratic Party. We should, however, try to learn something from history. Read on.
Workers Vanguard No. 897 31 August 2007
"Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics"
Revolutionary Marxists at 1969 PL-SDS Conference {Young Spartacus pages)
Crystalizing out of student and youth struggles against segregation and, later, against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became the iconic organization of the New Left radical student movement of the late 1960s. Originally the youth group of the Cold War "socialists" of the League for Industrial Democracy, under the impact of events, SDS was drawn increasingly to the left. In 1965, SDS dropped its anti-Communist exclusion clause and soon was separated from the League entirely. It grew rapidly, drawing in tens of thousands of young activists at its peak. However, after years of rejecting the history of the "old left" as sectarian, sterile and irrelevant, SDS found itself confronting the same questions, centrally: what force can bring about social change, what attitude should be taken toward the Soviet Union and other workers states, and how to combat racial oppression.
A broad span of tendencies began to gain followers within SDS, ranging from the Moscow-line Stalinists of the Communist Party to the revolutionary communist Spartacist League, as well as anarchists, Maoists and uncritical cheerleaders for Third World and black nationalism. Intense ideological struggles ensued in which spokesmen for various positions were able to compete for hegemony. Some of the petty-bourgeois radicals in SDS were able to overcome the oppressive weight of bourgeois ideology and re-learn lessons set forth in the Communist Manifesto regarding the working class as the modern agency of social revolution.
At the national SDS convention in the summer of 1969, a split took place between the National Collective, a bloc of groups that tailed national-liberation movements and dismissed the proletariat, and the crudely pro-working-class tendency of the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) led by the left-Stalinist Progressive Labor Party (PL). The Revolutionary Marxist Caucus, supporter of Spartacist politics within SDS and forerunner of today's Spartacus Youth Clubs, worked within the WSA wing (known as PL-SDS), struggling to transform SDS into a socialist youth organization open to all political tendencies seeking revolutionary political change. It was in this context that "Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics" was produced as a position paper presented for discussion at PL-SDS's December 1969 New Haven conference.
The National Collective degenerated rapidly on the one side into Weatherman-style anarcho-terrorist despair, and on the other into internecine Maoist factional squabbling driven by the twists and turns of the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy. (Today's Revolutionary Communist Party is one result.) Some, such as Bernardine Dohrn, have found their place braintrusting the "New SDS," a liberal talkshop whose main purpose so far seems to be drawing in youth to aid the Democrats' prospects in the 2008 elections.
The PL wing of SDS also degenerated, although not as rapidly, eventually retreating into campus parochialism and ordinary reformism, leading pointless and tepid campaigns against "racist textbooks." Today Progressive Labor, still Stalinist and now without the leftward pressure imparted by the radicalization of the 1960s, vacillates between increasingly hollow sectarian "revolution now" rhetoric and run-of-the-mill liberalism. Readers may also note that the position paper devotes some attention to the Labor Committee of Lyn Marcus, who is currently known as Lyndon LaRouche. While LaRouche today is a right-wing crackpot, at the time he was a left-wing crackpot. The Labor Committee was a tendency to be contended with in SDS, and served as a useful polemical foil for the exposition of our Marxist program.
Youth now are far more likely to encounter liberal hand-wringing over racism a la the "New SDS" than the distorted orientation to the working class that the RMC's main fire was directed against at the time. However, this position paper, written in a period of significantly higher consciousness and struggle, remains a powerful exposition of a genuine Marxist approach to black oppression, laying out a perspective in which the struggle for black freedom is bound up with the general struggle for the emancipation of the working class.
*************
It hardly needs saying that increasing black-white conflict is the dominant feature of the current American political scene. The polarization of U.S. society along racial lines has been reflected even within the left, which has become increasingly split between supporters of Black Nationalism and advocates of an oversimplified pro-working-class line, indifferent and sometimes hostile to the Black liberation movement. One effect of the increasing black-white hostility is that any struggle involving Black people is viewed as the same struggle. Everything, from demands for Black Studies departments to integrating the building trades, is seen as part of a larger Black liberation movement, and attitudes toward each particular struggle are determined by general theoretical outlook.
The position of this paper is that Marxists must aggressively fight against the oppression of the Black masses while rejecting Black Nationalist pseudo-solutions. This must be done in ways that are compatible with the over-all goals of socialism. This means making clear and careful distinctions between different demands and struggles of the Black movement and different facets of the race question generally. Our guiding concern must be to link up a pro-working-class political line with demands aimed at fighting the pervasive double oppression of Black workers.
Racism and Racial Oppression
One result of the ghetto uprisings in Watts, Detroit, Newark and elsewhere was that it was no longer possible to deny that Black people were deeply hostile to the state of American society. The liberals argued (e.g., in the Kerner Report) that the oppression of Black people was a result of the racism of the white population, rather than locating the source of oppression and hostility in the working of the economic system and the policies of the ruling class and deliberately obscuring the fact that some whites have qualitatively more social power than others. To blame the oppressed condition of Black people on pervasive racist attitudes is a variant of the classic reactionary argument that social ills stem from a flawed human nature. By placing the blame for racial oppression on the white population en masse, the liberal wing of the ruling class not only deny their own responsibility, but even pose as champions of the Black people against the ignorant and bigoted white workers. In some cases, blaming racist attitudes begs the question. Many liberal capitalist bosses do not believe any of the myths of racial inferiority, yet deliberately pursue oppressive policies aimed at dividing workers along ethnic lines.
The widespread acceptance on the left of the liberal myth that the oppression of Black people results from the racism of the white lower classes has been totally destructive of the left. Its most extreme exponents are, of course, the Weathermen, who regard the white working class as hopelessly corrupted by racism, and, therefore, "the enemy." However, even those who realize that racism is against the long-term interests of white workers, such as the Worker-Student Alliance caucus, see changing racial attitudes as the key to the problem.
It is essential to make a distinction between those actively responsible for racial oppression and the masses, who passively accept it. An analogy of the relation between national chauvinism and imperialism is useful here. National chauvinism is rampant in the U.S.—look at the recent proliferation of American flag decals. Yet, no one would contend that U.S. counter-revolutionary policy in Viet Nam is the result of the nationalist attitudes of the American workers! National chauvinism helps sustain U.S. imperialism, but is not the cause of it. In a like manner, the racist attitudes of the white working class help sustain the oppression and economic degradation of the Black masses, but do not cause it.
Most white workers are neither active racists nor thorough-going integrationists. Rather, their attitude toward Black people is contradictory and differs according to the context. Many white workers will treat Black workers on the job as equals. Many believe Blacks should have equal rights, yet maintain racist attitudes on social and sexual questions. (A white worker might vote for a Black as union official, yet, as the saying goes, wouldn't let his daughter marry him.) In general, there are many more white workers who will support the political and economic rights of Blacks and unite with them in struggle than there are who are really free of race prejudice. In addition, the level of racism is affected by the level of class struggle. Involvement in a militant strike action, for example, often combats backward consciousness on many levels.
The Southern Populist movement of the 1890s was the highest point of class struggle reached in the post-Reconstruction South. It not only united poor white and Black farmers around their shared economic interests, it also aggressively fought for the political rights of Black people. Yet, in deference to the white supremacist attitudes of most Southern farmers, the leaders of the Populist movement stressed that they were not in favor of social integration. Thus, by today's standards, the Populist movement would be considered racist, although it aggressively fought for the political rights of Blacks. Certainly we should make no concessions to racism. But this example shows that fighting racism and fighting racial oppression are not identical.
For a Materialist Approach
The practical conclusion to be drawn from making this distinction between racism and racial oppression is that SDS is more likely to gain the support of white workers if we oppose concrete acts of racial oppression in the name of democratic rights and class solidarity, than if we rant about "fighting racism" as a social attitude (which has a moralistic tone to it—like fighting sin). Again, an analogy with the fight against imperialism is useful. In fighting American imperialism, we make specific demands, such as the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Viet Nam and all other countries. We do not approach this struggle mainly by calling moralistically on the American working class to give up its national chauvinism and solidarize with the international proletariat. To be sure, the demand for immediate withdrawal from Viet Nam implies an attack on patriotic attitudes, just as the demand to integrate a union implies an attack on racist attitudes. But we attack these attitudes at their weakest point, where they come into conflict with other powerful social attitudes.
There is an important tactical reason for using the terminology of fighting racial oppression rather than fighting racism. To announce that we are fighting racism within the working class implies that the rank and file white worker is the target of our hostility. To say we are opposing the double oppression of Black workers puts the responsibility where it belongs—on the capitalists and trade union bureaucrats. Rather than saying we expect the mass of white workers to oppose us, we are calling on white workers, as potential comrades, to fight the oppressors of Black people, who are the oppressors of white workers as well.
Black Rights and Economic Insecurity
Within SDS, the Labor Committee is considered the main exponent of the view that the widespread hostility of white workers to the Black liberation movement stems from a belief that Black equality will be achieved at their economic expense. So far as this view goes it is substantially correct. However, the Labor Committee has drawn a fundamentally wrong conclusion which leads to de facto tolerance for most forms of racial discrimination—namely that equality for Blacks be made conditional on whites not suffering any loss.
Given the insecurity of white workers, it is necessary to combine demands for equal opportunity for Blacks with demands aimed at assuring white workers that the benefits accruing to Blacks will not come at their expense. Thus, in demanding that more Black workers be admitted into skilled jobs, we should also raise demands (such as a shorter work week with no loss in pay) aimed at expanding total employment. However, an end to discrimination should not be made conditional to these broader demands being realized.
Under normal conditions, demands aimed at improving the condition of the working class as a whole are less within the power of the presently constituted labor movement than demands for the upgrading of one section of the class. Socialists have traditionally contended—and rightly—that permanent full employment and a continuously rising standard of living are not possible under capitalism. We can and must raise demands which take the level of consciousness outside the framework of capitalism—transitional demands which workers will accept as necessary but which cannot be achieved under this social system. But it would be a cruel joke on the legitimate aspirations of Black workers involved in struggle for socialists to make struggling for their rights conditional on the acceptance of other demands. If the attack on the economic oppression of Black people is to be postponed until the eradication of economic insecurity on the part of whites, racial oppression would continue to exist until several decades after the victory of the socialist revolution.
Labor Committee Default
In practice, the Labor Committee's politics have meant toleration of racial oppression while posing ultimatistic solutions to the problem of the limited resources available to the working class under capitalism. A good example of this is the Labor Committee's opposition to the so-called CCNY solution. After considerable agitation by Blacks, the City University system officials agreed to replace the existing admissions selection— based on academic qualifications—with an ethnic quota system increasing Black admissions. (The city government later rejected the agreement.) The Labor Committee argued that this was no solution to the problem
and, correctly, called for open admissions for all working people. So far, so good. However, instead of critically supporting the CCNY solution against the present system, which is both class and race biased, while continuing to agitate for open admissions, the Labor Committee supported the status quo in effect, until the advent of free universal higher education. In other words, according to them the whites might as well have the lion's share of social services until these services become unlimited.
The Labor Committee's empathy for white workers worried about losing their jobs to Black militants causes them to blur an important distinction. It is the distinction between firing a white worker to replace him with a Black and eliminating discrimination in hiring. We should almost always oppose firing a white worker to replace him with a Black. On the other hand, we should always oppose discrimination in hiring even if this means (as it will in the building trades) that a larger percentage of the white labor force would be unemployed. The former would exacerbate racial antagonisms; the latter would tend to unite the working class in the fight against unemployment. The underlying principle is that Black workers should be treated as equals. We wouldn't expect any employed worker to give up his job to an unemployed worker regardless of color. In a like manner, an unemployed Black worker should have the same chance to find a job as a white worker, and vice versa.
If the Labor Committee's principle that the economic oppression of Blacks can be opposed only provided there is no re-distribution of income against whites is accepted, Blacks are slated to remain on the bottom of American society until socialism. If the desires of white workers must be substantially met before attacking the problem of racial discrimination, the benefits accruing to the Blacks will lag behind those of the class as a whole. In the Labor Committee schema, Blacks are given the role of residual claimants on the social and economic gains of the working class.
Black Rights as Class Demands
The Labor Committee's belief that racism is simply a result of economic insecurity and will disappear when that insecurity is alleviated is as naive and wrong as the Weathermen's view of racism as the radical equivalent of original sin. The Machinists and Shipbuilders unions attempted to maintain their white-only policies in shipyards and aircraft plants even in the middle of the World War II employment boom! On the other hand, some unions were established on an integrated basis during the Depression. The widespread racial oppression in the labor movement isn't going to be eliminated without a political fight in the trade unions. Economic prosperity makes that fight easier to win. It doesn't make it any less necessary.
The Labor Committee's propaganda presents the economic effects of racial equality as only negative— namely, that such gains come only at the expense of white workers. It appears the Labor Committee has taken the arguments of racist demagogues too much at face value or that, for all their pretensions to expertise, they know very little about the economic facts of life. The upgrading of Black workers provides a higher floor for general wages and strengthens the competitive position of all workers. From the integration of the Mine Workers in the 1890s, the main factor bringing Black workers into the trade unions has been a desire to eliminate cheap, non-union labor, not moralism. One doesn't have to be very sophisticated to see the connection between the systematic terrorization of the Black population and the maintenance of the South as a bastion of anti-unionism, low wages, and the runaway shop. If the indirect benefits of Black equality are not as obvious to white workers as the direct losses, part of our job is to make them obvious. Socialists have a responsibility to refute the lies of racist demagogues like [Alabama governor George] Wallace, that Black liberation means white workers will lose "their jobs, their money, and their women." SDS should present the economic case for combattmg racial oppression in the most attractive manner possible.
Black Liberation and Upward Mobility
An important aspect of the oppression of Blacks is the small size of the Black middle class. Not only are Black workers concentrated in lowest paid jobs, but there is a relatively small percentage of Black professionals, administrators and businessmen. Moreover, much of the Black middle class is restricted to the Black communities rather than being integrated into American corporate society.
Given the petty-bourgeois leadership of the Black movement, it is not surprising that many demands of that movement are aimed at increasing the upward mobility of the Black population. In its reaction against bourgeois aspirations in the Black movement, the WSA has made a major error—namely, it has refused to oppose those aspects of racial oppression expressly designed to keep Blacks out of the middle class. It is correct and necessary to denounce expanding the "Black bourgeoisie" as the solution to the problems of the Black masses. However, the WSA has taken the further step of refusing to fight discrimination against Blacks for middle-class positions. (Their position recalls a section of the French Marxists who thought they should be indifferent to the Dreyfus Case of anti-Semitism in the French officer corps. This sectarian disorientation actually facilitated their later collapse into opportunism.) The petty-bourgeois "hustlerist" aspect of the Black movement must be defeated politically, by being rejected by the Black masses. It will not and should not be defeated by erstwhile revolutionaries making a de facto alliance with the most reactionary sections of the ruling class to keep Blacks out of middle-class positions.
There is a parallel between the Labor Committee's reaction to white workers' fear of economic integration and the WSA's approach to bourgeois goals in the Black movement. Both begin with correct premises, but reach conclusions which mean tolerance for certain forms of racial oppression. Thus, the Labor Committee opposes the CCNY solution because they don't want educational resources redistributed against the white population, while the WSA opposes it because they don't want more black B.A.s. Of the two positions, the Labor Committee's is worse because it leads to acceptance of the worst forms of economic exploitation. However, the WSA's position is also fundamentally sectarian.
The Worse the Better?
The principle of not opposing racial discrimination to the extent equality would strengthen the upward mobility of the Black population is impossible to implement. This is so because any improvement in the condition of the Black masses provides a basis for upward mobility. If the quality of ghetto primary school education is improved, for example, Black youth will be better able to compete for college admission. If Black workers have access to better-paying jobs, more of them will send their children to college.
The WSA's position on this question is also incorrect at a higher theoretical level. Socialists have usually contended that racial oppression is inherent in capitalist society. The WSA, however, seems to be afraid that the ruling class is going to seriously ameliorate the oppression of Blacks. The whole line of argument has a "the worse, the better" flavor to it—Blacks should be kept down so they'll be more revolutionary. It is similar to the position one usually associates with the Socialist Labor Party—opposition to reforms for fear that they may work! Coming from people who consider themselves orthodox Leninists, this faith in the ability of reformism to dampen class struggle and change class structure is as surprising as it is false, to say the least.
Moreover, from the standpoint of proletarian socialists, the expansion of the Black middle class would not be an unmitigated disaster. To the extent that the social structure of the Black population resembles that of the white population, class rather than race consciousness will be strengthened among both Black and white workers. The split between those Black Nationalists who consider themselves revolutionary and the "pork chop" Nationalists occurred precisely because the government was successful in co-opting large sections of the Black liberation movement. A Black worker who slaves for a few years under a Black boss is much more likely to see class, not race, as the fundamental division in American society.
The converse is also true. A white worker striking with fellow Black workers against a company which had a significant percentage of Black executive and managerial personnel would develop a more class-conscious attitude toward the Black population. It is precisely the overwhelming concentration of the Black population at the lowest social levels that tends to cause white workers to view Blacks with feelings of fear and contempt. The integration of sections of the ruling class would be paralleled by increased Black-white unity in the working class.
Trade Unions and the State
One of the most difficult problems facing American radicals is the widespread racial discrimination in the trade unions. In dealing with this problem, there is considerable social pressure, particularly on a campus-based group, to follow the lead of the liberals and use government action against discriminatory unions. Thus, most of the California left, including the Independent Socialist Clubs (now called International Socialists [predecessor of the International Socialist Organization]), supported a suit against Harry Bridges' International Longshore and Warehouse Union under the Civil Rights Act. Likewise, there has been no significant left-wing opposition to the Nixon Administration's "Philadelphia Plan" for the construction industry [aimed at breaking union hiring halls by setting quotas for minority hiring].
That liberals should look to the state to enforce equal rights in the labor movement is understandable. The fundamental principle of liberalism (and all other forms of capitalist political philosophy) is the supreme authority of the state over all other social institutions. However, Marxists consider the state an instrument of class oppression and regard the labor movement as the legitimate source of all social authority. In calling upon the state to integrate the unions, radicals are calling upon the capitalists to fight their battles for them, in a movement radicals eventually intend (or should intend) to lead against that very state. This is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled. Any increase in state control over the unions, regardless of the ostensible reason, must strengthen capitalism politically and ideologically.
A section of the ruling class realizes that the civil rights issue is an effective way to weaken the unions by turning Black people and middle-class liberals against them. Thus, a recent issue of Fortune magazine—an authoritative organ of the liberal bourgeoisie—contained an attack on the monopolistic abuses of the building trades unions. It concluded with a ten-point program, addressed to construction companies, on how to break the power of the unions. One of the ten points was union de-certification for failing to comply with the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
As the above example shows, ruling-class efforts to control the unions in the name of "public good" are usually a cover for union busting. The Nixon Administration is openly wooing Southern racists and doesn't even pay lip service to civil rights. The only area of American society where Nixon is pushing civil rights is where unions are the target. This indicates that the motives behind the "Philadelphia Plan" are neither concern for the welfare of Black workers nor response to pressure from below. Rather, the only purpose is to discredit and weaken the labor movement.
When the ruling class seeks to weaken the power of the unions, they do not openly state they're out to gouge the working class. They look for an attractive-sounding pretext. We are all against organized crime and for internal democracy in the unions. But the Landrum-Griffin Act hasn't reduced gangsterism in the labor movement. Its principal effect has been to railroad Jimmy Hoffa, a tough and troublesome business unionist. And these laws would be used faster and harder against a communist union leadership than they will ever be used against the Mafia!
Permitting the government to determine the racial policies of unions gives the state a powerful weapon for union busting and influencing the selection of union leadership. And this weapon will not be used in the best interest of the working class. Whatever doubtful immediate gains Black workers get by the government opening up some jobs for them will be more than offset by the losses sustained by the entire working class due to the long-run effects of expanding state control over the labor movement. The only force on which we can rely is an organized, militant, class-conscious rank and file defending the gains of their unions against the bosses, the bureaucrats and the state.
Resolutions
I. In its propaganda and actions, SDS must concentrate on fighting concrete acts and practices of racial oppression, rather than simply opposing racism as a pervasive social attitude.
II. It may at times be necessary to support gains against Black oppression even if they imply short-term economic losses for sections of the white working class. However, our basic propagandistic thrust must be to keep gains for Blacks from being counterposed to white workers' interests by raising the appropriate demands, and to seek to unite Black and white workers in common struggles.
III. SDS must oppose all forms of racial inequality, including those that are specifically designed to limit the upward mobility of the Black population.
IV. Under all circumstances SDS must oppose the expansion of state control over the labor movement, even when this is done in the name of the rank and file (e.g., fighting corruption, securing racial justice).
Workers Vanguard No. 897 31 August 2007
"Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics"
Revolutionary Marxists at 1969 PL-SDS Conference {Young Spartacus pages)
Crystalizing out of student and youth struggles against segregation and, later, against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became the iconic organization of the New Left radical student movement of the late 1960s. Originally the youth group of the Cold War "socialists" of the League for Industrial Democracy, under the impact of events, SDS was drawn increasingly to the left. In 1965, SDS dropped its anti-Communist exclusion clause and soon was separated from the League entirely. It grew rapidly, drawing in tens of thousands of young activists at its peak. However, after years of rejecting the history of the "old left" as sectarian, sterile and irrelevant, SDS found itself confronting the same questions, centrally: what force can bring about social change, what attitude should be taken toward the Soviet Union and other workers states, and how to combat racial oppression.
A broad span of tendencies began to gain followers within SDS, ranging from the Moscow-line Stalinists of the Communist Party to the revolutionary communist Spartacist League, as well as anarchists, Maoists and uncritical cheerleaders for Third World and black nationalism. Intense ideological struggles ensued in which spokesmen for various positions were able to compete for hegemony. Some of the petty-bourgeois radicals in SDS were able to overcome the oppressive weight of bourgeois ideology and re-learn lessons set forth in the Communist Manifesto regarding the working class as the modern agency of social revolution.
At the national SDS convention in the summer of 1969, a split took place between the National Collective, a bloc of groups that tailed national-liberation movements and dismissed the proletariat, and the crudely pro-working-class tendency of the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) led by the left-Stalinist Progressive Labor Party (PL). The Revolutionary Marxist Caucus, supporter of Spartacist politics within SDS and forerunner of today's Spartacus Youth Clubs, worked within the WSA wing (known as PL-SDS), struggling to transform SDS into a socialist youth organization open to all political tendencies seeking revolutionary political change. It was in this context that "Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics" was produced as a position paper presented for discussion at PL-SDS's December 1969 New Haven conference.
The National Collective degenerated rapidly on the one side into Weatherman-style anarcho-terrorist despair, and on the other into internecine Maoist factional squabbling driven by the twists and turns of the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy. (Today's Revolutionary Communist Party is one result.) Some, such as Bernardine Dohrn, have found their place braintrusting the "New SDS," a liberal talkshop whose main purpose so far seems to be drawing in youth to aid the Democrats' prospects in the 2008 elections.
The PL wing of SDS also degenerated, although not as rapidly, eventually retreating into campus parochialism and ordinary reformism, leading pointless and tepid campaigns against "racist textbooks." Today Progressive Labor, still Stalinist and now without the leftward pressure imparted by the radicalization of the 1960s, vacillates between increasingly hollow sectarian "revolution now" rhetoric and run-of-the-mill liberalism. Readers may also note that the position paper devotes some attention to the Labor Committee of Lyn Marcus, who is currently known as Lyndon LaRouche. While LaRouche today is a right-wing crackpot, at the time he was a left-wing crackpot. The Labor Committee was a tendency to be contended with in SDS, and served as a useful polemical foil for the exposition of our Marxist program.
Youth now are far more likely to encounter liberal hand-wringing over racism a la the "New SDS" than the distorted orientation to the working class that the RMC's main fire was directed against at the time. However, this position paper, written in a period of significantly higher consciousness and struggle, remains a powerful exposition of a genuine Marxist approach to black oppression, laying out a perspective in which the struggle for black freedom is bound up with the general struggle for the emancipation of the working class.
*************
It hardly needs saying that increasing black-white conflict is the dominant feature of the current American political scene. The polarization of U.S. society along racial lines has been reflected even within the left, which has become increasingly split between supporters of Black Nationalism and advocates of an oversimplified pro-working-class line, indifferent and sometimes hostile to the Black liberation movement. One effect of the increasing black-white hostility is that any struggle involving Black people is viewed as the same struggle. Everything, from demands for Black Studies departments to integrating the building trades, is seen as part of a larger Black liberation movement, and attitudes toward each particular struggle are determined by general theoretical outlook.
The position of this paper is that Marxists must aggressively fight against the oppression of the Black masses while rejecting Black Nationalist pseudo-solutions. This must be done in ways that are compatible with the over-all goals of socialism. This means making clear and careful distinctions between different demands and struggles of the Black movement and different facets of the race question generally. Our guiding concern must be to link up a pro-working-class political line with demands aimed at fighting the pervasive double oppression of Black workers.
Racism and Racial Oppression
One result of the ghetto uprisings in Watts, Detroit, Newark and elsewhere was that it was no longer possible to deny that Black people were deeply hostile to the state of American society. The liberals argued (e.g., in the Kerner Report) that the oppression of Black people was a result of the racism of the white population, rather than locating the source of oppression and hostility in the working of the economic system and the policies of the ruling class and deliberately obscuring the fact that some whites have qualitatively more social power than others. To blame the oppressed condition of Black people on pervasive racist attitudes is a variant of the classic reactionary argument that social ills stem from a flawed human nature. By placing the blame for racial oppression on the white population en masse, the liberal wing of the ruling class not only deny their own responsibility, but even pose as champions of the Black people against the ignorant and bigoted white workers. In some cases, blaming racist attitudes begs the question. Many liberal capitalist bosses do not believe any of the myths of racial inferiority, yet deliberately pursue oppressive policies aimed at dividing workers along ethnic lines.
The widespread acceptance on the left of the liberal myth that the oppression of Black people results from the racism of the white lower classes has been totally destructive of the left. Its most extreme exponents are, of course, the Weathermen, who regard the white working class as hopelessly corrupted by racism, and, therefore, "the enemy." However, even those who realize that racism is against the long-term interests of white workers, such as the Worker-Student Alliance caucus, see changing racial attitudes as the key to the problem.
It is essential to make a distinction between those actively responsible for racial oppression and the masses, who passively accept it. An analogy of the relation between national chauvinism and imperialism is useful here. National chauvinism is rampant in the U.S.—look at the recent proliferation of American flag decals. Yet, no one would contend that U.S. counter-revolutionary policy in Viet Nam is the result of the nationalist attitudes of the American workers! National chauvinism helps sustain U.S. imperialism, but is not the cause of it. In a like manner, the racist attitudes of the white working class help sustain the oppression and economic degradation of the Black masses, but do not cause it.
Most white workers are neither active racists nor thorough-going integrationists. Rather, their attitude toward Black people is contradictory and differs according to the context. Many white workers will treat Black workers on the job as equals. Many believe Blacks should have equal rights, yet maintain racist attitudes on social and sexual questions. (A white worker might vote for a Black as union official, yet, as the saying goes, wouldn't let his daughter marry him.) In general, there are many more white workers who will support the political and economic rights of Blacks and unite with them in struggle than there are who are really free of race prejudice. In addition, the level of racism is affected by the level of class struggle. Involvement in a militant strike action, for example, often combats backward consciousness on many levels.
The Southern Populist movement of the 1890s was the highest point of class struggle reached in the post-Reconstruction South. It not only united poor white and Black farmers around their shared economic interests, it also aggressively fought for the political rights of Black people. Yet, in deference to the white supremacist attitudes of most Southern farmers, the leaders of the Populist movement stressed that they were not in favor of social integration. Thus, by today's standards, the Populist movement would be considered racist, although it aggressively fought for the political rights of Blacks. Certainly we should make no concessions to racism. But this example shows that fighting racism and fighting racial oppression are not identical.
For a Materialist Approach
The practical conclusion to be drawn from making this distinction between racism and racial oppression is that SDS is more likely to gain the support of white workers if we oppose concrete acts of racial oppression in the name of democratic rights and class solidarity, than if we rant about "fighting racism" as a social attitude (which has a moralistic tone to it—like fighting sin). Again, an analogy with the fight against imperialism is useful. In fighting American imperialism, we make specific demands, such as the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Viet Nam and all other countries. We do not approach this struggle mainly by calling moralistically on the American working class to give up its national chauvinism and solidarize with the international proletariat. To be sure, the demand for immediate withdrawal from Viet Nam implies an attack on patriotic attitudes, just as the demand to integrate a union implies an attack on racist attitudes. But we attack these attitudes at their weakest point, where they come into conflict with other powerful social attitudes.
There is an important tactical reason for using the terminology of fighting racial oppression rather than fighting racism. To announce that we are fighting racism within the working class implies that the rank and file white worker is the target of our hostility. To say we are opposing the double oppression of Black workers puts the responsibility where it belongs—on the capitalists and trade union bureaucrats. Rather than saying we expect the mass of white workers to oppose us, we are calling on white workers, as potential comrades, to fight the oppressors of Black people, who are the oppressors of white workers as well.
Black Rights and Economic Insecurity
Within SDS, the Labor Committee is considered the main exponent of the view that the widespread hostility of white workers to the Black liberation movement stems from a belief that Black equality will be achieved at their economic expense. So far as this view goes it is substantially correct. However, the Labor Committee has drawn a fundamentally wrong conclusion which leads to de facto tolerance for most forms of racial discrimination—namely that equality for Blacks be made conditional on whites not suffering any loss.
Given the insecurity of white workers, it is necessary to combine demands for equal opportunity for Blacks with demands aimed at assuring white workers that the benefits accruing to Blacks will not come at their expense. Thus, in demanding that more Black workers be admitted into skilled jobs, we should also raise demands (such as a shorter work week with no loss in pay) aimed at expanding total employment. However, an end to discrimination should not be made conditional to these broader demands being realized.
Under normal conditions, demands aimed at improving the condition of the working class as a whole are less within the power of the presently constituted labor movement than demands for the upgrading of one section of the class. Socialists have traditionally contended—and rightly—that permanent full employment and a continuously rising standard of living are not possible under capitalism. We can and must raise demands which take the level of consciousness outside the framework of capitalism—transitional demands which workers will accept as necessary but which cannot be achieved under this social system. But it would be a cruel joke on the legitimate aspirations of Black workers involved in struggle for socialists to make struggling for their rights conditional on the acceptance of other demands. If the attack on the economic oppression of Black people is to be postponed until the eradication of economic insecurity on the part of whites, racial oppression would continue to exist until several decades after the victory of the socialist revolution.
Labor Committee Default
In practice, the Labor Committee's politics have meant toleration of racial oppression while posing ultimatistic solutions to the problem of the limited resources available to the working class under capitalism. A good example of this is the Labor Committee's opposition to the so-called CCNY solution. After considerable agitation by Blacks, the City University system officials agreed to replace the existing admissions selection— based on academic qualifications—with an ethnic quota system increasing Black admissions. (The city government later rejected the agreement.) The Labor Committee argued that this was no solution to the problem
and, correctly, called for open admissions for all working people. So far, so good. However, instead of critically supporting the CCNY solution against the present system, which is both class and race biased, while continuing to agitate for open admissions, the Labor Committee supported the status quo in effect, until the advent of free universal higher education. In other words, according to them the whites might as well have the lion's share of social services until these services become unlimited.
The Labor Committee's empathy for white workers worried about losing their jobs to Black militants causes them to blur an important distinction. It is the distinction between firing a white worker to replace him with a Black and eliminating discrimination in hiring. We should almost always oppose firing a white worker to replace him with a Black. On the other hand, we should always oppose discrimination in hiring even if this means (as it will in the building trades) that a larger percentage of the white labor force would be unemployed. The former would exacerbate racial antagonisms; the latter would tend to unite the working class in the fight against unemployment. The underlying principle is that Black workers should be treated as equals. We wouldn't expect any employed worker to give up his job to an unemployed worker regardless of color. In a like manner, an unemployed Black worker should have the same chance to find a job as a white worker, and vice versa.
If the Labor Committee's principle that the economic oppression of Blacks can be opposed only provided there is no re-distribution of income against whites is accepted, Blacks are slated to remain on the bottom of American society until socialism. If the desires of white workers must be substantially met before attacking the problem of racial discrimination, the benefits accruing to the Blacks will lag behind those of the class as a whole. In the Labor Committee schema, Blacks are given the role of residual claimants on the social and economic gains of the working class.
Black Rights as Class Demands
The Labor Committee's belief that racism is simply a result of economic insecurity and will disappear when that insecurity is alleviated is as naive and wrong as the Weathermen's view of racism as the radical equivalent of original sin. The Machinists and Shipbuilders unions attempted to maintain their white-only policies in shipyards and aircraft plants even in the middle of the World War II employment boom! On the other hand, some unions were established on an integrated basis during the Depression. The widespread racial oppression in the labor movement isn't going to be eliminated without a political fight in the trade unions. Economic prosperity makes that fight easier to win. It doesn't make it any less necessary.
The Labor Committee's propaganda presents the economic effects of racial equality as only negative— namely, that such gains come only at the expense of white workers. It appears the Labor Committee has taken the arguments of racist demagogues too much at face value or that, for all their pretensions to expertise, they know very little about the economic facts of life. The upgrading of Black workers provides a higher floor for general wages and strengthens the competitive position of all workers. From the integration of the Mine Workers in the 1890s, the main factor bringing Black workers into the trade unions has been a desire to eliminate cheap, non-union labor, not moralism. One doesn't have to be very sophisticated to see the connection between the systematic terrorization of the Black population and the maintenance of the South as a bastion of anti-unionism, low wages, and the runaway shop. If the indirect benefits of Black equality are not as obvious to white workers as the direct losses, part of our job is to make them obvious. Socialists have a responsibility to refute the lies of racist demagogues like [Alabama governor George] Wallace, that Black liberation means white workers will lose "their jobs, their money, and their women." SDS should present the economic case for combattmg racial oppression in the most attractive manner possible.
Black Liberation and Upward Mobility
An important aspect of the oppression of Blacks is the small size of the Black middle class. Not only are Black workers concentrated in lowest paid jobs, but there is a relatively small percentage of Black professionals, administrators and businessmen. Moreover, much of the Black middle class is restricted to the Black communities rather than being integrated into American corporate society.
Given the petty-bourgeois leadership of the Black movement, it is not surprising that many demands of that movement are aimed at increasing the upward mobility of the Black population. In its reaction against bourgeois aspirations in the Black movement, the WSA has made a major error—namely, it has refused to oppose those aspects of racial oppression expressly designed to keep Blacks out of the middle class. It is correct and necessary to denounce expanding the "Black bourgeoisie" as the solution to the problems of the Black masses. However, the WSA has taken the further step of refusing to fight discrimination against Blacks for middle-class positions. (Their position recalls a section of the French Marxists who thought they should be indifferent to the Dreyfus Case of anti-Semitism in the French officer corps. This sectarian disorientation actually facilitated their later collapse into opportunism.) The petty-bourgeois "hustlerist" aspect of the Black movement must be defeated politically, by being rejected by the Black masses. It will not and should not be defeated by erstwhile revolutionaries making a de facto alliance with the most reactionary sections of the ruling class to keep Blacks out of middle-class positions.
There is a parallel between the Labor Committee's reaction to white workers' fear of economic integration and the WSA's approach to bourgeois goals in the Black movement. Both begin with correct premises, but reach conclusions which mean tolerance for certain forms of racial oppression. Thus, the Labor Committee opposes the CCNY solution because they don't want educational resources redistributed against the white population, while the WSA opposes it because they don't want more black B.A.s. Of the two positions, the Labor Committee's is worse because it leads to acceptance of the worst forms of economic exploitation. However, the WSA's position is also fundamentally sectarian.
The Worse the Better?
The principle of not opposing racial discrimination to the extent equality would strengthen the upward mobility of the Black population is impossible to implement. This is so because any improvement in the condition of the Black masses provides a basis for upward mobility. If the quality of ghetto primary school education is improved, for example, Black youth will be better able to compete for college admission. If Black workers have access to better-paying jobs, more of them will send their children to college.
The WSA's position on this question is also incorrect at a higher theoretical level. Socialists have usually contended that racial oppression is inherent in capitalist society. The WSA, however, seems to be afraid that the ruling class is going to seriously ameliorate the oppression of Blacks. The whole line of argument has a "the worse, the better" flavor to it—Blacks should be kept down so they'll be more revolutionary. It is similar to the position one usually associates with the Socialist Labor Party—opposition to reforms for fear that they may work! Coming from people who consider themselves orthodox Leninists, this faith in the ability of reformism to dampen class struggle and change class structure is as surprising as it is false, to say the least.
Moreover, from the standpoint of proletarian socialists, the expansion of the Black middle class would not be an unmitigated disaster. To the extent that the social structure of the Black population resembles that of the white population, class rather than race consciousness will be strengthened among both Black and white workers. The split between those Black Nationalists who consider themselves revolutionary and the "pork chop" Nationalists occurred precisely because the government was successful in co-opting large sections of the Black liberation movement. A Black worker who slaves for a few years under a Black boss is much more likely to see class, not race, as the fundamental division in American society.
The converse is also true. A white worker striking with fellow Black workers against a company which had a significant percentage of Black executive and managerial personnel would develop a more class-conscious attitude toward the Black population. It is precisely the overwhelming concentration of the Black population at the lowest social levels that tends to cause white workers to view Blacks with feelings of fear and contempt. The integration of sections of the ruling class would be paralleled by increased Black-white unity in the working class.
Trade Unions and the State
One of the most difficult problems facing American radicals is the widespread racial discrimination in the trade unions. In dealing with this problem, there is considerable social pressure, particularly on a campus-based group, to follow the lead of the liberals and use government action against discriminatory unions. Thus, most of the California left, including the Independent Socialist Clubs (now called International Socialists [predecessor of the International Socialist Organization]), supported a suit against Harry Bridges' International Longshore and Warehouse Union under the Civil Rights Act. Likewise, there has been no significant left-wing opposition to the Nixon Administration's "Philadelphia Plan" for the construction industry [aimed at breaking union hiring halls by setting quotas for minority hiring].
That liberals should look to the state to enforce equal rights in the labor movement is understandable. The fundamental principle of liberalism (and all other forms of capitalist political philosophy) is the supreme authority of the state over all other social institutions. However, Marxists consider the state an instrument of class oppression and regard the labor movement as the legitimate source of all social authority. In calling upon the state to integrate the unions, radicals are calling upon the capitalists to fight their battles for them, in a movement radicals eventually intend (or should intend) to lead against that very state. This is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled. Any increase in state control over the unions, regardless of the ostensible reason, must strengthen capitalism politically and ideologically.
A section of the ruling class realizes that the civil rights issue is an effective way to weaken the unions by turning Black people and middle-class liberals against them. Thus, a recent issue of Fortune magazine—an authoritative organ of the liberal bourgeoisie—contained an attack on the monopolistic abuses of the building trades unions. It concluded with a ten-point program, addressed to construction companies, on how to break the power of the unions. One of the ten points was union de-certification for failing to comply with the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
As the above example shows, ruling-class efforts to control the unions in the name of "public good" are usually a cover for union busting. The Nixon Administration is openly wooing Southern racists and doesn't even pay lip service to civil rights. The only area of American society where Nixon is pushing civil rights is where unions are the target. This indicates that the motives behind the "Philadelphia Plan" are neither concern for the welfare of Black workers nor response to pressure from below. Rather, the only purpose is to discredit and weaken the labor movement.
When the ruling class seeks to weaken the power of the unions, they do not openly state they're out to gouge the working class. They look for an attractive-sounding pretext. We are all against organized crime and for internal democracy in the unions. But the Landrum-Griffin Act hasn't reduced gangsterism in the labor movement. Its principal effect has been to railroad Jimmy Hoffa, a tough and troublesome business unionist. And these laws would be used faster and harder against a communist union leadership than they will ever be used against the Mafia!
Permitting the government to determine the racial policies of unions gives the state a powerful weapon for union busting and influencing the selection of union leadership. And this weapon will not be used in the best interest of the working class. Whatever doubtful immediate gains Black workers get by the government opening up some jobs for them will be more than offset by the losses sustained by the entire working class due to the long-run effects of expanding state control over the labor movement. The only force on which we can rely is an organized, militant, class-conscious rank and file defending the gains of their unions against the bosses, the bureaucrats and the state.
Resolutions
I. In its propaganda and actions, SDS must concentrate on fighting concrete acts and practices of racial oppression, rather than simply opposing racism as a pervasive social attitude.
II. It may at times be necessary to support gains against Black oppression even if they imply short-term economic losses for sections of the white working class. However, our basic propagandistic thrust must be to keep gains for Blacks from being counterposed to white workers' interests by raising the appropriate demands, and to seek to unite Black and white workers in common struggles.
III. SDS must oppose all forms of racial inequality, including those that are specifically designed to limit the upward mobility of the Black population.
IV. Under all circumstances SDS must oppose the expansion of state control over the labor movement, even when this is done in the name of the rank and file (e.g., fighting corruption, securing racial justice).
Friday, July 15, 2016
Once Again on the French Revolution
Book Review
The World of the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer, Harper and Row, New York, 1971
Needless to say the history of the French Revolution that began in 1789 and, arguably, has not been completed yet has been looked at from every possible perspective, some of them noteworthy others merely cumulative. In Professor Palmer’s little book I believe we have a noteworthy one although the good professor and I would not share the same reasons for that fact. A careful look, as here, at the influence of the French Revolution on Europeon politics, other national liberation movements of the time and the exigencies of military policy make this a worthy study.
At the end of 2007 we have been through a period when the American Bush Administration policy in the Middle East has seen as one of its aims the ‘export of democracy’; in the terminology of the French Revolution the ‘export of revolution’. I would also note that during the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, particularly in the immediate post World War II period the ‘export of revolution’ in that case, socialist, raised it head. Thus, the central point of Palmer’s book in relationship to the French Revolution today offers some important historical lessons about that phenomenon.
Professor Palmer divides his work into sections dealing with the pre-revolutionary period, the immediate issues of the revolutionary and the significant period of the reign of the Committee of Public Safety in the 1793-94 period. Those parts are fairly common in most studies. What he does additionally is give space to the various external movements influenced by the French example and the policies of the various adversaries of the French. Further he ties the whole period together by giving a fair outline of the Directory period (basically 1794-99) that is overlooked or undervalued in most works and the policies of the various governments toward outside revolutionary movements. This is also the period when the various republics, French created or otherwise, spring into being.
If there is one definitive conclusion that drifts through the Professor’s work it is that it is hard, extremely hard, to successfully export revolution, even world historic revolutions like the French one. For one thing history has shown more than one time disagreements on the question within the ruling strata of the revolutionary state. At various times, depending on internal French politics, there was hostility or indifference to those like, the Polish, who wished to emulate or come under French protection. Palmer gives us the highlights to further search for the relationship between local indigenous forces, the role of French military success on the ground and other governmental considerations that forced the creation of a least six French-like republics in the 1790’s. This book is hardly the last word on the subject of the French ‘export of revolution’ but it certainly is the first word. Read on.
The World of the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer, Harper and Row, New York, 1971
Needless to say the history of the French Revolution that began in 1789 and, arguably, has not been completed yet has been looked at from every possible perspective, some of them noteworthy others merely cumulative. In Professor Palmer’s little book I believe we have a noteworthy one although the good professor and I would not share the same reasons for that fact. A careful look, as here, at the influence of the French Revolution on Europeon politics, other national liberation movements of the time and the exigencies of military policy make this a worthy study.
At the end of 2007 we have been through a period when the American Bush Administration policy in the Middle East has seen as one of its aims the ‘export of democracy’; in the terminology of the French Revolution the ‘export of revolution’. I would also note that during the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, particularly in the immediate post World War II period the ‘export of revolution’ in that case, socialist, raised it head. Thus, the central point of Palmer’s book in relationship to the French Revolution today offers some important historical lessons about that phenomenon.
Professor Palmer divides his work into sections dealing with the pre-revolutionary period, the immediate issues of the revolutionary and the significant period of the reign of the Committee of Public Safety in the 1793-94 period. Those parts are fairly common in most studies. What he does additionally is give space to the various external movements influenced by the French example and the policies of the various adversaries of the French. Further he ties the whole period together by giving a fair outline of the Directory period (basically 1794-99) that is overlooked or undervalued in most works and the policies of the various governments toward outside revolutionary movements. This is also the period when the various republics, French created or otherwise, spring into being.
If there is one definitive conclusion that drifts through the Professor’s work it is that it is hard, extremely hard, to successfully export revolution, even world historic revolutions like the French one. For one thing history has shown more than one time disagreements on the question within the ruling strata of the revolutionary state. At various times, depending on internal French politics, there was hostility or indifference to those like, the Polish, who wished to emulate or come under French protection. Palmer gives us the highlights to further search for the relationship between local indigenous forces, the role of French military success on the ground and other governmental considerations that forced the creation of a least six French-like republics in the 1790’s. This book is hardly the last word on the subject of the French ‘export of revolution’ but it certainly is the first word. Read on.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Letters from France I:France’s greatest gift to America was our independence-By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2011
Letters from France I:France’s greatest gift to America was our independence
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2011
[This is the first of a series of dispatches from France by The Rag Blog's David P. Hamilton.]
PARIS -- Tea Party types love to bash France and worship the “Founding Fathers." The historical reality makes this a perfect example of their ignorance. Without France, the American Revolution would have failed and the U.S. would have been a British colony for at least several decades longer.
Besides that, the “Founding Fathers” were a bunch of francophiles. Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison were all delighted to serve as American ambassadors to France, Washington incorporated Frenchmen into his General staff, and Tom Paine rushed off to join the French Revolution.
If one polled Americans about what was the most important gift France had ever given the U.S., they would probably say French fries, which actually came from Belgium. The more well-informed would more likely respond that it was the Statue of Liberty. While not wishing to denigrate that monumental work of art, the best answer would be independence from the British Empire. Without France, the 13 colonies would not have won the American Revolutionary War.
Those who have any knowledge concerning France’s contribution to American independence would likely point to the Marquis de Lafayette who was indeed an important military leader of American forces. Having been made a Major General at age 20, he commanded American troops in numerous successful engagements and was a close aide to General Washington.
But actually, there were hundreds of such French volunteers; men like Brigadier General Du Buysson des Aix of the North Carolina militia, Major General Louis Le Begue de Presle du Portail, Brigadier General Preudhomme de Borre, Major General Philippe Charles Jean Baptiste Tronsoin de Courdray, Brigadier General Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouerie, Brigadier General Jean Baptiste Joseph Laumoy, all serving in the American Continental Army, and Captain Pierre Landais, commander of the frigate “Alliance” of the Continental Navy.
Colonel Teissedre de Fleury was the only foreigner serving in the American army to ever be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. But individual French volunteers were just the beginning, icing on a much larger cake. They were not the crucial element.
One cannot understand the American Revolutionary War without understanding that it took place in the context of a long struggle between France and England. As a result of the Seven Years War (1756-63), France suffered considerable losses, including its North American colonies, Canada and the Louisiana Territory. Over a million people died in that war and the French navy was decimated. France remained bitter over these losses, reorganized its military and sought a means to recoup and to weaken its perennial rival, Great Britain.
When the American Revolution broke out, France had little confidence in its success. It did, however, allow individual young Frenchmen to join the American cause, including Lafayette. The ship that carried Lafayette and several other volunteers to America was bought with funds provided covertly by the French government. Early in the war France authorized the clandestine provision of military equipment to the American colonies.
Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris as the American ambassador in late 1776 to seek French aid and was highly successful, becoming a phenomenon at the court of Louis XVI in the process. In October 1777, the Americans won the Battle of Saratoga, which convinced the French that the Americans could win.
In February 1778, Franklin signed a Treaty of Alliance with France. In response, England declared war on France the following month. They fought each other not only in America, but also in India, Africa, and the West Indies. Aid to the Americans from the French government had nothing to do with support for democracy. They were merely exploiting ways to diminish Great Britain.
The forces of British Major General Charles Cornwallis surrender to French and American forces after the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Painting by John Trumbull, 1820, from the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
Much of the costs of the American Continental Army were paid by France. But the biggest contribution was the participation of the French military, both regular French army troops and the French navy. Most notably, in early 1780, 6,000 French troops landed at Newport, Rhode Island under the command of General Rochambeau who had 40 years of military leadership experience.
After several months debating strategy with Washington, a plan to move south to attack the forces of British General Cornwallis in Virginia with the support of the French fleet under Admiral De Grasse was agreed upon. This was Rochambeau’s plan. He had conducted all the arrangements with De Grasse. Washington had wanted to attack New York, but his plan was essentially overruled by the French.
Unfortunately, while on their way south the American troops mutinied in Philadelphia over not being paid. The French picked up the tab and they moved on.
The decisive battle of the American Revolutionary War was a naval engagement between the British and French fleets, the Battle of Chesapeake Bay in September 1781. The French won. The British fleet retreated to New York. American naval forces were not involved. The defeat of the British fleet meant that Cornwallis had no means of escape from Yorktown, located on the end of peninsula. He was surrounded and outnumbered 2 to 1 by French and American troops on land and the French navy on the water. His defeat was only a matter of time.
Although fighting at Yorktown continued until October 17th, the British surrendered 8,000 men after only sustaining at most 300 killed. But their situation was hopeless and they were raked with dysentery. There were more French troops at Yorktown than American, not including the French naval personnel or individual Frenchmen fighting with the Americans. Some estimates say the disparity was as great as four Frenchmen to one American. French casualties in the battle were twice those of the Americans.
A contemporary observer described the French and American forces present at the surrender. “Among the Americans, the wide variety in age -- 12- to 14-year-old children stood side by side with grandfathers -- the absence of uniformity in their bearing and their ragged clothing made the French allies appear more splendid by contrast. The latter, in their immaculate white uniforms and blue braid, gave an impression of martial vigor despite their fatigue.”
Yorktown was the last major battle of the war. American independence was recognized by Great Britain at the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 as a direct result of the British defeat there.
Ironically, the war had been triggered by British attempts to make the colonists pay for their own protection, England being in dire financial straits as a result of the cost of the Seven Years War. After it was over, the cost France incurred in support of the American cause led to the bankruptcy of the French monarchy, which contributed enormously to triggering the French Revolution in 1789.
Such profound unintended consequences seem common in floundering empires in decline. The U.S. squandering a trillion dollars in the Iraq War is a prominent case in point.
[David P. Hamilton has been a political activist in Austin since the early 1970s when he worked with SDS and wrote for The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper. Read more articles by David P. Hamilton on The Rag Blog.]
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2011
[This is the first of a series of dispatches from France by The Rag Blog's David P. Hamilton.]
PARIS -- Tea Party types love to bash France and worship the “Founding Fathers." The historical reality makes this a perfect example of their ignorance. Without France, the American Revolution would have failed and the U.S. would have been a British colony for at least several decades longer.
Besides that, the “Founding Fathers” were a bunch of francophiles. Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison were all delighted to serve as American ambassadors to France, Washington incorporated Frenchmen into his General staff, and Tom Paine rushed off to join the French Revolution.
If one polled Americans about what was the most important gift France had ever given the U.S., they would probably say French fries, which actually came from Belgium. The more well-informed would more likely respond that it was the Statue of Liberty. While not wishing to denigrate that monumental work of art, the best answer would be independence from the British Empire. Without France, the 13 colonies would not have won the American Revolutionary War.
Those who have any knowledge concerning France’s contribution to American independence would likely point to the Marquis de Lafayette who was indeed an important military leader of American forces. Having been made a Major General at age 20, he commanded American troops in numerous successful engagements and was a close aide to General Washington.
But actually, there were hundreds of such French volunteers; men like Brigadier General Du Buysson des Aix of the North Carolina militia, Major General Louis Le Begue de Presle du Portail, Brigadier General Preudhomme de Borre, Major General Philippe Charles Jean Baptiste Tronsoin de Courdray, Brigadier General Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouerie, Brigadier General Jean Baptiste Joseph Laumoy, all serving in the American Continental Army, and Captain Pierre Landais, commander of the frigate “Alliance” of the Continental Navy.
Colonel Teissedre de Fleury was the only foreigner serving in the American army to ever be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. But individual French volunteers were just the beginning, icing on a much larger cake. They were not the crucial element.
One cannot understand the American Revolutionary War without understanding that it took place in the context of a long struggle between France and England. As a result of the Seven Years War (1756-63), France suffered considerable losses, including its North American colonies, Canada and the Louisiana Territory. Over a million people died in that war and the French navy was decimated. France remained bitter over these losses, reorganized its military and sought a means to recoup and to weaken its perennial rival, Great Britain.
When the American Revolution broke out, France had little confidence in its success. It did, however, allow individual young Frenchmen to join the American cause, including Lafayette. The ship that carried Lafayette and several other volunteers to America was bought with funds provided covertly by the French government. Early in the war France authorized the clandestine provision of military equipment to the American colonies.
Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris as the American ambassador in late 1776 to seek French aid and was highly successful, becoming a phenomenon at the court of Louis XVI in the process. In October 1777, the Americans won the Battle of Saratoga, which convinced the French that the Americans could win.
In February 1778, Franklin signed a Treaty of Alliance with France. In response, England declared war on France the following month. They fought each other not only in America, but also in India, Africa, and the West Indies. Aid to the Americans from the French government had nothing to do with support for democracy. They were merely exploiting ways to diminish Great Britain.
The forces of British Major General Charles Cornwallis surrender to French and American forces after the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Painting by John Trumbull, 1820, from the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
Much of the costs of the American Continental Army were paid by France. But the biggest contribution was the participation of the French military, both regular French army troops and the French navy. Most notably, in early 1780, 6,000 French troops landed at Newport, Rhode Island under the command of General Rochambeau who had 40 years of military leadership experience.
After several months debating strategy with Washington, a plan to move south to attack the forces of British General Cornwallis in Virginia with the support of the French fleet under Admiral De Grasse was agreed upon. This was Rochambeau’s plan. He had conducted all the arrangements with De Grasse. Washington had wanted to attack New York, but his plan was essentially overruled by the French.
Unfortunately, while on their way south the American troops mutinied in Philadelphia over not being paid. The French picked up the tab and they moved on.
The decisive battle of the American Revolutionary War was a naval engagement between the British and French fleets, the Battle of Chesapeake Bay in September 1781. The French won. The British fleet retreated to New York. American naval forces were not involved. The defeat of the British fleet meant that Cornwallis had no means of escape from Yorktown, located on the end of peninsula. He was surrounded and outnumbered 2 to 1 by French and American troops on land and the French navy on the water. His defeat was only a matter of time.
Although fighting at Yorktown continued until October 17th, the British surrendered 8,000 men after only sustaining at most 300 killed. But their situation was hopeless and they were raked with dysentery. There were more French troops at Yorktown than American, not including the French naval personnel or individual Frenchmen fighting with the Americans. Some estimates say the disparity was as great as four Frenchmen to one American. French casualties in the battle were twice those of the Americans.
A contemporary observer described the French and American forces present at the surrender. “Among the Americans, the wide variety in age -- 12- to 14-year-old children stood side by side with grandfathers -- the absence of uniformity in their bearing and their ragged clothing made the French allies appear more splendid by contrast. The latter, in their immaculate white uniforms and blue braid, gave an impression of martial vigor despite their fatigue.”
Yorktown was the last major battle of the war. American independence was recognized by Great Britain at the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 as a direct result of the British defeat there.
Ironically, the war had been triggered by British attempts to make the colonists pay for their own protection, England being in dire financial straits as a result of the cost of the Seven Years War. After it was over, the cost France incurred in support of the American cause led to the bankruptcy of the French monarchy, which contributed enormously to triggering the French Revolution in 1789.
Such profound unintended consequences seem common in floundering empires in decline. The U.S. squandering a trillion dollars in the Iraq War is a prominent case in point.
[David P. Hamilton has been a political activist in Austin since the early 1970s when he worked with SDS and wrote for The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper. Read more articles by David P. Hamilton on The Rag Blog.]
*A Chronicle of The French Revolution From The Top- Schama's "Citizens"
Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For The French Revolution. As Always With This Source It Is A Good Place To Start In Order To Look Elsewhere For More Specific, And Sometimes More Reliable, Information.
BOOK REVIEW
This year marks the commemoration of the 219th Anniversary of the great French Revolution. Democrats, socialists, communists and others rightly celebrate that event as a milestone in humankind’s history. Whether there are still lessons to be learned from the experience is an open question that political activists can fight over. None, however, can deny its grandeur. Well, no one except those closet and not so closet royalists and their epigones who screech in horror and grasp for their necks every time the 14th of July comes around. They have closed the door of history behind them. Won’t they be surprised then the next time there is a surge of progressive human activity?
Citizens- A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama, Vintage Books, New York, 1989
All great revolutions, like the French revolution under review here, are capable, especially when they are long over, of being analyzed from many prospectives. Moreover, official and academic historian have no other reason to exist except to keep revising the effects that such revolutions have had on future historical developments. Left wing political activists, on the other hand, try to draw the lessons of those earlier plebeian struggles in order to better understand the tasks ahead. As part of that understanding it is necessary to look at previous revolutions not only from the position of how it effected the plebes but to look at from the position of those who do not see the action of the plebeian masses as decisive, at least for the French Revolution. If one wants to get a feel for the old way of looking at history from the top down then you can do no better than to look at the fairly recent example of Professor Simon Schama’s "Citizens".
As a student I was well versed in historical narratives that highlighted the role of great men (and it was mainly men that were highlighted in those days) and great governmental policies that formed the contours of human development (and here, again, development means Western European development). Professor Schama takes us back to those days in his narrative, although he also has some interesting things to say about cultural developments (creation of a reading public in the 18th century, increased focus on education under the influence of Rousseau and the philosophes, development of a public opinion with increased circulation of newspapers and post bills, changes in social mores such as the cult of sensibility, etc.) reflecting the hard fact that these days one cannot sell an historical argument (much less books) unless one sets the stage with such tidbits.
Louis XVI (and to a lesser extent his grandfather Louis XV) has had a very bad press over the last couple of generations, and rightly so, as historians, whether Marxist- influenced or not, have come to understand that one of the factors that speeds up the revolutionary process is the incompetence, inability or both, of the rulers and their coteries to rule in the old way. The great Russian revolutionary writer Leon Trotsky in an early chapter in his monumental three-volume History of the Russian Revolution noted the similarities in this regard between Charles I in 17th century England, Louis XVI in 18th century France and Czar Nicolas of Russian in the 20th century (and their wives) in this governmental incapacity (and colorlessness in their personal demeanor).
Professor Schama recognizes that any rehabilitation effort would take serious work so that he tends to dismiss Louis XVI as basically misunderstood and concentrates on his various, rapidly changing governments in order to argue, in the final analysis, that if this or that policy had been followed through a revolution could have been averted. This is hardly the first time such a proposition has been presented by a later, and in this case much later, historian who has the benefit of hindsight. However, unlike earlier historians Schama has the ability to observe that up until now although great revolutions have created an intense social swirl for a period they lose steam and the long term results of the upheaval appear as something that could have easily been negotiated by men of good will. Despite that piece of wisdom he nevertheless forgets that at times, particularly revolutionary times, even good will is as scarce as hen’s teeth. That mistake decisively impairs his argument.
If one, like this reviewer, spends his or her time looking at the base of society (here the urban sans culottes, the landless peasants and displaced village artisans)to see how those forces were brought to political life, organized, made politically effective (if only for a time, as noted above, before they as individuals like society in general also run out of revolutionary steam) and how they put pressure on their leaderships and how those leaderships responded to those pressures then one downplays the other social forces that are in play in a revolutionary period. Great revolutions, however, create all kinds of turmoil in layers of society that previously were dormant or were in control, although shakily. In that regard, virtually a sure sign that a pre-revolutionary situation exists is when a portion of the old ruling elite (or their agents) begins to make revolutionary noises.
Professor Schama has taken that important insight and made it one of his central arguments, that is , in the end the upwardly mobile, self-improving nobility (the meritocracy in today’s terms) in France rather than being frustrated with the old regime just wanted to tweak things here or there in order to make it more efficient. This is where his emphasis on looking at the effect of policies at the top of society leads him to a false conclusion. If revolutions merely occurred just because of the question of problems with circulation of elites then the plebeian masses of the cities (led by the sans culottes here) and those of the countryside(the peasants and village artisans) could not have been brought onto the political stage in their wake.
Nevertheless Professor Schama argues his view with skill and verve. There are also many other interesting arguments made by Professor Schama in this long book (although length here is no problem as the book is a fairly easy read due to his energetic style of writing), plenty of great photographs to give a nice visual presentation of the period and more than enough cultural tidbits to make this worthwhile to read. But, if you are a leftist political activist, the biggest reason to read this book is to know your political opponents, their arguments and those who would try to denigrate our plebeian history. Read on.
BOOK REVIEW
This year marks the commemoration of the 219th Anniversary of the great French Revolution. Democrats, socialists, communists and others rightly celebrate that event as a milestone in humankind’s history. Whether there are still lessons to be learned from the experience is an open question that political activists can fight over. None, however, can deny its grandeur. Well, no one except those closet and not so closet royalists and their epigones who screech in horror and grasp for their necks every time the 14th of July comes around. They have closed the door of history behind them. Won’t they be surprised then the next time there is a surge of progressive human activity?
Citizens- A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama, Vintage Books, New York, 1989
All great revolutions, like the French revolution under review here, are capable, especially when they are long over, of being analyzed from many prospectives. Moreover, official and academic historian have no other reason to exist except to keep revising the effects that such revolutions have had on future historical developments. Left wing political activists, on the other hand, try to draw the lessons of those earlier plebeian struggles in order to better understand the tasks ahead. As part of that understanding it is necessary to look at previous revolutions not only from the position of how it effected the plebes but to look at from the position of those who do not see the action of the plebeian masses as decisive, at least for the French Revolution. If one wants to get a feel for the old way of looking at history from the top down then you can do no better than to look at the fairly recent example of Professor Simon Schama’s "Citizens".
As a student I was well versed in historical narratives that highlighted the role of great men (and it was mainly men that were highlighted in those days) and great governmental policies that formed the contours of human development (and here, again, development means Western European development). Professor Schama takes us back to those days in his narrative, although he also has some interesting things to say about cultural developments (creation of a reading public in the 18th century, increased focus on education under the influence of Rousseau and the philosophes, development of a public opinion with increased circulation of newspapers and post bills, changes in social mores such as the cult of sensibility, etc.) reflecting the hard fact that these days one cannot sell an historical argument (much less books) unless one sets the stage with such tidbits.
Louis XVI (and to a lesser extent his grandfather Louis XV) has had a very bad press over the last couple of generations, and rightly so, as historians, whether Marxist- influenced or not, have come to understand that one of the factors that speeds up the revolutionary process is the incompetence, inability or both, of the rulers and their coteries to rule in the old way. The great Russian revolutionary writer Leon Trotsky in an early chapter in his monumental three-volume History of the Russian Revolution noted the similarities in this regard between Charles I in 17th century England, Louis XVI in 18th century France and Czar Nicolas of Russian in the 20th century (and their wives) in this governmental incapacity (and colorlessness in their personal demeanor).
Professor Schama recognizes that any rehabilitation effort would take serious work so that he tends to dismiss Louis XVI as basically misunderstood and concentrates on his various, rapidly changing governments in order to argue, in the final analysis, that if this or that policy had been followed through a revolution could have been averted. This is hardly the first time such a proposition has been presented by a later, and in this case much later, historian who has the benefit of hindsight. However, unlike earlier historians Schama has the ability to observe that up until now although great revolutions have created an intense social swirl for a period they lose steam and the long term results of the upheaval appear as something that could have easily been negotiated by men of good will. Despite that piece of wisdom he nevertheless forgets that at times, particularly revolutionary times, even good will is as scarce as hen’s teeth. That mistake decisively impairs his argument.
If one, like this reviewer, spends his or her time looking at the base of society (here the urban sans culottes, the landless peasants and displaced village artisans)to see how those forces were brought to political life, organized, made politically effective (if only for a time, as noted above, before they as individuals like society in general also run out of revolutionary steam) and how they put pressure on their leaderships and how those leaderships responded to those pressures then one downplays the other social forces that are in play in a revolutionary period. Great revolutions, however, create all kinds of turmoil in layers of society that previously were dormant or were in control, although shakily. In that regard, virtually a sure sign that a pre-revolutionary situation exists is when a portion of the old ruling elite (or their agents) begins to make revolutionary noises.
Professor Schama has taken that important insight and made it one of his central arguments, that is , in the end the upwardly mobile, self-improving nobility (the meritocracy in today’s terms) in France rather than being frustrated with the old regime just wanted to tweak things here or there in order to make it more efficient. This is where his emphasis on looking at the effect of policies at the top of society leads him to a false conclusion. If revolutions merely occurred just because of the question of problems with circulation of elites then the plebeian masses of the cities (led by the sans culottes here) and those of the countryside(the peasants and village artisans) could not have been brought onto the political stage in their wake.
Nevertheless Professor Schama argues his view with skill and verve. There are also many other interesting arguments made by Professor Schama in this long book (although length here is no problem as the book is a fairly easy read due to his energetic style of writing), plenty of great photographs to give a nice visual presentation of the period and more than enough cultural tidbits to make this worthwhile to read. But, if you are a leftist political activist, the biggest reason to read this book is to know your political opponents, their arguments and those who would try to denigrate our plebeian history. Read on.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
A TIME TO TRY MEN'S SOULS
THE RANK AND FILE ARMY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION- A CAUTIONARY TALE
BOOK REVIEW
THE PROUD AND THE FREE, HOWARD FAST, WEIDERFIELD AND NICHOLSON, 2003
The Proud and the Free is one of a series of several books that the novelist Howard Fast has written on aspects of the American Revolution. The subject of this volume is a novelistic reenactment, using the narrative devise of reminiscences of a participant looking back from old age , of the famous mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line troops in 1781. The causes of the mutiny by battle-hardened soldiers who had faced and overcome five long years of hardship during the independence struggle and had become fed up over were, in short, the horrible working conditions and the indecisiveness of the Continental Congress and their own regimental military leadership. As always Mr. Fast takes a close look at the class divide-here between the rank and file mutinous soldiers forced out into the hard-bitten winter camps and the colonial gentry who drove them much in the manner of the British overlords they were trying to drive out. The mutiny was defeated after a short period under threat of annihilation from other, superior Continental Army forces.
That defeat brings us to the central question of what those mutinous forces could reasonable do in these circumstances of an unfinished revolutionary struggle. The mutinous regiments, negating the arguments of the necessity for stern and unreasonable authority from the colonial upper class military leadership, were more than capable of keeping order and discipline under the authority of their own elected leadership (The Committee of Sergeants). The real problem was the limited number of options the Line had to stay together as a disciplined force. These were troops committed to the revolution, its success and ultimate victorious conclusion. As the story makes clear they had nowhere to go but home or back to the front. Nobody said every just political action, and this mutiny was a just action, has the right ending. Here there could be no way to succeed as an independent force short of turning into rank and file Benedict Arnolds. They said, no thanks. I agree.
BOOK REVIEW
THE PROUD AND THE FREE, HOWARD FAST, WEIDERFIELD AND NICHOLSON, 2003
The Proud and the Free is one of a series of several books that the novelist Howard Fast has written on aspects of the American Revolution. The subject of this volume is a novelistic reenactment, using the narrative devise of reminiscences of a participant looking back from old age , of the famous mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line troops in 1781. The causes of the mutiny by battle-hardened soldiers who had faced and overcome five long years of hardship during the independence struggle and had become fed up over were, in short, the horrible working conditions and the indecisiveness of the Continental Congress and their own regimental military leadership. As always Mr. Fast takes a close look at the class divide-here between the rank and file mutinous soldiers forced out into the hard-bitten winter camps and the colonial gentry who drove them much in the manner of the British overlords they were trying to drive out. The mutiny was defeated after a short period under threat of annihilation from other, superior Continental Army forces.
That defeat brings us to the central question of what those mutinous forces could reasonable do in these circumstances of an unfinished revolutionary struggle. The mutinous regiments, negating the arguments of the necessity for stern and unreasonable authority from the colonial upper class military leadership, were more than capable of keeping order and discipline under the authority of their own elected leadership (The Committee of Sergeants). The real problem was the limited number of options the Line had to stay together as a disciplined force. These were troops committed to the revolution, its success and ultimate victorious conclusion. As the story makes clear they had nowhere to go but home or back to the front. Nobody said every just political action, and this mutiny was a just action, has the right ending. Here there could be no way to succeed as an independent force short of turning into rank and file Benedict Arnolds. They said, no thanks. I agree.
Monday, July 11, 2016
A QUIRKY LOOK AT THE MILITARY CAMPAIGNS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
BOOK REVIEW
A FIRST SALUTE, BARBARA TUCHMAN, HYPERION, NEW 2000
Since the ending of the American Revolution historians have probably presented the narrative of the military campaigns which led to independence in every possible way. Ms. Tuchman, well known for her quirky looks at other historical events such as World War I, the Middle Ages and China in the 1930’s and 40’s, has done a commendable job of linking up the land war with the less well known, but crucial, naval campaigns of the Revolution. Ms. Tuchman’s argument is that, given the nature of the evolution of 18th century warfare, particularly British warfare as it became Queen of the seas, the land war could not be successful without the naval component, whether by an indigenous Continental navy or, more importantly, with French naval assistance. Fair enough, as far as she goes.
The key to understanding the American Revolution is that of an early national liberation struggle that like all such struggles were desperately in need of arms. And like all such struggles the rebels were not particular about where they got them. This, in the final analysis, is the importance of the first salute- that is the recognition of the colonials to belligerent status by the Dutch in the West Indies where the American rebels could get arms and ammunition. Ms. Tuchman mentions this need in passing but does not expand on it and rather gets caught up going off on a tangent about the history of the Dutch, French and British struggle for naval supremacyin the 17th and 18th centuries.
Ms. Tuchman‘s book is, however, marred by more than the question of a different emphasis on particular aspects of the military struggle. And for lack of a better expression, it is her underlying theme of the futility of war as a means of solving political problems. In the great beyond every thoughtful person would hope that pacific day would come (and damn soon). However in the world of the American Revolutionary War, a just war, is sometimes the only legitimate way to resolve political questions. Call it the march of folly, if you will, but that is the case here. Thus, Ms. Tuchman may snigger at the incompetent and defeatism of the military and civilian leadership of the British forces but to be consistent she would have to fault the American forces as well. The plain hard fact of the matter was that the British monarchy was, short of war, not going to grant any of the colonial demands. End of story. Thus, not only was the American Revolution a just war from the colonial side but a necessary one. Ms. Tuchman, moreover, gives the game away by her sincere admiration of General Washington and his hard scrabble forces. Following her premise we today would be still bending our knees before the Queen. No way.
A FIRST SALUTE, BARBARA TUCHMAN, HYPERION, NEW 2000
Since the ending of the American Revolution historians have probably presented the narrative of the military campaigns which led to independence in every possible way. Ms. Tuchman, well known for her quirky looks at other historical events such as World War I, the Middle Ages and China in the 1930’s and 40’s, has done a commendable job of linking up the land war with the less well known, but crucial, naval campaigns of the Revolution. Ms. Tuchman’s argument is that, given the nature of the evolution of 18th century warfare, particularly British warfare as it became Queen of the seas, the land war could not be successful without the naval component, whether by an indigenous Continental navy or, more importantly, with French naval assistance. Fair enough, as far as she goes.
The key to understanding the American Revolution is that of an early national liberation struggle that like all such struggles were desperately in need of arms. And like all such struggles the rebels were not particular about where they got them. This, in the final analysis, is the importance of the first salute- that is the recognition of the colonials to belligerent status by the Dutch in the West Indies where the American rebels could get arms and ammunition. Ms. Tuchman mentions this need in passing but does not expand on it and rather gets caught up going off on a tangent about the history of the Dutch, French and British struggle for naval supremacyin the 17th and 18th centuries.
Ms. Tuchman‘s book is, however, marred by more than the question of a different emphasis on particular aspects of the military struggle. And for lack of a better expression, it is her underlying theme of the futility of war as a means of solving political problems. In the great beyond every thoughtful person would hope that pacific day would come (and damn soon). However in the world of the American Revolutionary War, a just war, is sometimes the only legitimate way to resolve political questions. Call it the march of folly, if you will, but that is the case here. Thus, Ms. Tuchman may snigger at the incompetent and defeatism of the military and civilian leadership of the British forces but to be consistent she would have to fault the American forces as well. The plain hard fact of the matter was that the British monarchy was, short of war, not going to grant any of the colonial demands. End of story. Thus, not only was the American Revolution a just war from the colonial side but a necessary one. Ms. Tuchman, moreover, gives the game away by her sincere admiration of General Washington and his hard scrabble forces. Following her premise we today would be still bending our knees before the Queen. No way.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
THE FIGHT FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS
BOOK REVIEW
JAMES MADISON AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BILL OF RUGHTS, RICHARD LABUNSKI, Oxford University Press, USA, 2006
In these times when the Bill of Rights is under constant attack, especially as they relate to the rights of criminal defendants and political oppositionists across a spectrum of issues, it is appropriate that militant defenders of those rights look at the history of the struggle to incorporate these seemingly self-evident rights into the American body politic. And that is the correct way to view this question-the struggle. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, despite fights to have them incorporated into the organic frame of government, this action was defeated. Thus, when the author of the book under review entitled his book James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights he hit exactly the contradictory attitudes toward their implementation that has followed them from the beginning of the constitutional period.
Many commentators have remarked that if a poll was taken of Americans today and the ideas of the Bill of Rights was presented in enumerated form they would be defeated as far too radical. Unfortunately there is some truth to this assertion. Thus, James Madison’s struggle to have them incorporated through the constitutional amendment process takes on added significance today. I have commented more than once that the leaders of the American Revolution were big men (and they were for the most part men) out to do a big task-and they did it. And Madison played no small part around the construction of the constitution.
This is the story presented here. The striking part about the whole struggle is that James Madison does not, on the basis of his reputation and lifestyle, come quickly to mind as the obvious leader of such actions. Nevertheless he, and essentially he alone, saw the process through from the winnowing out of the many proposed amendments from many quarters to the cumbersome ratification process. Hats off to Mr. Madison. Will future generations be able to say that we were the best defenders of those precious rights against those in American politics who would relish the return of Star Chamber proceedings? The Bill of Rights, whatever their limitations, are not window dressing. Think about that the next time you have to invoke one of them.
JAMES MADISON AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BILL OF RUGHTS, RICHARD LABUNSKI, Oxford University Press, USA, 2006
In these times when the Bill of Rights is under constant attack, especially as they relate to the rights of criminal defendants and political oppositionists across a spectrum of issues, it is appropriate that militant defenders of those rights look at the history of the struggle to incorporate these seemingly self-evident rights into the American body politic. And that is the correct way to view this question-the struggle. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, despite fights to have them incorporated into the organic frame of government, this action was defeated. Thus, when the author of the book under review entitled his book James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights he hit exactly the contradictory attitudes toward their implementation that has followed them from the beginning of the constitutional period.
Many commentators have remarked that if a poll was taken of Americans today and the ideas of the Bill of Rights was presented in enumerated form they would be defeated as far too radical. Unfortunately there is some truth to this assertion. Thus, James Madison’s struggle to have them incorporated through the constitutional amendment process takes on added significance today. I have commented more than once that the leaders of the American Revolution were big men (and they were for the most part men) out to do a big task-and they did it. And Madison played no small part around the construction of the constitution.
This is the story presented here. The striking part about the whole struggle is that James Madison does not, on the basis of his reputation and lifestyle, come quickly to mind as the obvious leader of such actions. Nevertheless he, and essentially he alone, saw the process through from the winnowing out of the many proposed amendments from many quarters to the cumbersome ratification process. Hats off to Mr. Madison. Will future generations be able to say that we were the best defenders of those precious rights against those in American politics who would relish the return of Star Chamber proceedings? The Bill of Rights, whatever their limitations, are not window dressing. Think about that the next time you have to invoke one of them.
Saturday, July 09, 2016
IN THE TIME OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE
BOOK REVIEW
SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE, HOWARD FAST, CAROL PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK, 1994
In the ordinary course of events my tastes run to history rather than historical novels. This novel about the events leading up to the Battle of Bunker Hill by prolific erstwhile radical writer Howard Fast is part of a series he did on various events during the American Revolution. The novel sums up quickly and intentionally an important point about the pyschological effect of imperialist rule on the rulers and consequent effect of subjugation on the ruled.
As is the current fashion there is much “blood and gore”, sex and general buffoonery to round out an event that would not normally have enough drama to be subject to novel treatment. Nevertheless, Mr. Fast’ s depiction of the fateful events which led up to the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 offers an interesting insight into the various ways that the British imperialist presence expressed itself through its officer corps and civilian loyalist forces. Naturally enough, that manner produced a profound negative reaction on the part of the rebellious “colonials”- our forbears. Without intending to do so directly the novel provides a cautionary tale about the pitfalls for the United States imperialist presence in the world today-particularly in Iraq.
One of the other issues presented here is the question of the abilities of the “colonials” to fight to the end for their national liberation. The Concord and Lexington actions of the early spring were essentially ad hoc, individualistic responses to British provocation. That question really gets answered in the affirmative at Bunker Hill and some of those who provided military leadership at Bunker Hill were among those who led the military forces of the Continental Congress throughout the war. For the umpteenth time we find out that superior convention military superiority does not always trump well-led and determined national liberation forces prepared to take heavy loses in order to assure victory. That too is a cautionary tale for our times.
SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE, HOWARD FAST, CAROL PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK, 1994
In the ordinary course of events my tastes run to history rather than historical novels. This novel about the events leading up to the Battle of Bunker Hill by prolific erstwhile radical writer Howard Fast is part of a series he did on various events during the American Revolution. The novel sums up quickly and intentionally an important point about the pyschological effect of imperialist rule on the rulers and consequent effect of subjugation on the ruled.
As is the current fashion there is much “blood and gore”, sex and general buffoonery to round out an event that would not normally have enough drama to be subject to novel treatment. Nevertheless, Mr. Fast’ s depiction of the fateful events which led up to the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 offers an interesting insight into the various ways that the British imperialist presence expressed itself through its officer corps and civilian loyalist forces. Naturally enough, that manner produced a profound negative reaction on the part of the rebellious “colonials”- our forbears. Without intending to do so directly the novel provides a cautionary tale about the pitfalls for the United States imperialist presence in the world today-particularly in Iraq.
One of the other issues presented here is the question of the abilities of the “colonials” to fight to the end for their national liberation. The Concord and Lexington actions of the early spring were essentially ad hoc, individualistic responses to British provocation. That question really gets answered in the affirmative at Bunker Hill and some of those who provided military leadership at Bunker Hill were among those who led the military forces of the Continental Congress throughout the war. For the umpteenth time we find out that superior convention military superiority does not always trump well-led and determined national liberation forces prepared to take heavy loses in order to assure victory. That too is a cautionary tale for our times.
***Those Who Fought For Our "Newer World" Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The American Revolution's James Otis
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the American revolutionary politician, James Otis.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Friday, July 08, 2016
THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
BOOK REVIEW
A STRUGGLE FOR POWER: IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, THEODORE DRAPER, VINTAGE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1997
In my study of revolutions I have always been interested in two basic questions- what were the ideas swirling around prior to the revolution that brought people to see the need for revolution and the related question of how those ideas played out in the struggle for power. I recently reviewed Professor Gordon Wood’s Radicalism in the American Revolution. That book centrally posed the first of these questions, which is the influence of ideas about the nature of individual freedom, about the creation of the frame of government and about who should govern- the patricians or the plebes?
In the present review of Theodore Draper’s book the second question of how those played out in the revolutionary process is dealt with at length. Although Mr. Draper has many insightful thoughts about the duration and intensity of the American revolutionary struggle against dear old mother England one must recognize that this is not a major historical contribution to the study of the American revolutionary experience. Draper’s major historical work, his definitive two-volume study of the formation and later Stalinization of the American Communist Party, for which he will be well remembered, is qualitatively better in every way. Not the least of which was that Mr. Draper was tapping new veins of previously unavailable material on the subject and had been personally involved in some aspects of the Communist Party’s history.
That said, as mentioned above one of the most interesting of Mr. Draper’s insights is the rather long period of struggle by groupings in virtually every individual colonial government against the rule (or better, rules since they were not uniformly applied) imposed by England. Previous study had led me to assume that these struggles had a relatively recent origin only a few decades prior to the revolution. What is apparent is that a ‘cold’ dual power situation existed between England and some of the administrations in the colonies for a fairly long time before ‘hot’ dual power occurred with the creation of the Continental Congress and the formation of militias and then the establishment of a full-blown army. Part of this tension stemmed from the distance from the mother country and the relatively looseness of the ties between colony and metropolis. Part of it also came from a need to deal with political, social and economic questions faster than edicts from England would permit and partly also by the structure of many of the colonial governments that acted to check the Imperial power by controlling the purse strings of the local power elite.
An overriding question that hovers over Mr. Draper’s theme is whether a revolution in America was necessary (or wise) given the relatively narrow issues that pulled the parties apart for most of the pre-revolutionary period. His answer is that the whole long pre-history of struggle between indigenous elements of colonial society and the haughtiness and unresponsiveness of officialdom under imperial rule dictated the need for revolution. That is certainly not an unreasonable conclusion. However, to this reviewer’s mind the question itself is rather fruitless. Revolutions occur; whatever reasons underlie any particular revolution because the parties (or at least one of the parties) see no other way out. Post-hoc analysis, while interesting, does not explain why this occurs and perhaps this why post-hoc knowledge does not make one wiser about how to avoid revolution. In modern sociology that, in any case, is the general intent of such analysis. Mr. Draper has, nevertheless, presented an interesting thesis about the sources of conflict in the American setting and the role of national consciousness in the pre- revolutionary period. Read on.
REVISED: NOVEMBER 4, 2006
A STRUGGLE FOR POWER: IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, THEODORE DRAPER, VINTAGE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1997
In my study of revolutions I have always been interested in two basic questions- what were the ideas swirling around prior to the revolution that brought people to see the need for revolution and the related question of how those ideas played out in the struggle for power. I recently reviewed Professor Gordon Wood’s Radicalism in the American Revolution. That book centrally posed the first of these questions, which is the influence of ideas about the nature of individual freedom, about the creation of the frame of government and about who should govern- the patricians or the plebes?
In the present review of Theodore Draper’s book the second question of how those played out in the revolutionary process is dealt with at length. Although Mr. Draper has many insightful thoughts about the duration and intensity of the American revolutionary struggle against dear old mother England one must recognize that this is not a major historical contribution to the study of the American revolutionary experience. Draper’s major historical work, his definitive two-volume study of the formation and later Stalinization of the American Communist Party, for which he will be well remembered, is qualitatively better in every way. Not the least of which was that Mr. Draper was tapping new veins of previously unavailable material on the subject and had been personally involved in some aspects of the Communist Party’s history.
That said, as mentioned above one of the most interesting of Mr. Draper’s insights is the rather long period of struggle by groupings in virtually every individual colonial government against the rule (or better, rules since they were not uniformly applied) imposed by England. Previous study had led me to assume that these struggles had a relatively recent origin only a few decades prior to the revolution. What is apparent is that a ‘cold’ dual power situation existed between England and some of the administrations in the colonies for a fairly long time before ‘hot’ dual power occurred with the creation of the Continental Congress and the formation of militias and then the establishment of a full-blown army. Part of this tension stemmed from the distance from the mother country and the relatively looseness of the ties between colony and metropolis. Part of it also came from a need to deal with political, social and economic questions faster than edicts from England would permit and partly also by the structure of many of the colonial governments that acted to check the Imperial power by controlling the purse strings of the local power elite.
An overriding question that hovers over Mr. Draper’s theme is whether a revolution in America was necessary (or wise) given the relatively narrow issues that pulled the parties apart for most of the pre-revolutionary period. His answer is that the whole long pre-history of struggle between indigenous elements of colonial society and the haughtiness and unresponsiveness of officialdom under imperial rule dictated the need for revolution. That is certainly not an unreasonable conclusion. However, to this reviewer’s mind the question itself is rather fruitless. Revolutions occur; whatever reasons underlie any particular revolution because the parties (or at least one of the parties) see no other way out. Post-hoc analysis, while interesting, does not explain why this occurs and perhaps this why post-hoc knowledge does not make one wiser about how to avoid revolution. In modern sociology that, in any case, is the general intent of such analysis. Mr. Draper has, nevertheless, presented an interesting thesis about the sources of conflict in the American setting and the role of national consciousness in the pre- revolutionary period. Read on.
REVISED: NOVEMBER 4, 2006
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The American Revolution's Sam Adams
Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry reviewing a biography about American revolutionary leader, Sam Adams.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Thursday, July 07, 2016
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Tom Paine
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for American (English and French, as well) revolutionary leader, Tom Paine.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, 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.
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
IN THE TIME OF THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS
BOOK REVIEW
THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, GORDON S. WOOD, VINTAGE, NEW YORK, 1993
In the chronology of the history of revolutions, at least the modern ones, each has always been preceded by a struggle over radical/revolutionary ideas which more or less animated the progressive parties to push forward to what is an exceptional circumstance in the historic process, revolution-the going over from the old order to a new order by means of eliminating the old ruling class and installing a new one. Thus, the English Revolution of the 1600’s found plenty of pamphleteers and publicists, especially among the Levelers (the secular democratic wing of the parliamentary forces) in the struggle to gain parliamentary ascendance. The French Revolution was inundated from many sources with ideas about which way society should be run leading up to the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. And certainly the Russian Revolution, the most conscious party-led effort at revolution known to history, was centrally determined by the titanic struggle of the various liberal and social-democratic parties over ideas.
The book under review here thus takes its place in the debate over the role of such ideas in the American Revolution. Professor Wood is on fertile ground in tracing the history of the prevailing pre-revolutionary ideas that culminated in the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, including the crucial Bill of Rights. He also takes on the post- revolutionary ideological struggle between the ideas of a society run as a democracy favored by the more plebian elements or as a republic, particularly a disinterestedly-run republic of letters, favored by the more aristocratic elements which burst forth after the revolution.
Professor Wood is an eminent, if not the contemporary pre-eminent historian of the American Revolution, so what he has to say bears attention. His fundamental premise in this volume is that the struggle for ideas in the pre-revolutionary period determined the nature of the later, essentially parliamentary, struggles after independence was declared and the new frame of government was established. In short, he argues for a much more radical interpretation of the heretofore stodgy American Revolution (in comparison, at least, to the flamboyant French Revolution and the powerful pull of the Russian revolution) at least the events known and commemorated from our childhoods. His central point that this revolution represented an important accrual in the struggle of the forces for enlightenment is something that militant leftists can appreciate whatever other disagreements with Professor Wood’s political conclusions we might entertain.
Professor Wood makes two main points that bear notice. The first- while today rather obvious- bears acknowledgement, that is the struggle from early on in the 1700’s in the colonies to break from the role of subjects of a monarchial regime to independent citizens of a republic fearing no man. That premise was indeed progressive at the time and animated all movements from the late 1600’s on. It is a struggle that, of necessity, continues today. The exception I take to Professor Wood’s worldview is that while he is content with the general outline of current democratic practice I would argue that the road from citizen under capitalism to comrade under socialism is necessary to fulfill the still remaining democratic tasks of the American Revolution and the Second American Revolution, the Civil War.
Professor Wood’s second premise is to note the divergence between the ideals of the leaders of the independence forces concerning the establishment of a government based on disinterested rule and the more plebian (and messy)notion that every cook could be a legislator. The gap between the leadership’s (Washington, John Adams, Hamilton and the usual cast of suspects) high expectations from a Republic of Letters (in essence their own personal republic) issuing forth from the revolution ultimately led to the demise of the elitist Federalist party and the rise of the rule of those claiming the interests of the plebian elements. In that historic fight militant leftists wholeheartedly would have supported the plebian elements. That fight has never really been completed nor has it been expanded in a more socialist direction. Nevertheless Professor Wood’s goal of defining the revolution as animated by more radical ideas that generally realized is an important addition to our historic understanding of the American Revolution. Read on.
Revised September 28, 2006
THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, GORDON S. WOOD, VINTAGE, NEW YORK, 1993
In the chronology of the history of revolutions, at least the modern ones, each has always been preceded by a struggle over radical/revolutionary ideas which more or less animated the progressive parties to push forward to what is an exceptional circumstance in the historic process, revolution-the going over from the old order to a new order by means of eliminating the old ruling class and installing a new one. Thus, the English Revolution of the 1600’s found plenty of pamphleteers and publicists, especially among the Levelers (the secular democratic wing of the parliamentary forces) in the struggle to gain parliamentary ascendance. The French Revolution was inundated from many sources with ideas about which way society should be run leading up to the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. And certainly the Russian Revolution, the most conscious party-led effort at revolution known to history, was centrally determined by the titanic struggle of the various liberal and social-democratic parties over ideas.
The book under review here thus takes its place in the debate over the role of such ideas in the American Revolution. Professor Wood is on fertile ground in tracing the history of the prevailing pre-revolutionary ideas that culminated in the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, including the crucial Bill of Rights. He also takes on the post- revolutionary ideological struggle between the ideas of a society run as a democracy favored by the more plebian elements or as a republic, particularly a disinterestedly-run republic of letters, favored by the more aristocratic elements which burst forth after the revolution.
Professor Wood is an eminent, if not the contemporary pre-eminent historian of the American Revolution, so what he has to say bears attention. His fundamental premise in this volume is that the struggle for ideas in the pre-revolutionary period determined the nature of the later, essentially parliamentary, struggles after independence was declared and the new frame of government was established. In short, he argues for a much more radical interpretation of the heretofore stodgy American Revolution (in comparison, at least, to the flamboyant French Revolution and the powerful pull of the Russian revolution) at least the events known and commemorated from our childhoods. His central point that this revolution represented an important accrual in the struggle of the forces for enlightenment is something that militant leftists can appreciate whatever other disagreements with Professor Wood’s political conclusions we might entertain.
Professor Wood makes two main points that bear notice. The first- while today rather obvious- bears acknowledgement, that is the struggle from early on in the 1700’s in the colonies to break from the role of subjects of a monarchial regime to independent citizens of a republic fearing no man. That premise was indeed progressive at the time and animated all movements from the late 1600’s on. It is a struggle that, of necessity, continues today. The exception I take to Professor Wood’s worldview is that while he is content with the general outline of current democratic practice I would argue that the road from citizen under capitalism to comrade under socialism is necessary to fulfill the still remaining democratic tasks of the American Revolution and the Second American Revolution, the Civil War.
Professor Wood’s second premise is to note the divergence between the ideals of the leaders of the independence forces concerning the establishment of a government based on disinterested rule and the more plebian (and messy)notion that every cook could be a legislator. The gap between the leadership’s (Washington, John Adams, Hamilton and the usual cast of suspects) high expectations from a Republic of Letters (in essence their own personal republic) issuing forth from the revolution ultimately led to the demise of the elitist Federalist party and the rise of the rule of those claiming the interests of the plebian elements. In that historic fight militant leftists wholeheartedly would have supported the plebian elements. That fight has never really been completed nor has it been expanded in a more socialist direction. Nevertheless Professor Wood’s goal of defining the revolution as animated by more radical ideas that generally realized is an important addition to our historic understanding of the American Revolution. Read on.
Revised September 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
BOOK REVIEW
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION, JOHN DOS PASSOS, DOUBLEDAY AND COMPANY, NEW YORK, 1957
The title of this book gives away its age (it was originally written in 1957). No politically conscious publisher would dare present such an affront to today's sensibilities in the marketplace by not including others in the founding of the Republic. And they are right. That said, this little vignette into the foundation of the American Republic by John Dos Passos is still a very good read about the post-revolutionary struggle to form a frame of national government out of the welter of conflicting appetites raised by the formal independence from "Mother England". John Dos Passos, at one time a writer whose star was as bright as Ernest Hemingway's, seems to have slipped some in the literary pantheon but his classic USA trilogy and other works are unjustly neglected. Yes, I know as he grew older he grew more conservative and thus beyond the pale. Nobody was as shocked as I was, after having read his progressive socially conscious works on the Jazz Age in America and on Republican Spain, to find him in the early 1960’s as a sponsor of the reactionary Young Americans for Freedom. But enough of that. Let's get to this effort and what it means.
The events of the American Revolution and the process of building an effective national government from scratch today is covered with so much banal ceremony, flag- waving, unthinking sunshine patriotism and hubris it is hard to see the forest for the trees to the days when, as Lincoln stated, during that other great progressive action of this country's history- the Great Civil War of 1861-65 that this country was the last, best hope for civilization. Note this well- those men and women who rebelled against the king from Washington on down were big men and women out to do a big job. And they did it. A quick look at the political landscape today makes one thing clear. This country has no such men or women among its leaders today-not even close.
The usual cast of characters and defining events are here- the august, if somewhat fickle and prickly, Washington, the closet monarchist Adams, the not so closet monarchist Hamilton, the republican Jefferson, the fiery republican Madison, their hangers-on and underlings, their political fights and their differing conceptions of government. Dos Passos, as an experienced novelist, is able to bring these people alive, including lesser lights like Gouvernour Morris, Robert Morris (not related) and the Randolphs, with plenty of anecdotal musings about their strengths and weaknesses. For those familiar with the story of American nation building this book may not reveal anything new but for others- read on.
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION, JOHN DOS PASSOS, DOUBLEDAY AND COMPANY, NEW YORK, 1957
The title of this book gives away its age (it was originally written in 1957). No politically conscious publisher would dare present such an affront to today's sensibilities in the marketplace by not including others in the founding of the Republic. And they are right. That said, this little vignette into the foundation of the American Republic by John Dos Passos is still a very good read about the post-revolutionary struggle to form a frame of national government out of the welter of conflicting appetites raised by the formal independence from "Mother England". John Dos Passos, at one time a writer whose star was as bright as Ernest Hemingway's, seems to have slipped some in the literary pantheon but his classic USA trilogy and other works are unjustly neglected. Yes, I know as he grew older he grew more conservative and thus beyond the pale. Nobody was as shocked as I was, after having read his progressive socially conscious works on the Jazz Age in America and on Republican Spain, to find him in the early 1960’s as a sponsor of the reactionary Young Americans for Freedom. But enough of that. Let's get to this effort and what it means.
The events of the American Revolution and the process of building an effective national government from scratch today is covered with so much banal ceremony, flag- waving, unthinking sunshine patriotism and hubris it is hard to see the forest for the trees to the days when, as Lincoln stated, during that other great progressive action of this country's history- the Great Civil War of 1861-65 that this country was the last, best hope for civilization. Note this well- those men and women who rebelled against the king from Washington on down were big men and women out to do a big job. And they did it. A quick look at the political landscape today makes one thing clear. This country has no such men or women among its leaders today-not even close.
The usual cast of characters and defining events are here- the august, if somewhat fickle and prickly, Washington, the closet monarchist Adams, the not so closet monarchist Hamilton, the republican Jefferson, the fiery republican Madison, their hangers-on and underlings, their political fights and their differing conceptions of government. Dos Passos, as an experienced novelist, is able to bring these people alive, including lesser lights like Gouvernour Morris, Robert Morris (not related) and the Randolphs, with plenty of anecdotal musings about their strengths and weaknesses. For those familiar with the story of American nation building this book may not reveal anything new but for others- read on.
WHEN AMERICA DEFENDED ENLIGHTENMENT VALUES
BOOK REVIEW
REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTERS: WHAT MADE THE FOUNDERS DIFFERENT, GORDON S. WOOD, PENQUIN, NEW YORK, 2006
In earlier times this writer has been rather blasé about the American Revolution tending to either ignore its lessons or putting it well below another revolution- The Great French Revolution, also celebrated in July- in the pantheon of revolutionary history. However, this is flat-out wrong. We cannot let those more interested in holiday oratory than drawing the real lessons of the American Revolution appropriate what is the hard fought property of every militant today. Make no mistake, however, the energy of that long ago revolution has burned itself out and other forces-militant leftists and their allies- and other political creeds-the fight for a workers party and a workers government leading to socialism- have to take its place as a standard-bearer for human progress. That task has been on the historical agenda for a long time and continues to be our task today.
That said, the eminent, if not preeminent, historian of the American revolutionary period Gordon S. Wood has written a collection of sketches which every militant leftist should read in order to get a handle on where the great promise of that American democratic experiment has gone fatally off track. It might be the current paucity of political leadership, it might be the ongoing frontal attack on the Enlightenment values that this country was founded on but this writer finds himself drawn to restudy the lives of the participants and the revolutionary history of the founding of this country. Yes, revolutionary-that is the operative word here and it fits. That action was what was necessary to turn royal subjects into citizens and the Founders rose to the occasion. Make no mistake these were big men (and women, although Mr. Wood strangely, in this day in age, does not include any in this study), from Washington on down, with big ideas that are for the most part codified in the frame of government, a genuine Enlightenment document, - the Constitution and, as importantly, the Bill of Rights. It is necessary, as always, to add that this document is severely marred, among other problems, by the capitulation to slavery and the race question embedded in it that has plagued this country to this day. But that is a question for another time.
Mr. Wood concentrates on the founders here- Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamilton. There are no closet socialists here, or for that matter, radical democrats such as Sam Adams, Tom Paine or James Otis. Nor are there nods to the plebian masses that made the revolution and stuck by it through thick and thin. Those types of studies more closely fit the reviewer’s own predilections. Nevertheless, on his own chosen ground Mr. Wood has brought the leadership cadre of the American Revolution to life and done an admirably job of discussing the virtues and anxieties of those men. Notably, there is a great divide between the Founders concepts of civic virtue, use of the public square and civic disinterestedness in comparison to what passes for the leadership of the country today. You know that we are in trouble when John Adams, a not so-closet-Tory, looks damn good in comparison to today’s open reactionaries.
The field of historical writing, like other fields of social research, has gone through various trends in appreciation of the role of leadership and of the masses. Until fairly recently the rage was to look closely at the role of the masses in social struggles. Those studies are still desperately needed. However, I do not believe that it is accidental that today’s trend is to rethink the leadership question in the American Revolution at a time when there is such an obvious lack of it. Some of Mr. Wood’s judgments about particular leaders can be disputed but the overall impression is that these men were not faking their Enlightenment values; in short, they for the most part put their lives on the line for this little democratic experiment. And they were not wrong. As stated above, we need to defend those hard fought for rights- and move beyond them. Read this book.
REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTERS: WHAT MADE THE FOUNDERS DIFFERENT, GORDON S. WOOD, PENQUIN, NEW YORK, 2006
In earlier times this writer has been rather blasé about the American Revolution tending to either ignore its lessons or putting it well below another revolution- The Great French Revolution, also celebrated in July- in the pantheon of revolutionary history. However, this is flat-out wrong. We cannot let those more interested in holiday oratory than drawing the real lessons of the American Revolution appropriate what is the hard fought property of every militant today. Make no mistake, however, the energy of that long ago revolution has burned itself out and other forces-militant leftists and their allies- and other political creeds-the fight for a workers party and a workers government leading to socialism- have to take its place as a standard-bearer for human progress. That task has been on the historical agenda for a long time and continues to be our task today.
That said, the eminent, if not preeminent, historian of the American revolutionary period Gordon S. Wood has written a collection of sketches which every militant leftist should read in order to get a handle on where the great promise of that American democratic experiment has gone fatally off track. It might be the current paucity of political leadership, it might be the ongoing frontal attack on the Enlightenment values that this country was founded on but this writer finds himself drawn to restudy the lives of the participants and the revolutionary history of the founding of this country. Yes, revolutionary-that is the operative word here and it fits. That action was what was necessary to turn royal subjects into citizens and the Founders rose to the occasion. Make no mistake these were big men (and women, although Mr. Wood strangely, in this day in age, does not include any in this study), from Washington on down, with big ideas that are for the most part codified in the frame of government, a genuine Enlightenment document, - the Constitution and, as importantly, the Bill of Rights. It is necessary, as always, to add that this document is severely marred, among other problems, by the capitulation to slavery and the race question embedded in it that has plagued this country to this day. But that is a question for another time.
Mr. Wood concentrates on the founders here- Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamilton. There are no closet socialists here, or for that matter, radical democrats such as Sam Adams, Tom Paine or James Otis. Nor are there nods to the plebian masses that made the revolution and stuck by it through thick and thin. Those types of studies more closely fit the reviewer’s own predilections. Nevertheless, on his own chosen ground Mr. Wood has brought the leadership cadre of the American Revolution to life and done an admirably job of discussing the virtues and anxieties of those men. Notably, there is a great divide between the Founders concepts of civic virtue, use of the public square and civic disinterestedness in comparison to what passes for the leadership of the country today. You know that we are in trouble when John Adams, a not so-closet-Tory, looks damn good in comparison to today’s open reactionaries.
The field of historical writing, like other fields of social research, has gone through various trends in appreciation of the role of leadership and of the masses. Until fairly recently the rage was to look closely at the role of the masses in social struggles. Those studies are still desperately needed. However, I do not believe that it is accidental that today’s trend is to rethink the leadership question in the American Revolution at a time when there is such an obvious lack of it. Some of Mr. Wood’s judgments about particular leaders can be disputed but the overall impression is that these men were not faking their Enlightenment values; in short, they for the most part put their lives on the line for this little democratic experiment. And they were not wrong. As stated above, we need to defend those hard fought for rights- and move beyond them. Read this book.
Monday, July 04, 2016
*Frankie’s North Adamsville Fourth of July-For Arlene, North Adamsville Class Of 1965
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Fourth of July (Independence Day) celebrations.
Frankie, Frankie Riley, couldn’t quite remember exactly when he heard his first Fourth of July fire-cracker, or seen and heard his first fireworks for that matter. He got it all mixed and confused together with his recollections of two-bit carnival times, which also included, at least sometimes, setting off fire-crackers or fireworks displays. But it must have been early, very early, in his life at a time when he, and his mother and father and two brothers, two brothers just then, would visit his grandparents’ house on the Fourth. And the beauty of where those grandparents lived was that it was a bee-line directly across the street from Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. Sagamore Street of now blessed memory.
One thing Frankie was sure of though as he thought about Sagamore Street days was that he was going to need help in relating the details of what happened because, frankly, he was confused and mixed up about more than just when he first saw and heard fire-crackers and fireworks displays. But for just this moment he was going to fly on his own. And while depending on his own memories, such as they were, he also knew, knew, flat-out what he wasn’t going to be talking about. Nix, to the tattoo of marching drums, some yankee doodle threesome all bed-sheet patched up from wounds suffered at the hands of the bloody British but still carrying, carrying proudly, the brand new American flag all aflutter, and tattooing that beat up drum and playing the fife to kingdom come. That was standard fare at these Fourth celebrations but that battered patriot thing was not his Fourth, although he had to admit it might have been somebody’s.
No also to an overblown description of some Hatch Shell Fourth, streams of humanity stretched out as far as the eye could see along the Charles River, sweating in the July suns, searching for cool, for water, for shade against the madness and waiting, patiently or impatiently as the case may have been, for the night cools, and the big boom symphony Overture of 1812 finale. Again, frankly, that was not his thing, although he knew just by the numbers that it was certainly somebody else’s. And while he was at it he would not go on and on about the too quickly over fireworks displays the directly succeeded that big boom overture. All of that, collectively, was too much noise, sweat, heat, swelter, and just plain crowdedness for what he wanted to remember about the Fourth. Instead he wanted to lower the temperature a little, lower the noise more, and lessen the logistics, the picnic basket, cooler, blankets, umbrellas, child’s toys logistics, and return to those Sagamore streets of his 1950s youth when Welcome Young Field in North Adamsville’s Atlantic section (why it was called that particular name he never really did get except Sagamore Street Grandma Riley always called it one-horse Atlantic so it had to mean something) was the center of the universe, and if not, it should have been.
Frankie knew that, probably like in your neighborhood in the old days, every year in late June the local older guys, mainly guys from the Dublin Grille and some scattered fathers, including Joseph Riley, Senior, Frankie's father and denizen of the Dublin Grille, would put together a kitty, collecting contributions and seeking donations from local merchants to put together a little “time” for the kids on the 4th of July. Now this Dublin Grille was the favored watering hole (and maybe the only one close enough to be able to “drop in for glass” and also be able to walk home afterwards when that glass turned into glasses) for all the working class fathers in the neighborhood. And nothing but a regular hang-out for all the legions of single Irish guys who were still living at home with dear, sweet mother. Said mother who fed (and fed on time), clothed, darned socks, holy socks worn out from hard living on the Welcome Young softball field, and whatnot for her son (or, more rarely, sons) who was too afraid of woman, or a woman’s scorn at late night Dublin Grille antics, to move out into the great big world. But come late June they, the fathers and occasional older brothers, were kings among men as they strong-armed neighbors and merchants alike for dough and goods.
What Frankie was not clear on (and he is looking for help here) was the details of the organization of this extravaganza, how the money was gathered, what merchant provided what goods, where did the lads get the various Fourth fixings. However he could surely speak to the results. As these things go it was pretty straight forward, you know; foot races of varying lengths for various age groups, baby contests, beauty contests, some sort of parade, pony rides and so forth. But that is only the frame. Here is the real story of the day. Here is what any self-respecting kid lived and died for that day.
Tonic (you know, soda, pop) and ice cream. And not just one tonic or one ice cream but as much as you could hoard. Twice during the day (Frankie thought maybe about 10:00AM and 1:00PM) there would be what one can only describe as a free-for-all as everybody scrambled to get as many bottles of tonic (you know, soda) and cups of ice cream as they could handle. Here is the secret to the success that Frankie’s older brothers, Timmy and Tommy, and he had in grabbing much more than their fair share of the bounty. Go back to that part about where Grandma and Grandpa lived. Ya, right on the corner of Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. So, the trio would sprint with one load of goods over to their house and then go back for more until they had filled up the back-door refrigerator.
Just thinking about it now Frankie thought, “Boy that was work, as we panted away, bottles clanking in our pockets, ice cream cups clutched in every hand.” But then, work completed, they could savor their one tonic (read: soda) and one ice cream cup that they showed for public consumption just like the nice boys and girls. There were other sounds of the day like the cheering for your friends in the foot races, or other contests, the panting and the hee-haws of the ponies. As the sun went down it went down to the strains of some local pick-up band of the era in the tennis court as the dancing started. But that was adult time. Our time was to think about our day's work, our hoard and the next day's tonic and ice cream. Ah....
Frankie’s call for remembrance help was heeded. Below is the traffic, mostly unedited, giving other information about those Atlantic Fourth of July celebrations.
Richard Mackey:
Frankie it was, like you said, organized by the guys at the Dublin Grille, guys like my father and yours, and my older brother, Jimmy, in his thirties at the time, who, as you also said, was afraid to go out in the world and lived at home forever with dear, sweet mother (and she was sweet, too sweet). He never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, or missed a free glass of beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon, if you remember that brand). Jimmy and his buddies, his softball buddies, did a lot of the leg work when he was younger and then they kind of took over the show as the older guys, like my father and yours, had too much to do or something and handed it over to them.
They had a truck, maybe rented or maybe from one of the grocery stores, with a loud speaker that would go up and down the streets and had some of the older kid (15 or 16 years old ) going door to door for donations. I don’t know about the strong-arming part, but maybe. Probably not the neighborhood families so much as the merchants. Remember those were hard-nosed corner boys days and Jimmy was a serious corner boy when things got tight. I know Jimmy used to “set up” his buddies a lot during that collecting time and he never worked all that much.
The day [Fourth of July] started at around 8:00 am and ended with the talent show in the tennis court. I think Mr. Burke won every year that I can remember for his "crazy legs dancing.” Joe Gill, who worked at Estrella’s Market on Newbury Ave, was part of the group that set the whole celebration up. He was a friend of Jimmy’s as well so maybe that is where they got the tonic and ice cream from. The last one I remember was around 1975, because I had my oldest son there.
Frankie Riley:
That Joe Gill Richard Mackey mentioned lived, with his dear sweet Irish-brogued mother, forever, never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, and never missed a free beer (Knickerbocker, if you remember that brand) directly across the street from my grandparents, Daniel and Anna Riley, on Sagamore Street. That house is the place where we stashed our loot (the tonic and ice cream). Joe, when he worked for Estrella's, would also take my grandfather, disabled from a stroke and a retired North Adamsville fireman, riding around with him when he delivered orders. My grandfather was a, to be kind, difficult man to deal with so Joe must have had some charm.
Sticky Fingers McGee:
The earliest recollection I have of the July 4th festivities at Young Field was when I returned to Atlantic in July 1945, when I was six, after being away for a couple years. I seem to remember that they had foot races and other activities. I remember running one of the races which was close between me and another kid, Spider Jones. They declared Spider the winner, but I threw a fit. Nothing big, just a little shoving, no fists or anything like that. It was just a race, okay. I still think that I won that race and if they had had proper equipment like a camera for photo finishes at the finish line I could have proved that I won. After writing that last thing I guess I still haven’t yet learned to take a loss gracefully but like I said the camera would not have lied.
Later, in the 50's maybe, I remember hearing a girl who sang like Theresa "Tessie" Brewer at the Young Field tennis courts. I think somebody said she was the sister of one Joseph “Babe” Baldwin (Class of 1958) who later became one of North's best all-round athletes. That's all I remember of the Atlantic 4th celebrations, and I'm not totally sure of the accuracy of those memories. The years continue to cloud some memories.
Frank Riley:
Sticky, glad to see you haven’t mellowed with age, at least according to fellow class-mate Jimmy Callahan. Jimmy says hello and to tell you that Spider Jones had you by a mile in that race. He was right at the finish line when you exploded. (He says you did punch Spider, by the way). As for the forget memories part we all know that well-traveled path. Although your memory for some flea-bitten thirty-yard dash for some crumb-bum dollar prize gives me pause on that one.
Irene Devlin:
Hi
Back in the 50's the first 9 1/2 years of my life was on the top floor of a three-decker on Sagamore St., and Welcome Young was were we spent every day. We all waited for the Fourth. Richard [Mackey]is right about the truck. My grandfather, George Kelley, and my uncles would ride on the back of the flatbed truck going up and down the streets playing their musical instruments while others collected donations. We would throw change to the people collecting. On the big day we would line up early in the morning with our costumes on. Buddy Dunne and Elliot Thompson had a lot to do with getting everything together along with a lot of the guys from the Dublin Grille. On our way down Sagamore Street from Newbury Ave heading to Welcome Young everyone would get a shiny quarter for marching. I do remember going to Harry’s Variety Store (later owned by my Uncle Harry Kelley) for free ice cream and "tonic."
The rest of the day would be filled with games and shows, and yes the tennis court would be converted to a stage for the day and night activities.
Richard, didn't you live on the second floor of the Parker's Sagamore Street house?
******
Frankie, Frankie Riley, couldn’t quite remember exactly when he heard his first Fourth of July fire-cracker, or seen and heard his first fireworks for that matter. He got it all mixed and confused together with his recollections of two-bit carnival times, which also included, at least sometimes, setting off fire-crackers or fireworks displays. But it must have been early, very early, in his life at a time when he, and his mother and father and two brothers, two brothers just then, would visit his grandparents’ house on the Fourth. And the beauty of where those grandparents lived was that it was a bee-line directly across the street from Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. Sagamore Street of now blessed memory.
One thing Frankie was sure of though as he thought about Sagamore Street days was that he was going to need help in relating the details of what happened because, frankly, he was confused and mixed up about more than just when he first saw and heard fire-crackers and fireworks displays. But for just this moment he was going to fly on his own. And while depending on his own memories, such as they were, he also knew, knew, flat-out what he wasn’t going to be talking about. Nix, to the tattoo of marching drums, some yankee doodle threesome all bed-sheet patched up from wounds suffered at the hands of the bloody British but still carrying, carrying proudly, the brand new American flag all aflutter, and tattooing that beat up drum and playing the fife to kingdom come. That was standard fare at these Fourth celebrations but that battered patriot thing was not his Fourth, although he had to admit it might have been somebody’s.
No also to an overblown description of some Hatch Shell Fourth, streams of humanity stretched out as far as the eye could see along the Charles River, sweating in the July suns, searching for cool, for water, for shade against the madness and waiting, patiently or impatiently as the case may have been, for the night cools, and the big boom symphony Overture of 1812 finale. Again, frankly, that was not his thing, although he knew just by the numbers that it was certainly somebody else’s. And while he was at it he would not go on and on about the too quickly over fireworks displays the directly succeeded that big boom overture. All of that, collectively, was too much noise, sweat, heat, swelter, and just plain crowdedness for what he wanted to remember about the Fourth. Instead he wanted to lower the temperature a little, lower the noise more, and lessen the logistics, the picnic basket, cooler, blankets, umbrellas, child’s toys logistics, and return to those Sagamore streets of his 1950s youth when Welcome Young Field in North Adamsville’s Atlantic section (why it was called that particular name he never really did get except Sagamore Street Grandma Riley always called it one-horse Atlantic so it had to mean something) was the center of the universe, and if not, it should have been.
Frankie knew that, probably like in your neighborhood in the old days, every year in late June the local older guys, mainly guys from the Dublin Grille and some scattered fathers, including Joseph Riley, Senior, Frankie's father and denizen of the Dublin Grille, would put together a kitty, collecting contributions and seeking donations from local merchants to put together a little “time” for the kids on the 4th of July. Now this Dublin Grille was the favored watering hole (and maybe the only one close enough to be able to “drop in for glass” and also be able to walk home afterwards when that glass turned into glasses) for all the working class fathers in the neighborhood. And nothing but a regular hang-out for all the legions of single Irish guys who were still living at home with dear, sweet mother. Said mother who fed (and fed on time), clothed, darned socks, holy socks worn out from hard living on the Welcome Young softball field, and whatnot for her son (or, more rarely, sons) who was too afraid of woman, or a woman’s scorn at late night Dublin Grille antics, to move out into the great big world. But come late June they, the fathers and occasional older brothers, were kings among men as they strong-armed neighbors and merchants alike for dough and goods.
What Frankie was not clear on (and he is looking for help here) was the details of the organization of this extravaganza, how the money was gathered, what merchant provided what goods, where did the lads get the various Fourth fixings. However he could surely speak to the results. As these things go it was pretty straight forward, you know; foot races of varying lengths for various age groups, baby contests, beauty contests, some sort of parade, pony rides and so forth. But that is only the frame. Here is the real story of the day. Here is what any self-respecting kid lived and died for that day.
Tonic (you know, soda, pop) and ice cream. And not just one tonic or one ice cream but as much as you could hoard. Twice during the day (Frankie thought maybe about 10:00AM and 1:00PM) there would be what one can only describe as a free-for-all as everybody scrambled to get as many bottles of tonic (you know, soda) and cups of ice cream as they could handle. Here is the secret to the success that Frankie’s older brothers, Timmy and Tommy, and he had in grabbing much more than their fair share of the bounty. Go back to that part about where Grandma and Grandpa lived. Ya, right on the corner of Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. So, the trio would sprint with one load of goods over to their house and then go back for more until they had filled up the back-door refrigerator.
Just thinking about it now Frankie thought, “Boy that was work, as we panted away, bottles clanking in our pockets, ice cream cups clutched in every hand.” But then, work completed, they could savor their one tonic (read: soda) and one ice cream cup that they showed for public consumption just like the nice boys and girls. There were other sounds of the day like the cheering for your friends in the foot races, or other contests, the panting and the hee-haws of the ponies. As the sun went down it went down to the strains of some local pick-up band of the era in the tennis court as the dancing started. But that was adult time. Our time was to think about our day's work, our hoard and the next day's tonic and ice cream. Ah....
Frankie’s call for remembrance help was heeded. Below is the traffic, mostly unedited, giving other information about those Atlantic Fourth of July celebrations.
Richard Mackey:
Frankie it was, like you said, organized by the guys at the Dublin Grille, guys like my father and yours, and my older brother, Jimmy, in his thirties at the time, who, as you also said, was afraid to go out in the world and lived at home forever with dear, sweet mother (and she was sweet, too sweet). He never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, or missed a free glass of beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon, if you remember that brand). Jimmy and his buddies, his softball buddies, did a lot of the leg work when he was younger and then they kind of took over the show as the older guys, like my father and yours, had too much to do or something and handed it over to them.
They had a truck, maybe rented or maybe from one of the grocery stores, with a loud speaker that would go up and down the streets and had some of the older kid (15 or 16 years old ) going door to door for donations. I don’t know about the strong-arming part, but maybe. Probably not the neighborhood families so much as the merchants. Remember those were hard-nosed corner boys days and Jimmy was a serious corner boy when things got tight. I know Jimmy used to “set up” his buddies a lot during that collecting time and he never worked all that much.
The day [Fourth of July] started at around 8:00 am and ended with the talent show in the tennis court. I think Mr. Burke won every year that I can remember for his "crazy legs dancing.” Joe Gill, who worked at Estrella’s Market on Newbury Ave, was part of the group that set the whole celebration up. He was a friend of Jimmy’s as well so maybe that is where they got the tonic and ice cream from. The last one I remember was around 1975, because I had my oldest son there.
Frankie Riley:
That Joe Gill Richard Mackey mentioned lived, with his dear sweet Irish-brogued mother, forever, never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, and never missed a free beer (Knickerbocker, if you remember that brand) directly across the street from my grandparents, Daniel and Anna Riley, on Sagamore Street. That house is the place where we stashed our loot (the tonic and ice cream). Joe, when he worked for Estrella's, would also take my grandfather, disabled from a stroke and a retired North Adamsville fireman, riding around with him when he delivered orders. My grandfather was a, to be kind, difficult man to deal with so Joe must have had some charm.
Sticky Fingers McGee:
The earliest recollection I have of the July 4th festivities at Young Field was when I returned to Atlantic in July 1945, when I was six, after being away for a couple years. I seem to remember that they had foot races and other activities. I remember running one of the races which was close between me and another kid, Spider Jones. They declared Spider the winner, but I threw a fit. Nothing big, just a little shoving, no fists or anything like that. It was just a race, okay. I still think that I won that race and if they had had proper equipment like a camera for photo finishes at the finish line I could have proved that I won. After writing that last thing I guess I still haven’t yet learned to take a loss gracefully but like I said the camera would not have lied.
Later, in the 50's maybe, I remember hearing a girl who sang like Theresa "Tessie" Brewer at the Young Field tennis courts. I think somebody said she was the sister of one Joseph “Babe” Baldwin (Class of 1958) who later became one of North's best all-round athletes. That's all I remember of the Atlantic 4th celebrations, and I'm not totally sure of the accuracy of those memories. The years continue to cloud some memories.
Frank Riley:
Sticky, glad to see you haven’t mellowed with age, at least according to fellow class-mate Jimmy Callahan. Jimmy says hello and to tell you that Spider Jones had you by a mile in that race. He was right at the finish line when you exploded. (He says you did punch Spider, by the way). As for the forget memories part we all know that well-traveled path. Although your memory for some flea-bitten thirty-yard dash for some crumb-bum dollar prize gives me pause on that one.
Irene Devlin:
Hi
Back in the 50's the first 9 1/2 years of my life was on the top floor of a three-decker on Sagamore St., and Welcome Young was were we spent every day. We all waited for the Fourth. Richard [Mackey]is right about the truck. My grandfather, George Kelley, and my uncles would ride on the back of the flatbed truck going up and down the streets playing their musical instruments while others collected donations. We would throw change to the people collecting. On the big day we would line up early in the morning with our costumes on. Buddy Dunne and Elliot Thompson had a lot to do with getting everything together along with a lot of the guys from the Dublin Grille. On our way down Sagamore Street from Newbury Ave heading to Welcome Young everyone would get a shiny quarter for marching. I do remember going to Harry’s Variety Store (later owned by my Uncle Harry Kelley) for free ice cream and "tonic."
The rest of the day would be filled with games and shows, and yes the tennis court would be converted to a stage for the day and night activities.
Richard, didn't you live on the second floor of the Parker's Sagamore Street house?
******
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