From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L's- Karl Liebknecht's Preface To "Militarism And Anti-Militarism"

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
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Karl Liebknecht
Militarism & Antimilitarism


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Preface

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A few weeks ago Die Grenzboten reported a conversation between Bismarck [1*] and Professor Dr Otto Kämmel which took place in October 1892, and in which Bismarck, the “Hero of the Century”, himself tore off the mask of constitutionalism in his very own cynical style. Among other things, he said:

In Rome, whoever put himself outside of the law was banished, aqua et igne interdictus; in the Middle Ages he was said to be outlawed. Social-Democracy ought to be treated in a similar way: it should be deprived of its political rights, of its right to participate in elections. I would have gone that far. The Social-Democratic problem is in fact a military problem. Social-Democracy is being treated with an extraordinary lack of serious attention at present. It is now attempting – with success – to win over the non-commissioned officers. In Hamburg a large part of the troops already consists of Social-Democrats, since the local people have the right to join only the local battalions. What if these troops should one day refuse to obey the Kaiser and to fire on their fathers and brothers? Would we then be forced to mobilize the Hanover and Mecklenburg regiments against Hamburg? In that case we should have something like the Paris Commune on our hands. The Kaiser then took fright. He told me that he did not want one day to be called the “Kartätschenprinz” – the shrapnel prince – like his grandfather, and did not want to wade up to his ankles in blood’ at the very beginning of his reign. At the time I told him: “Your Majesty will have to go in much deeper if you draw back now!”

“The Social-Democratic problem is a military problem.” This is the whole point; it says more and goes much deeper than von Massow’ s cry of distress: “Our only hope is the bayonets and cannons of our soldiers.” [1] “The Social-Democratic problem is a military problem. That is the keynote of all the tunes sung by the firebrands. Anyone who had not yet been convinced by the earlier indiscretions of Bismarck and Puttkamer, by the speech to the Alexander regiment [2*], by the Hamburger Nachrichten and the thoroughbred Junker, von Oldenburg-Januschau, would have had his eyes opened by the Hohenlohe-Delbruck revelations which were corroborated around the end of the year through the county court judge Kulemann, and by the cruel words of Bisrnarck cited above.

The Social-Democratic problem – in so far as it is a political problem – is in the last resort a military problem. This should be a constant reminder to Social-Democracy and a tactical principle of the first rank.

The enemy at home, Social-Democracy, is “more dangerous than the enemy abroad, because it poisons the soul of our people and wrests the weapons from our hands before we have even lifted them.” This is how the Kreuz-Zeitung of January 21, 1907, proclaimed the sovereignty of class interests over national interests in an electoral struggle which was waged “under the banner of nationalism”! And this electoral struggle was carried on in the face of an ever-increasing menace to electoral and trade-union rights, and of “Bonaparte’s sword”, which Prince Bülow [3*] waved around the heads of the German Social-Democrats in his New Year’s Eve letter in order to frighten them; it was carried on in the face of a class struggle raised to white heat. [2] Only someone who was blind and deaf could deny that these signs, as well as many others, indicate the approach of a storm or even of a hurricane.

The problem of the struggle against “militarism at home” has therefore taken on an importance of a most pressing kind.

The elections of 1907 were, however, also fought on the national question, on the colonial question, and over chauvinism and imperialism. And they showed how miserably weak, in spite of all this, was the resistance of the German people to the pseudo-patriotic rat-traps laid by these contemptible business patriots. They taught us what pompous demagogy can be pressed into use by the government, by the ruling classes and by the whole howling pack of “patriots” whenever “things most holy” are concerned. These elections provided the proletariat with some necessary enlightenment, causing it to question its own role and teaching it about the relation of social and political forces. They educated it, and freed it from the unfortunate “habit of victory”; and they excited a welcome force resulting in a deepening of the proletarian movement and of our understanding of the psychology of the masses with regard to national campaigns. Certainly the causes of our so-called setback, which was actually not a setback and puzzled the victors more than the vanquished, were manifold; but there is no doubt that precisely those sections of the proletariat which are contaminated and influenced by militarism, which are already at the mercy of government terrorism – for example, the state workers and junior officials – have formed an especially firm obstacle to the extension of Social-Democratic influence.

This also raises sharply, as far as the German labour movement is concerned, the question of anti-militarism and the question of the youth movement and of the education of young people, and ensures that these points will receive more attention in future.



The following work is the elaboration of a paper read by the author on September 30, 1906, to the first conference of the German Young Socialist League in Mannheim. It does not pretend to offer something new; it is simply intended to be a compilation of material which is already known or even commonplace. Nor does it claim to be exhaustive. The author has attempted, as far as he is able, to collect the disconnected material scattered throughout the newspapers and periodicals. Thanks above all to our Belgian comrade de Man it has been possible to provide at least a brief account of the and-militarist and youth movement in the most important countries.

If here and there errors have crept in, they should be excused on account of the difficulty of coping with the material, but also on account of the frequent unreliability of the sources, which are often even contradictory.

In the realm of militarism things are in constant flux at the present time, so that, for example, the information given below on the French and English military reforms will certainly soon be overtaken by events.

That is even more true of anti-militarism and the proletarian youth movement, the newest manifestations of the proletarian struggle for freedom, which are everywhere developing quickly, and making pleasing headway in spite of setbacks. Since this work was set up in type it has been learned that the Finnish Young Socialist Societies held their first congress in Tammerfors on December 8 and 9, 1906, where a Young Workers’ League was founded which will be attached to the Finnish Labour Party and whose special task, apart from the education of the young workers in class-consciousness, will be the struggle against militarism in all its aspects.

People will be inclined to complain that the theoretical basis of our work is too slight and the historical depth not sufficient. Against this it ought to be said that the pamphlet has a topical political task, that of promoting anti-militarist thought.

Many people again will be unhappy with the accumulation of countless, often apparently unimportant details, especially in connection with the history of the Young Socialist movement and of and-militarism. This dissatisfaction may be justified. The author, however, stoned from the assumption that it is first of all through details that one is able to gain a living insight into the upward and downward movement in organizational development and into the invention and modification of tactical principles, and to put them to use in the desired manner – the more so since it is precisely details which present the main difficulty in anti-militarist agitation and organization.

Dr Karl Liebknecht
Berlin
February 11, 1907


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Table of Contents | Next Section


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Footnotes
1. See Arendt’s Deutsches Wochenblatt, middle of November 1896, and the Sozialdemokratische Partei-Correspondenz, year II, no.4.

2. On the evening of the second ballot (February 5, 1907) troops of the Berlin garrison were provided with live cartridges and held ready to march. It is known that on June 25, 1905, the last time the second ballot was held, the Pioneers appeared in Spandau in the Schönwalder Strasse in order to “bring to their senses” the workers excited by the election result.


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Additional notes by the translator
1*. BISMARCK, GRAF VON (1815-1898). Minister President of Prussia from 1862, he was responsible for the political direction of the creation of the German Empire, of which he was effectively founder and first Chancellor. Based his strength for many years on the National Liberal Party, during which period he initiated the so-called Kulturkampf against the Catholic Centre. Later moved away from and attacked the National Liberals, without being able to replace them as a political support. Fell in 1896, soon after the accession of the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II.

2*. ALEXANDER REGIMENT SPEECH. The speech of Wilhelm II to the Kaiser Alexander Regiment on March 28, 1901, containing the words: “You are ... so to speak the bodyguard of the King of Prussia, and you must always be ready, day and night, to put your life at risk, to spill your blood for your king! ... If it should happen that the city rises up against its rulers, the regiment must punish this improper conduct of the people towards its king with the bayonet.”

3*. BÜLOW, PRINCE VON (1849-1929). Imperial Chancellor from 1900 to 1909, succeeding Hohenlohe. Resigned in 1909 after pressure from Conservative and Centre Parties, and was replaced by Bethmann-Hollweg.

A Day In The Life Of A Member Of The Generation Of '68-For Mary, Class Of 1964 Somewhere

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia entry for the "Summer Of Love", 1967.

"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.

He was scared, Billy was scared, Billy Bradley well known member of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 was scared, as he entered the foyer of the North Adamsville Holiday Inn for what was to be his class’ 5th reunion on this 1969 November weekend, this Thanksgiving Saturday night. Yes, he reflected, those had been his glory days, those days from 1961 to 1964 when he had been the captain of the billiards team three years running. A time then when he could have had every good-looking, every interesting girl that he wanted, and, well, whatever else he wanted from the girls who hung around Joe’s Billiard Parlor after school during the season, and some of them after the season as well.

Of course in those glory days when everyone in town, and other places too, bled raider red the football players, even the dinks, had first dibs on the girls. But after that, well after that, it was open season and the girls, the interesting girls, found their way to Joe’s Billiard Parlor. Billy had to chuckle even now as he thought about it, about those basketball bozos, those hockey hoboes, those tennis touts, those golf goofs, and those soccer scum who were clueless about why the girls didn’t flock, all a-flutter, to them and their dink sports. And in their flailing, their anger, and their clueless-ness these pseudo-jocks, en masse, in those days started spreading vicious slanders around about how Joe’s was nothing but a rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out of a pool hall. Run by a “connected” bookie, Joe, on top of all that. Like those girls, those interesting girls, knew or cared a fig, hell half a fig, about the finer distinctions, as important as they are to aficionados, between pool and billiards as they draped themselves languidly around the empty billiard tables and filled the place almost to the rafters at Joe’s. Or that Joe made book right in front of them. Ya, those geek guys were, no question, clueless.

But that was then and tonight was a whole different ballgame. See Billy, after deciding to come back and tweak a few noses at this reunion thing, started to get cold feet. Of course he blew off the tradition Thanksgiving Thursday football game between North and cross-town arch-rival Adamsville High in order not to send his classmates a telegram about his new world. Although he had not been back in those five years since graduation, he knew, knew in his heart, that the blue-collar working class ethos that had practically buried him alive back in those so-called days would still be in play, still be in play in the "us" against "them" world, and the them was the “monster” government that was intent on wreaking havoc with its giant footprint every place it could, including right this minute in Vietnam, to the cheers of the North Adamsville thems.

And they, the thems, certainly the father and mother thems would definitely not understand that Billy Bradley, a son of the blue-collar working class, a kid who started out like them, and their kids, who thankfully never went to college but straight to work, saving, mercifully saving, the old man’s wallet from extinction, went over to the other side, the “us”, and helped caused eruptions in places like New York City ( jesus, even New York City, is nothing sacred, he could hear them say snickering in the background chatter of this ill-starred reunion dinner), in Washington, D.C. and points west, Yes, he knew that story, knew it first-hand, chapter and verse, from those occasional calls back home to mother. Hell, she had led the chorus, at least the chorus about what was he going to do with his life and how was he going to use his hard fought for, and ever harped on desperately paid for, education. He would not even mention her tirades about marriage, family, and producing kids, grand kids. And, as he thought of it occasionally, maybe she led the snickers too. Yes indeed, he knew the story chapter and verse, and as well from the odd-hour telephone calls sent homeward to mother’s house threatening the usual “if-I ever-see-that-s.o.b.,” and that was just the mildly curious expression of bad vibes ready to pounce on him this night, or so he feared.

See, if you didn’t realize it before, Billy was now a vision of heaven’s own angel choir. As he looked at himself in the hotel lobby mirror he sensed that he was out of place here, and not just in the family-friendly, take a vacation to historic North Adamsville, land of late presidents, and earlier revolutionary brethren long gone and best forgotten, forgotten for what they were trying to do with that fragile democratic experiment idea they had on their minds as they civilized this green-grassed new continent, Holiday Inn scene gathered around him. Yes, unquestionably he was out of synch here with his symbol of “youth nation” faded blue jeans, his battle-scarred (Chicago 1968) World War II Army olive drab jacket, Army-Navy surplus store-purchased, his soft, velvety well-worn (and slightly smelly, sorry) moccasins that had many hitchhike miles on them, and his longish pony-tailed hair with matching unkempt beard. No his act would not play in Peoria, Adamsville’s kindred.

This is a mistake, my mistake, he said to himself and he was ready to turn around just then. But just as had made the pivot he heard a voice, “Hey, Captain Billy you old pool hall hoodlum.” And then, “Come on now don’t turn the other way on me.” Finally he recognized the voice if not the person yelling it out. “Wait a minute that’s “Thundering” Tommy Riley, ace football player, captain of the vaunted 1964 team, class president, and, in earlier times, his bosom buddy,” Billy blurred out to no one in particular. Now envision Buffalo Bill Cody although Billy was not sure if Cody was as big as Tommy, with fringed-deerskin jacket, the obligatory “youth nations” faded blue denims, some exotic roman sandals, and long straight hair, longer than Billy’s, with matched beard tooped off by a well-worn (and stained) Stenson hat. Another vision of heaven’s own, well, own something, not angels, not angels, no way. And standing right next to him, right next to him and very like heaven’s own angelic, or maybe Botticelli's versions of the angelic, or Joni Mitchell if you don’t know Botticelli’s work, was Chrissie, Chrissie McNamara, a secret long ago Billy flame, very secret, although maybe not so long ago at that.

Now Tommy and Chrissie were an “item” back in ’64, a big item. Chrissie was, among other things, other things like being an actress, a school newspaper writer, and a high-scoring ten pin bowler, head cheerleader (mainly to be around Tommy more, from what Billy had heard). But Tommy’s girl or not , head cheerleader or not, Chrissie was a fox. A fox though who had no time for billiard parlor romances, or even to step into the rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out joint where the guy who ran it “made book.” No, not pristine Chrissie. Tonight though Billy understood why he had that crush on her for she had on a shapely sarong thing and wore her hair, more blondish hair long now, very long as was now the fashion amount hipper women. The only word he could think of, newer world or not, brothers and sisters in struggle now or not, was fetching.

Tommy motioned Billy to come over and the trio greeted each other heartily. Tommy, never at a lost for words, started telling his epic saga from his football career-ending injury freshman year at State U. to his getting “religion” about the nature of the American state, the need to transform that state to a more socially useful one, and the need have people be better, much better toward each other. Yes, here was a kindred, no weekend hippie tourista. Chrissie was another matter; she seemed less sure of her place in the sun, questioned whether any change, especially disruptive change, mattered and whether maybe it was better just to try to do the best you could within the system. "Yes, Chrissie I see your point, for you anyway," Billy found himself thinking. Hell, he had “crushed” such arguments, from male or female, like so much tissue many times before but not tonight, not this Chrissie in front of him night. Ya, Billy thought it was still like that with Chrissie. Tommy and Chrissie also made it very clear as well, reflecting the new “religious” sensibilities of youth nation that they were just friends. And Billy did notice Chrissie giving him several side-glance peeks while they were talking, and he was insistently peeking right back.

After than confab ended the trio prepared themselves, or rather fortified themselves, to make the rounds together of the other classmates milling around the now somewhat crowded lobby waiting for dinner to start. This tour, this death-march tour, caught Billy feeling like he had a pit in his stomach, especially after a couple of guys started to bait them with the “hippie-dippie” taunt that was standard fare among the squares, and that he would normally shrug his shoulders at except it was here at North. Then a couple of guys from the billiards team came rushing up to him, a couple of alternates, at best, who began a play by play of the North Adamsville-Adamsville contest. No, not the recent Thanksgiving football game, as one might expect, but the 1964 senior year billiards match against the old arch-rival. Billy thought they will probably go to their graves reciting the excruciating details of that one. Move on with your lives, boys, please.

Moreover, with one exception, Janie Thompson, well two, if you count Chrissie, none of the good-looking billiard hall hanging-off-the-rafters girls, or any others that had caught his eye back then, gave him a tumble. They were there but they either didn’t recognize him, or didn’t want to. Many of them had the look, the married look that dictated eyes straight ahead, or the pregnant look (now or in the recent past) that spoke of greater concerns than giving some bearded hippie boy a tumble. Most, whether they had caught his youthful eye in the past or not, had that secure job hubby, little white picket fenced house in the real suburbs, preparing for parenthood look. Chrissie though, mercifully just then, was still giving her peeks, and Billy was right back at her.

Right then though he began talking to Janie, Janie Thompson. Now Janie had certainly blossomed out some because back in the day she was just a wallflower hanging around with a couple of beauties whom Billy had taught how to play billiards, and a couple of other things. Janie told him that she had just graduated from Radcliffe (which he had vaguely remembered she was heading to) but more importantly she had followed, followed closely, his various anti-war activities while in and around Cambridge. Well, things are looking up, or so he thought. But a closer look around, and a conference with Tommy, convinced him that this was neither his place, nor his time and that they (Billy and Janie, Tommy and Chrissie in no particular combination) better go out back and have a joint, and then blow this place. Janie, although she had never smoked before, was game, Billy was certainly game. And off they went, blowing the dust of the place off them in the process. Who was it, oh yes, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book You Can’t Go Home Again. Billy thought he should have read that novel long before he actually did and then he would have known, known for sure, that the generation of ’68, his generation of ’68, was fated to be a remnant.

*Walking Down Those Mean Teen Streets-"Street Corner" Society Then and Now

Click On Title To Link To "Rebel Without A Cause" Website.

Commentary

One never knows what subject matter will come bubbling up to the surface in this space from comments on yesterday’s amorphous memories through to today’s harsh social reality. Sometimes they merge so that I can make my usual cogent and witty comment on them. Case in point. Recently I found myself on one of my infrequent visits to a suburban shopping mall. A moderately upscale one if I can judge by the well-known national brand stores that are located there, in any case, one that seemed not different from any other of the ones that seem to dot the landscape of every outer urban area in America. That social characterization of the mall may be neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things but, perhaps, what went on there may be more common than I assume. You are entirely free to add your own observations on this one if you have had any mall experiences.

While taking care of my business there (if shopping for an appropriate gift for a special occasion is business rather than something akin to a visit to the dentist) I noticed several teenage boys about fifteen or sixteen (and possibly a couple of younger teenage girls on the periphery, it was not clear to me at that moment what their relationship to the scene was) being harassed and told unceremoniously to move on from their “hang out” benches by a couple of rent-a-cops. There was the usual back and forth "macho" talk before the boys left the area. From all appearances (which I later confirmed independently) these kids were from some kind of middle class families, were something like professional “mall rats” and had all the cultural attributes of today’s “youth nation”. You know-the right sneakers, the right technological gizmos (including the ubiquitous Sidekick) and the right tribal “language”. In short, these kids were being harassed and threatened for hanging out while being teenagers.

Needless to say there is nothing new under the sun here. It is apparently a rite of passage in post-modern bourgeois society to steamroll the young at every opportunity. Of course this little episode that I witnessed allows me to segue into a tale of my own youthful “hanging out” for a couple of years in the early 1960’s. Obviously my tale is not centered on shopping malls which were just coming, for better or worst, into vogue. No, this is a tale of hanging around street corners. Or rather, a street corner as the etiquette of the day (enforceable by fists, if the occasion warranted) set the parameters of who “hung” where. Well, for my bravos and me this spot happened to be a very popular pizza parlor at the corner of two main streets of the section of town that I grew up in. Religiously, on Friday and Saturday nights seemingly at any time of the year , for that couple of years, we could be seen in or just out in front of that establishment “holding up the wall” by the automobile traffic going by. And just as religiously, the store owner or someone else would, on occasion, call the police to have us removed. Sometimes, just to keep in shape, the police would just do it on their own authority. And our offense- hanging out while being teenagers. Sound familiar?

The upshot of all this is that my boyos and I got something of an undeserved reputation for being “hard guys”. Oh sure, a couple of the guys wore the then common footwear for tough guys - big black engineer boots complete with silver buckets- that the ‘real’ motorcycle gang types wore. And we certainly affected a James Dean/Marlon Brando existential air about ourselves, without knowing what the hell it was all about. And, sorry to say, a couple of the guys later turned in some very wrong directions. However, in the main, we were just asserting, as of right, all the approved outward bravado of 1950’s alienated white working class youth.

A funny sidebar to our ‘reputation’ was that a Boston area graduate sociology student who was doing research on “street corner” youth society heard about us and interviewed us. And we were more than willing to comply with our ‘stories’, maybe too willingly. Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the times or with a film like "Rebel Without A Cause” starring the above-mentioned James Dean as the consummate alienated middle class youth, not only was mainstream society concerned about the “red menace” but also about this disturbing drift of that era’s “youth culture” toward nihilism.

At the working class level (and below) that translated into a concern about juvenile delinquency, especially the fascination with small-time crime, fast cars, booze, and ‘babes’. Actually, that too sounds familiar, right? So we probably piled it on for our very proper middle class professor. She later sent us a copy of her paper. I am a lot more jaded by such things now and nonplussed by the methodologies used to argue academic theories but I remember reading her thesis ( Ya, I liked to read that kind of stuff even then.) and scratching my head in disbelief about her narrative. Something, as I would later discover from reading, out of Nelson Algren. A vivid imagination is not confined to the literary types. Nothing new there either, right?

But let’s get to the real point of my entire ‘thesis’. What were we, young unattached teenage boys, doing "hanging out” at that corner with all that traffic flowing by? Well, for one thing when we went inside the joint the pizza was great-and cheap. For another it had a great jukebox where one could hear all the hits of those days, as long as the nickels held out. But who is fooling who here. We were standing there looking at (and for) girls going by. Are you shocked? And to bring this little tale to an end I’ll come forward to today again. I mentioned, rather obliquely, in describing the recent scene that I witnessed the presence of a couple of teenage girls on the periphery. Well, what do you think those teenage boys were doing “hanging out” at the mall? Hello.

*From The Depths Of Memory- A Personal Note On Youthful Romance

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Vladimir Mayakovsky, the great Russian poet who is mentioned in the entry below.

Markin comment:

Not all the entries in this space are connected to politics, although surely most of them can be boiled down into some political essence, if you try hard enough. The following is one of those instances where trying to gain any “political traction”, or as I am fond of saying drawing any “lessons” would be foolhardy. I should also note that this entry is part of a continuing, if sporadic, series of “trips down memory lane” provoked by a fellow high school classmate who has been charged with keeping tabs on old classmates and their doings, even those of old-line communists like this writer. Go figure?

Trotsky once noted, as his most famous biographer Issac Deutscher related, and which is most prominently addressed by him in the last chapter of his seminal work, "Literature and Revolution", that of the three great tragedies of life- hunger, sex, and death-the modern labor movement had taken up the struggle against hunger as its goal. Trotsky also noted that under conditions of material abundance in a future communist society that the other two questions would be dealt with in a much more rational manner. Well, as this tale of my youth's thwarted 'passions' demonstrates it cannot come soon enough. Resolving the tangled questions of sex and love, moreover, will be a lot more interesting that the infernal struggle against international capitalism, racism, sexism, and the myriad other social ills that we are duty-bound to fight today. That too is worth the fight.

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For Margaret G. - In Lieu Of A Letter

I make no claim to any literary originality. I will shamelessly ‘steal’ any idea, or half-idea that catches my fancy in order to make my point. That is the case today, as I go back in time to my elementary school days down at the old school in the X housing project. Part of the title for today’s entry and the central idea that I want to express is taken from a poem by the great Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky.

So what do a poet who died in 1930 and a moonstruck kid from the 'projects', growing up haphazardly in 1950s America, have in common? We have both been thrown back, unexpectedly, to childhood romantic fantasies of the “girl who got away”. In my case, Margaret G., as the title to this entry indicates. I do not remember what triggered Mayakovsky’s memories but mine have been produced via an indirect school Internet connection. In this instance, damn the Internet. I do not know the fate of Margaret G., although I fervently hope that life has worked out well for her. This I do know. For the time that it will take to write this entry I return to being a smitten, unhappy boy.

Mayakovsky would, of course, now dazzle us with his intoxicating use of language, stirring deep thoughts in us about his unhappy fate. I will plod along prosaically, as is my fate. Through the dust of time, sparked by that Internet prod, I have hazy, dreamy memories of the demure Margaret G., mainly as seemed from afar through furtive glances in the old schoolyard at the elementary school(which is today in very much the same condition as back then) . This is a very appealing memory, to be sure, of a fresh, young girl full of hopes and dreams, and who knows what else.

But a more physical description is in order that befits the ‘real time’ of my young ‘romance’ fantasies. Margaret G. strongly evoked in me a feeling of softness, soft as the cashmere sweaters that she wore and that reflected the schoolgirl fashion of those seemingly sunnier days. And she almost always wore a slight suggestion of a smile, working its way through a full-lipped mouth. And had a voice, just turning away from girlishness to womanhood, which spoke of future conquests. I should also say that her hair… But enough of this. This is now getting all mixed up with adult dreams of childhood. Let the fact of fifty years' remembrances speak to her charms.

Did I ‘love’ Margaret G.? That is a silly thought for a bashful, ill-at-ease, ragamuffin of a project boy and a ‘princess’ who never uttered two words, if that, to each other, ever. Did I ‘want’ Margaret G.? Come on now, that is the stuff of adult dreams. Did Margaret G. disturb my sleep? Well, yes, she was undoubtedly the subject of more than one chaste dream, although perhaps not so innocent at that. But know this. Time may bury many childhood wounds but there are not enough medicines, not enough bandages on this good, green earth to stanch some of them. So let’s just leave it at that. Or rather, as this. For the moment it takes to finish this note I am an unhappy man and… maybe, for longer.

*Writer's Corner- Author Of "Catcher In The Rye" J.D. Salinger Passes Away

Click on the title to link to a "The Boston Globe" obituary for the late novelist J.D. Salinger, most famous for his novel "Catcher In The Rye".

Markin comment:

I am writing this entry after just receiving notice that the author of this book, J.D. Salinger, has just passed away at 91. I am living proof, although I am sure no alone on this account , that the teenage angst that preppie Holden Caulfield, the narrator of "Catcher In The Rye", was caught up in his immediate post-World War II generation was contagious all the way down at the bottom of society to housing project kids like me later on. Needless to say this high school assigned-reading was one of those books that I devoured at one sitting, if I recall correctly. But here is a better perspective on the book. Some books you read once and move on. Others you read, re-read and live out, including on a trip to New York a stay at the old Taft Hotel. How is that for having a more than a literary effect on the reader. Only Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” had more. So long, J.D.

From The Archives (2009)-Capitalist America- Give Youth Work, Or Move On Over!

Click On To Title To Link To The Leon Trotsky Archives For 1938 Under The Transitional Program Concerning A Sliding Scale Of Wages (Popularly Known As "30 For 40")As An Example Of The Way To Address The Problem Di cussed Below.

Commentary

Make no mistake this site, as a general proposition, is fiercely and relentlessly dedicated to the propaganda struggle for a socialist future. But sometimes we have to agitate for some immediate and pressing needs. In this case the need to make sure the youth, and particularly minority youth, has meaningful work. In a society that goes on something of a principle of ‘last hired and first fired ‘(except when it is cheaper to keep the new labor) in its labor practices this latest capitalist recession is hitting the youth disproportionately.

That said, I recently heard an interesting, if disturbing, program on National Public Radio’s “Talk Of The Town” where the subject was PBS “Dateline’s” upcoming program, hosted by Judy Woodruff, concerning the various ways today’s 20-somethings are coping with (or not coping with) this, for them, first serious economic downturn. I heard plenty of anecdotal evidence for why this capitalist really has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced. But that is a subject for another day and one can go elsewhere in this space for various commentaries on the general socialist program. What I want to do is make a few points on the struggle of today’s youth for jobs.

Hey, when those of us who are not 20-something were young and carefree we all, or most of us anyhow, had our share of makeshift jobs in order to survive or to keep us off the streets. Some of us, including this writer, almost made a religion out of keeping just this side of “skid row”. Being footloose and fancy free is a youthful rite of passage, after all (and probably would be more so under a socialist regime). That, however, is not what the callers to this talk show were addressing as they related their stories. What they had to say about their survival skills reflects very well one their individual abilities to adjust to a world that they certainly have not made. They are making career changes, taking odd-ball jobs, retuning home to live in order to cut down on expenses and even that old chestnut, going back to school to ‘reinvent’ themselves.

Okay, that is the good part. But here is where I want to reflect on what the irrationality of the capitalist system has begot. From what I heard there is an incredible amount of social value stored up in today’s youth. Moreover, an incredible amount of social capital has been used to produce these very high priced future contributors to society. No rational society could, or would let this go to waste in the way that it seems to be doing in the current crisis. Wouldn’t a slogan like “30 For 40”, the old radical labor movement idea of redistributing the available work among those , employed and unemployed, hat need it with no loss in pay be just about right at this time. As for the future, to all those young callers-in I will tell you right now that a socialist society would certainly know how to use your skills- “to the max”. Join us in that fight.

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From The Transistional Program

Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.