Saturday, March 20, 2010
*From The "By Any Means Necessary" Blog- A Krupskaya Biography
Click on the headline to link to a "By Any Means Necessary" blog entry of a book review of a biography of Nedezshda Krupskaya, Lenin's companion and political co-thinker in the development of the Bolshevik Party in Russia.
Friday, March 19, 2010
*All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars -A Guest Commentary From "The National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars
Click on the title to link to the "National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars" Website.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*From The "UJP" Website- For Those Who Can't Make It To Washington March 20th- A Local Boston Action
Click on the headline to link to the "UJP-Boston" Website for an announcement for a local Boston anti-war action for those who cannot go to Washington.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- On The Communist International's Work Among Women- The Comintern Journal
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"-
Markin comment:
The following is an article from the Spring 1986 issue of "Women and Revolution" that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*****
Women and Revolution welcomes the publication of four volumes containing the complete reprints of the journal of the Women's Secretariat of the Communist International, Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale (Communist Women's International) in the original German. Published monthly from 1921 to 1925, the journal sought to provide revolutionary leadership to communist women cadres internationally. For several years, it was a high-grade propaganda organ, an organizing tool in the internationalist tradition of Lenin and Trotsky's Third International.
Articles appeared about a range of proletarian struggles—from the great British miners strike of 1921 to "The Harsh Life of Women Farmers in Nebraska and Wyoming and Their Demands." The journal dealt with a spectrum of social questions such as "Child Suicide: A Devastating Accusation Against the Bourgeois Order" and "Prostitution in Vienna," articles on infant mortality and women in politics. Systematic reports were made of events in the international communist movement, with detailed reports on conferences of international women's organizations and various bodies of the Third International. Historical articles, such as the intriguing "Women as the Vanguard of the Great Rice Insurrection in Japan in 1918" by communist leader Sen Katayama, and literary articles appeared in just about every issue. Pieces such as "The Fascist Women's Movement in Italy" and "French Imperialism’s Rapacious Attack on the Ruhr and the Danger of a New War" oriented the communist militants in a class-struggle approach to current urgent questions. There are many articles on the working women's struggles for unionization and equality.
Development of the Communist Women's Journal
The editor of the journal Kommunistische Fraueninternationale (KF) was German communist Clara Zetkin. As a leader of the German Social Democratic Party, Zetkin had played a vital role in the development of a revolutionary Marxist position on the woman question which later became a model for the Communist International. In 1891 she helped to found Die Gheichheit (Equality), the newspaper of the SPD devoted particularly to the question of women's emancipation. In the years before the outbreak of World War I, SPD left-wingers like Zetkin had fought persistently for special work among women on a high propagandistic level. They were also among those who defended their revolutionary proletarian outlook against all forms of narrowness and chauvinism, from trade unionism, parliamentarism and nationalism to male chauvinism and feminism. After the historic betrayal of the SPD, voting for war credits in the imperialist war, Die Gheichheit became known as a voice for internationalism, opposing the imperialist war in defiance of the SPD leadership. Many of the left wing joined Rosa Luxemburg in forming the Spartacist group in 1916, precursor of the German Communist Party formed in 1919 which affiliated with the Third International. Clara Zetkin was fired as editor of Die Gheichheit by the SPD leadership, which published it for a short time as a depoliticized and chauvinist magazine.
The founding of the journal KF continued the work of Die Gheichheit, broadening it and thus realizing one of the tasks set forth in the "Resolution on Work Among Women" adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International in 1921. This congress took place three years after the conclusion of the devastating First World War and four years after the successful proletarian revolution in Russia which created the first workers state, the Soviet Union. The year 1921 marked the end of the four-year Civil War when the internal counterrevolution, in league with 14 capitalist armies, was defeated by the Soviet Red Army. But internationally, the working class had suffered important defeats in Italy and Germany. It was a time of retrenchment, a time of defensive struggle. In the words of the Theses adopted at the Congress, "On the International Situation and the Tasks of the Comintern":
"It is absolutely incontestable that on a world scale the open revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for power is at present passing through a stoppage, a slowing down in tempo. But in the very nature of things, it was impossible to expect that the revolutionary offensive after the war, insofar as it failed to result in an immediate victory, should go on developing uninterruptedly along an upward curve."
In this period of retrenchment, the International determined that it was imperative to draw into the Communist parties layers of the oppressed which had hitherto been outside of organized politics or part of the mass reformist parties. The Third Congress had adopted the "Theses on Tactics," a manual for splitting the centrist and reformist mass parties and winning over their proletarian base. Central to this task was winning the Communist parties of the world to the importance of mobilizing and organizing proletarian women and youth into the revolutionary struggle. Trotsky motivated this task in his presentation to the Third Congress:
"Millions of new workers, particularly women workers, drawn into industry during the war, have brought with them into the proletariat not only their petty-bourgeois prejudices but also their impatient aspirations for better
conditions of life
"All these layers of the proletariat, so diverse in origin and character, have been and are being drawn into the postwar movement neither simultaneously nor homogeneously. Hence the fluctuations, the flows and ebbs, the offensives and retreats in the revolutionary struggle.
But the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses are being rapidly welded together by the shattering of old illusions, by the terrible uncertainty of existence, by the autocratic domination of the trusts, by the bandit methods of the militarized state. This multimillion-headed mass is seeking a firm and lucid leadership, a clear-cut program of action and thus creates the premises for the decisive role which the closely welded and centralized Communist Party is destined to play."
Special Work Among Women
The communists understood that winning working women to communism would require special tools. Clara Zetkin motivated the resolution which ordered all sections to establish women's commissions to undertake special work among women:
"We see clearly the residue of thousands of years of subjugation on the souls and psyches of women. This is why, despite the common organization, special organs and measures are necessary to reach the masses of women and to organize and educate them as communists.
"For such organs we propose to establish women'; agitational committees or commissions—whatever the parties wish to call them—on the leadership and administrative party levels. And these commission' should exist from the leading bodies of the local group up to the highest central leadership. We call these organ women's commissions because their task is to undertake work among women but not because we wish to stress that they consist only of women. Quite the contrary. We welcome the participation of men in the women' commissions, with their greater political experience am skill. To us, the crucial thing is that these commission work among the masses of women in a planned am permanent way; that they take a stand against all the misery, and on all subjects of interest to the lives c women; that they intervene in all spheres of social life of the welfare of the millions and millions of proletarian an semi-proletarian women with knowledge and energy.
It was to the task of guiding and strengthening these party bodies that the International Women's Secretariat of the Communist International devoted their journal
Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale. The journal reflected the living struggle of the international communist movement, deriving its existence from the contributions of correspondents elected by the Communist party in each country. Through these contributions, the pages of KF became a treasure trove of direct political experience, recording the struggle of the Communist parties of the world on questions of particular interest to women. The richness of the political debates of the Third International reflected through the struggles in various countries make fascinating reading. Particular attention was devoted to polemics against the Social Democratic false leaders of the working class and the bourgeois feminist movement.
By publishing the actual decrees of the new Soviet state on the protection of mother and child, abortion, education and a myriad of other social questions, the journal showed concretely how the basis for the emancipation of women was being laid in the Soviet Union through the replacement of social responsibilities of the nuclear family. This was the future toward which the Communist International was looking. Throughout these volumes the urgent need for defense of the Soviet Union in light of these enormous social accomplishments is highlighted.
In 1925, the character of the journal changed radically. In the handful of issues published that year, the revolutionary edge was blunted and the pages were filled with empty tributes to Lenin, nationalistic declarations of allegiance to the Soviet Union and dull statistical tracts. Stalinism had destroyed the Communist International as a revolutionary force, substituting the false doctrine of "socialism in one country." Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale was discontinued in 1925, one of the victims of Stalinism.
Women and Revolution is proud to introduce these important volumes to our readers. From time to time we hope to publish translations of selected pieces. In this issue, we publish excerpts from Clara Zetkin's Preface, printed in the first number of Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale, April 1921.
Clara Zetkin's Introduction to the Communist Women's International
This is not the journal of a communist women's movement of a single country; it is the common international organ of the communist women's movement of all countries. And this imparts special significance to Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale: presently it is the only international women's journal not to regard the problems of the so-called woman question from the shaky ground of the bourgeois view of society and from the perspective of the women's righters, but to base its viewpoint on the weather-hardened granite of the socialist, communist worldview, oriented unswervingly toward the liberation of humanity through communism. Thus it is a creation of the revolutionary workers movement itself, its most advanced, perceptive, confident and energetic component: the Communist International.
Certainly, the internationally oriented and distributed Die Gleichheit, the women's journal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, sought to join the proletarian women's movement of the various countries on a common basis and to combine forces to achieve a common goal. But after all, for the most part the journal necessarily remained the paper of the German Social Democracy and could be an international publication only in its "secondary function," an "ersatz publication."
No thought was more remote from the Second International than establishing an international women’s publication, even on the most modest level. Despite its fundamental commitment to equal rights for the sexes it tolerated the proletarian women's movement more as unavoidable and secondary, if not as a necessary evil, rather than evaluating it according to its historical worth. Representatives of the Women's International were admitted to its conferences more or less sympathetically, but they had no statutory right to participate. The Women's International had no representation on the Secretariat of the Second International. It required world war, the destruction and shattering of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society to its very depths; it required world revolution beginning its mighty march of victory across the entire earth, crushing everything old and rotten under its iron heel and creating with bountiful hands new things demanding life; it required the power of Soviet Russia, the first state built by free and creative labor; it required a break from the chaos of betrayed principles and the new perception of the Communist International amidst these historic events, in fierce combat against its bourgeois mortal enemies and in passionate, painful struggles with those proletarians lacking insight, weak in perception and misled—all this was required for this revolutionary vanguard, nucleus of the working class, to fully value the proletarian women's movement.
As an organization of action the Communist International necessarily came to an enhanced appreciation of the participation of the masses of women in the revolutionary struggle, in revolutionary construction. As an organization of action it gleaned its insight and strength from the lessons of the past as well as from present experience, in particular in Soviet Russia where the revolution, embodied in flesh and blood, has set about overturning society. There the truth of the fact— to which Socialists of all countries and tendencies give mere lip service—was proven and continues to be completely proven in practice: without the informed, spirited and self-sacrificing participation of broad masses of women, capitalism cannot be conquered and eradicated, nor can communism be realized. Soviet Russia's rule by sword and soup ladle could reach an unprecedented level of sacrifice and heroism and thus its victorious affirmation only through the full participation of masses of women. Dire necessity called the Russian women to every battle station, into every field of economic and cultural activity. If they served the revolution in greater numbers and with more dedication, this was because they met much less prejudice than women of any other country. In Russia, the struggle for the full equality of women, as the revolution itself, has always been the great cause of men and women in common.
Under the historic leadership of the Communist Party of Soviet Russia, and with its great example, the Third International was bound to undertake that which the Second International had failed to do. On the basis of a unified and consistently executed plan the communist women were integrated into the Communist parties nationally and internationally into the world proletariat's great revolutionary fighting instrument.
Die Kommunistische FrauenInternationale must fulfill another important task. It is the publication for researching, exploring and clarifying the various questions and phenomena which particularly touch women's lives. This transitional period, in which an old, decaying society is wrestling with a new, emerging one, poses those questions and phenomena daily. Facts and perceptions storm by us. Social conditions which only yesterday still seemed to fetter the emergence of women are scattered today like dry tinder. In the masses of women, desires, wishes, will, needs arise great, naked and commanding, which were in the past small, timid, hidden, hardly breathing, subconscious. The revolutionary social situation is revolutionizing the psyche of women, and this demands social conditions which will provide them fertile soil, fresh air and warm sunshine to grow, to exist and to act according to their own capacity. In all fields women are beginning to pose their right to exist against the anachronistic, dead or dying social forms and conditions. Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale must pursue and answer from the stable standpoint of historical materialism the questions which thus arise. It is the duty of the women comrades of all countries with clear perception and firm will to channel the small, weak springs of women's new, revolutionary will to life into the powerful stream of the proletarian world revolution."
Markin comment:
The following is an article from the Spring 1986 issue of "Women and Revolution" that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*****
Women and Revolution welcomes the publication of four volumes containing the complete reprints of the journal of the Women's Secretariat of the Communist International, Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale (Communist Women's International) in the original German. Published monthly from 1921 to 1925, the journal sought to provide revolutionary leadership to communist women cadres internationally. For several years, it was a high-grade propaganda organ, an organizing tool in the internationalist tradition of Lenin and Trotsky's Third International.
Articles appeared about a range of proletarian struggles—from the great British miners strike of 1921 to "The Harsh Life of Women Farmers in Nebraska and Wyoming and Their Demands." The journal dealt with a spectrum of social questions such as "Child Suicide: A Devastating Accusation Against the Bourgeois Order" and "Prostitution in Vienna," articles on infant mortality and women in politics. Systematic reports were made of events in the international communist movement, with detailed reports on conferences of international women's organizations and various bodies of the Third International. Historical articles, such as the intriguing "Women as the Vanguard of the Great Rice Insurrection in Japan in 1918" by communist leader Sen Katayama, and literary articles appeared in just about every issue. Pieces such as "The Fascist Women's Movement in Italy" and "French Imperialism’s Rapacious Attack on the Ruhr and the Danger of a New War" oriented the communist militants in a class-struggle approach to current urgent questions. There are many articles on the working women's struggles for unionization and equality.
Development of the Communist Women's Journal
The editor of the journal Kommunistische Fraueninternationale (KF) was German communist Clara Zetkin. As a leader of the German Social Democratic Party, Zetkin had played a vital role in the development of a revolutionary Marxist position on the woman question which later became a model for the Communist International. In 1891 she helped to found Die Gheichheit (Equality), the newspaper of the SPD devoted particularly to the question of women's emancipation. In the years before the outbreak of World War I, SPD left-wingers like Zetkin had fought persistently for special work among women on a high propagandistic level. They were also among those who defended their revolutionary proletarian outlook against all forms of narrowness and chauvinism, from trade unionism, parliamentarism and nationalism to male chauvinism and feminism. After the historic betrayal of the SPD, voting for war credits in the imperialist war, Die Gheichheit became known as a voice for internationalism, opposing the imperialist war in defiance of the SPD leadership. Many of the left wing joined Rosa Luxemburg in forming the Spartacist group in 1916, precursor of the German Communist Party formed in 1919 which affiliated with the Third International. Clara Zetkin was fired as editor of Die Gheichheit by the SPD leadership, which published it for a short time as a depoliticized and chauvinist magazine.
The founding of the journal KF continued the work of Die Gheichheit, broadening it and thus realizing one of the tasks set forth in the "Resolution on Work Among Women" adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International in 1921. This congress took place three years after the conclusion of the devastating First World War and four years after the successful proletarian revolution in Russia which created the first workers state, the Soviet Union. The year 1921 marked the end of the four-year Civil War when the internal counterrevolution, in league with 14 capitalist armies, was defeated by the Soviet Red Army. But internationally, the working class had suffered important defeats in Italy and Germany. It was a time of retrenchment, a time of defensive struggle. In the words of the Theses adopted at the Congress, "On the International Situation and the Tasks of the Comintern":
"It is absolutely incontestable that on a world scale the open revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for power is at present passing through a stoppage, a slowing down in tempo. But in the very nature of things, it was impossible to expect that the revolutionary offensive after the war, insofar as it failed to result in an immediate victory, should go on developing uninterruptedly along an upward curve."
In this period of retrenchment, the International determined that it was imperative to draw into the Communist parties layers of the oppressed which had hitherto been outside of organized politics or part of the mass reformist parties. The Third Congress had adopted the "Theses on Tactics," a manual for splitting the centrist and reformist mass parties and winning over their proletarian base. Central to this task was winning the Communist parties of the world to the importance of mobilizing and organizing proletarian women and youth into the revolutionary struggle. Trotsky motivated this task in his presentation to the Third Congress:
"Millions of new workers, particularly women workers, drawn into industry during the war, have brought with them into the proletariat not only their petty-bourgeois prejudices but also their impatient aspirations for better
conditions of life
"All these layers of the proletariat, so diverse in origin and character, have been and are being drawn into the postwar movement neither simultaneously nor homogeneously. Hence the fluctuations, the flows and ebbs, the offensives and retreats in the revolutionary struggle.
But the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses are being rapidly welded together by the shattering of old illusions, by the terrible uncertainty of existence, by the autocratic domination of the trusts, by the bandit methods of the militarized state. This multimillion-headed mass is seeking a firm and lucid leadership, a clear-cut program of action and thus creates the premises for the decisive role which the closely welded and centralized Communist Party is destined to play."
Special Work Among Women
The communists understood that winning working women to communism would require special tools. Clara Zetkin motivated the resolution which ordered all sections to establish women's commissions to undertake special work among women:
"We see clearly the residue of thousands of years of subjugation on the souls and psyches of women. This is why, despite the common organization, special organs and measures are necessary to reach the masses of women and to organize and educate them as communists.
"For such organs we propose to establish women'; agitational committees or commissions—whatever the parties wish to call them—on the leadership and administrative party levels. And these commission' should exist from the leading bodies of the local group up to the highest central leadership. We call these organ women's commissions because their task is to undertake work among women but not because we wish to stress that they consist only of women. Quite the contrary. We welcome the participation of men in the women' commissions, with their greater political experience am skill. To us, the crucial thing is that these commission work among the masses of women in a planned am permanent way; that they take a stand against all the misery, and on all subjects of interest to the lives c women; that they intervene in all spheres of social life of the welfare of the millions and millions of proletarian an semi-proletarian women with knowledge and energy.
It was to the task of guiding and strengthening these party bodies that the International Women's Secretariat of the Communist International devoted their journal
Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale. The journal reflected the living struggle of the international communist movement, deriving its existence from the contributions of correspondents elected by the Communist party in each country. Through these contributions, the pages of KF became a treasure trove of direct political experience, recording the struggle of the Communist parties of the world on questions of particular interest to women. The richness of the political debates of the Third International reflected through the struggles in various countries make fascinating reading. Particular attention was devoted to polemics against the Social Democratic false leaders of the working class and the bourgeois feminist movement.
By publishing the actual decrees of the new Soviet state on the protection of mother and child, abortion, education and a myriad of other social questions, the journal showed concretely how the basis for the emancipation of women was being laid in the Soviet Union through the replacement of social responsibilities of the nuclear family. This was the future toward which the Communist International was looking. Throughout these volumes the urgent need for defense of the Soviet Union in light of these enormous social accomplishments is highlighted.
In 1925, the character of the journal changed radically. In the handful of issues published that year, the revolutionary edge was blunted and the pages were filled with empty tributes to Lenin, nationalistic declarations of allegiance to the Soviet Union and dull statistical tracts. Stalinism had destroyed the Communist International as a revolutionary force, substituting the false doctrine of "socialism in one country." Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale was discontinued in 1925, one of the victims of Stalinism.
Women and Revolution is proud to introduce these important volumes to our readers. From time to time we hope to publish translations of selected pieces. In this issue, we publish excerpts from Clara Zetkin's Preface, printed in the first number of Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale, April 1921.
Clara Zetkin's Introduction to the Communist Women's International
This is not the journal of a communist women's movement of a single country; it is the common international organ of the communist women's movement of all countries. And this imparts special significance to Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale: presently it is the only international women's journal not to regard the problems of the so-called woman question from the shaky ground of the bourgeois view of society and from the perspective of the women's righters, but to base its viewpoint on the weather-hardened granite of the socialist, communist worldview, oriented unswervingly toward the liberation of humanity through communism. Thus it is a creation of the revolutionary workers movement itself, its most advanced, perceptive, confident and energetic component: the Communist International.
Certainly, the internationally oriented and distributed Die Gleichheit, the women's journal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, sought to join the proletarian women's movement of the various countries on a common basis and to combine forces to achieve a common goal. But after all, for the most part the journal necessarily remained the paper of the German Social Democracy and could be an international publication only in its "secondary function," an "ersatz publication."
No thought was more remote from the Second International than establishing an international women’s publication, even on the most modest level. Despite its fundamental commitment to equal rights for the sexes it tolerated the proletarian women's movement more as unavoidable and secondary, if not as a necessary evil, rather than evaluating it according to its historical worth. Representatives of the Women's International were admitted to its conferences more or less sympathetically, but they had no statutory right to participate. The Women's International had no representation on the Secretariat of the Second International. It required world war, the destruction and shattering of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society to its very depths; it required world revolution beginning its mighty march of victory across the entire earth, crushing everything old and rotten under its iron heel and creating with bountiful hands new things demanding life; it required the power of Soviet Russia, the first state built by free and creative labor; it required a break from the chaos of betrayed principles and the new perception of the Communist International amidst these historic events, in fierce combat against its bourgeois mortal enemies and in passionate, painful struggles with those proletarians lacking insight, weak in perception and misled—all this was required for this revolutionary vanguard, nucleus of the working class, to fully value the proletarian women's movement.
As an organization of action the Communist International necessarily came to an enhanced appreciation of the participation of the masses of women in the revolutionary struggle, in revolutionary construction. As an organization of action it gleaned its insight and strength from the lessons of the past as well as from present experience, in particular in Soviet Russia where the revolution, embodied in flesh and blood, has set about overturning society. There the truth of the fact— to which Socialists of all countries and tendencies give mere lip service—was proven and continues to be completely proven in practice: without the informed, spirited and self-sacrificing participation of broad masses of women, capitalism cannot be conquered and eradicated, nor can communism be realized. Soviet Russia's rule by sword and soup ladle could reach an unprecedented level of sacrifice and heroism and thus its victorious affirmation only through the full participation of masses of women. Dire necessity called the Russian women to every battle station, into every field of economic and cultural activity. If they served the revolution in greater numbers and with more dedication, this was because they met much less prejudice than women of any other country. In Russia, the struggle for the full equality of women, as the revolution itself, has always been the great cause of men and women in common.
Under the historic leadership of the Communist Party of Soviet Russia, and with its great example, the Third International was bound to undertake that which the Second International had failed to do. On the basis of a unified and consistently executed plan the communist women were integrated into the Communist parties nationally and internationally into the world proletariat's great revolutionary fighting instrument.
Die Kommunistische FrauenInternationale must fulfill another important task. It is the publication for researching, exploring and clarifying the various questions and phenomena which particularly touch women's lives. This transitional period, in which an old, decaying society is wrestling with a new, emerging one, poses those questions and phenomena daily. Facts and perceptions storm by us. Social conditions which only yesterday still seemed to fetter the emergence of women are scattered today like dry tinder. In the masses of women, desires, wishes, will, needs arise great, naked and commanding, which were in the past small, timid, hidden, hardly breathing, subconscious. The revolutionary social situation is revolutionizing the psyche of women, and this demands social conditions which will provide them fertile soil, fresh air and warm sunshine to grow, to exist and to act according to their own capacity. In all fields women are beginning to pose their right to exist against the anachronistic, dead or dying social forms and conditions. Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale must pursue and answer from the stable standpoint of historical materialism the questions which thus arise. It is the duty of the women comrades of all countries with clear perception and firm will to channel the small, weak springs of women's new, revolutionary will to life into the powerful stream of the proletarian world revolution."
*On The 7th Anniversary- All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars-A Guest Commentary From "National Assembly"
Click on the title to link to the "National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq War" Website.
*On The 7th Anniversary- All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars-A Guest Commentary From "National Assembly"
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
**********
Below is a repost, in a seemingly endless series of reposts of last year's, the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War,of my comment.
Commentary
On this the Sixth Anniversary of the Iraq invasion I repost my entries from previous years. There is essentially nothing new to add, except to replace the name Bush with Obama in the slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan!
From March 19, 2008
Today I will go to downtown Boston and participate in my nth demonstration against the Iraq War. I will have my banner, I will shout and I ....will be frustrated that in many fundamentals we (meaning here the anti-war movement) are no closer to forcing a total troop withdrawal from Iraq than 5 years ago. But, my frustration will pass. In fact it has already. I will shout to the bitter end- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All United States/Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Below I have reposted, as much as it pains me, a comment I made as we approached last year’s 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War. Damn.
COMMENTARY
WRITTEN ON MARCH 19, 2007 THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.
This will be short and sweet for four years of war without an effective extra-parliamentary (or for that matter, parliamentary) opposition in an unpopular war led by an unpopular President speaks for itself. That said, the slogan Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq by the United States and its rapidly dwindling coalition forces retains its validity. As does the fight for a straight no vote on the war budget. And, finally, as does the validity of the desperately necessary fight to form anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees. Otherwise this time next year we will be writing about the fifth year of the war. Forward.
***************
I will not repost the 2006, 2005, 2004 entries because you have already read enough on this grim subject.
*On The 7th Anniversary- All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars-A Guest Commentary From "National Assembly"
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
**********
Below is a repost, in a seemingly endless series of reposts of last year's, the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War,of my comment.
Commentary
On this the Sixth Anniversary of the Iraq invasion I repost my entries from previous years. There is essentially nothing new to add, except to replace the name Bush with Obama in the slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan!
From March 19, 2008
Today I will go to downtown Boston and participate in my nth demonstration against the Iraq War. I will have my banner, I will shout and I ....will be frustrated that in many fundamentals we (meaning here the anti-war movement) are no closer to forcing a total troop withdrawal from Iraq than 5 years ago. But, my frustration will pass. In fact it has already. I will shout to the bitter end- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All United States/Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Below I have reposted, as much as it pains me, a comment I made as we approached last year’s 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War. Damn.
COMMENTARY
WRITTEN ON MARCH 19, 2007 THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.
This will be short and sweet for four years of war without an effective extra-parliamentary (or for that matter, parliamentary) opposition in an unpopular war led by an unpopular President speaks for itself. That said, the slogan Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq by the United States and its rapidly dwindling coalition forces retains its validity. As does the fight for a straight no vote on the war budget. And, finally, as does the validity of the desperately necessary fight to form anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees. Otherwise this time next year we will be writing about the fifth year of the war. Forward.
***************
I will not repost the 2006, 2005, 2004 entries because you have already read enough on this grim subject.
*The Latest From The "Black Man With A Library" Blog-"Is Ok For Black Folks To Criticize Obama
Click on the headline to link to a "Black Man With A Library" blog entry on the above-mentioned subject.
Markin comment:
Politics is funny, sometimes. In this extremely racially-conscious society, as Glen Ford from "Black Agenda" pointed out recently, white leftists, or some white leftists, have been hesitant to challenge a black...anything, actually, but in this case a black president, fearing a charge of racism. This in a "post-racial" world, right? In any case, for what it is worth, it is very good to have black voices, who are under pressures of their own, from their own, to brand Obama for the very effective imperialist too that he is. Thanks, guys and gals.
Markin comment:
Politics is funny, sometimes. In this extremely racially-conscious society, as Glen Ford from "Black Agenda" pointed out recently, white leftists, or some white leftists, have been hesitant to challenge a black...anything, actually, but in this case a black president, fearing a charge of racism. This in a "post-racial" world, right? In any case, for what it is worth, it is very good to have black voices, who are under pressures of their own, from their own, to brand Obama for the very effective imperialist too that he is. Thanks, guys and gals.
*The Latest From "The Further Left Forum" Blog
Click on the headline ot link to the "Further Left Forum" blog.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
*From The Pen Of Friedrich Engels- "On The 20th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune"
Click on the title to link to a "Marx-Engels Internet Archive" article by Friedrich Engels in honor of the 20th anniversary of the heroic fighters of the Paris Commune in 1891.
Markin comment:
I should note that there was a little historical controversy over the 'editing' of this piece by the leaders of the German social-democracy like Bernstein and Kautsky. The purpose: to blunt the edge of Engels' rapier-like analysis of the changed military conditions that the urban proletariat would have to fight under, and making it appear that Engels, like them, thirsted on for socialism to be "voted" in. We know the sorry fate of that strategy, although some left militants have still not learned the lesson. So much for untrammelled freedom of expression so beloved of the social democrats, then and now.
Markin comment:
I should note that there was a little historical controversy over the 'editing' of this piece by the leaders of the German social-democracy like Bernstein and Kautsky. The purpose: to blunt the edge of Engels' rapier-like analysis of the changed military conditions that the urban proletariat would have to fight under, and making it appear that Engels, like them, thirsted on for socialism to be "voted" in. We know the sorry fate of that strategy, although some left militants have still not learned the lesson. So much for untrammelled freedom of expression so beloved of the social democrats, then and now.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
*All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars -A Guest Commentary From "The National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars
Click on the title to link to the "National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars" Website.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*From The "UJP" Website- For Those Who Can't Make It To Washington March 20th- A Local Boston Action
Click on the headline to link to the "UJP-Boston" Website for an announcement for a local Boston anti-war action for those who cannot go to Washington.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
*From The "In Defense Of Marxism" Website- "Bolshevism And Stalinism" -A Guest Commentary
Click on the headline to link to a "In Defense Of Marxism" entry reviewing Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky mentioned in an earlier entry today from "Renegade Eye".
Markin comment:
I stand by my comment earlier in the day, at least on the basis of this review. More later, after I actually read the thing. Service's "Lenin" though was that sam eold anti-communist Cold War mishmash that really didn't give much insight in Lenin's revolutionary pysche.
Markin comment:
I stand by my comment earlier in the day, at least on the basis of this review. More later, after I actually read the thing. Service's "Lenin" though was that sam eold anti-communist Cold War mishmash that really didn't give much insight in Lenin's revolutionary pysche.
*From The "Renegade Eye" Blog- Hitchens And Service On Leon Trotsky
Click on the title to link to the "Renegade Eye" blog for an entry with ex-leftist "bad boy" Christopher Hitchens having a discussion with Robert Service on his new book, a biography, "Leon Trotsky".
Markin comment:
I have read Service's other books on Bolsheviks and have not been particularly impressed. However without having read his Trotsky biography yet I nevertheless doubt that it will beat what I believe is still the definitive work, Isaac Deutscher's three volume "Prophet" set.
Markin comment:
I have read Service's other books on Bolsheviks and have not been particularly impressed. However without having read his Trotsky biography yet I nevertheless doubt that it will beat what I believe is still the definitive work, Isaac Deutscher's three volume "Prophet" set.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"James Connolly"-For Those Who Fought For Ireland's Freedom
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of a performance of a version of one of the many songs written to honor the great Irish revolutionary socialist,"James Connolly".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
"James Connolly" Lyrics
Marchin' down O'Connell Street with the Starry Plough on high
There goes the Citizen Army with their fists raised in the sky
Leading them is a mighty man with a mad rage in his eye
"My name is James Connolly - I didn't come here to die
But to fight for the rights of the working man
And the small farmer too
Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws
So hold on to your rifles, boys, and don't give up your dream
Of a Republic for the workin' class, economic liberty"
Then Jem yelled out "Oh Citizens, this system is a curse
An English boss is a monster, an Irish one even worse
They'll never lock us out again and here's the reason why
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die....."
And now we're in the GPO with the bullets whizzin' by
With Pearse and Sean McDermott biddin' each other goodbye
Up steps our citizen leader and roars out to the sky
"My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...
Oh Lily, I don't want to die, we've got so much to live for
And I know we're all goin' out to get slaughtered, but I just can't take any more
Just the sight of one more child screamin' from hunger in a Dublin slum
Or his mother slavin' 14 hours a day for the scum
Who exploit her and take her youth and throw it on a factory floor
Oh Lily, I just can't take any more
They've locked us out, they've banned our unions, they even treat their animals better than us
No! It's far better to die like a man on your feet than to live forever like some slave on your knees, Lilly
But don't let them wrap any green flag around me
And for God's sake, don't let them bury me in some field full of harps and shamrocks
And whatever you do, don't let them make a martyr out of me
No! Rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom
Here's to you, Lily, the rights of man and international revolution"
We fought them to a standstill while the flames lit up the sky
'Til a bullet pierced our leader and we gave up the fight
They shot him in Kilmainham jail but they'll never stop his cry
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...."
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
"James Connolly" Lyrics
Marchin' down O'Connell Street with the Starry Plough on high
There goes the Citizen Army with their fists raised in the sky
Leading them is a mighty man with a mad rage in his eye
"My name is James Connolly - I didn't come here to die
But to fight for the rights of the working man
And the small farmer too
Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws
So hold on to your rifles, boys, and don't give up your dream
Of a Republic for the workin' class, economic liberty"
Then Jem yelled out "Oh Citizens, this system is a curse
An English boss is a monster, an Irish one even worse
They'll never lock us out again and here's the reason why
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die....."
And now we're in the GPO with the bullets whizzin' by
With Pearse and Sean McDermott biddin' each other goodbye
Up steps our citizen leader and roars out to the sky
"My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...
Oh Lily, I don't want to die, we've got so much to live for
And I know we're all goin' out to get slaughtered, but I just can't take any more
Just the sight of one more child screamin' from hunger in a Dublin slum
Or his mother slavin' 14 hours a day for the scum
Who exploit her and take her youth and throw it on a factory floor
Oh Lily, I just can't take any more
They've locked us out, they've banned our unions, they even treat their animals better than us
No! It's far better to die like a man on your feet than to live forever like some slave on your knees, Lilly
But don't let them wrap any green flag around me
And for God's sake, don't let them bury me in some field full of harps and shamrocks
And whatever you do, don't let them make a martyr out of me
No! Rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom
Here's to you, Lily, the rights of man and international revolution"
We fought them to a standstill while the flames lit up the sky
'Til a bullet pierced our leader and we gave up the fight
They shot him in Kilmainham jail but they'll never stop his cry
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...."
*Notes From The Old Home Town-As March 17th Approaches-A Moment In History- The Irish Diaspora
Click on the headline to link to a "American Left History" entry that deals with the Irish Question in little different manner.
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?
As March 17th Approaches- A moment in history…
"A Terrible Beauty Is Born", a recurring line from the great Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats,"Easter 1916"
At the corner of Hand Street and East Street forming a wedge in front of our old beige-bricked high school, and from that vantage point giving the building a majestic “mighty fortress is our home” look, there is a plaque that commemorates a fallen soldier of World War I, and is officially known as the Frank O’Brien Square. The corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many. That plaque furthermore now competes, unsuccessfully, with a huge Raider red billboard telling one and all of the latest doings, or upcoming events or honoring somebody or something, and in due course will be relegated to the “vaults’ of the history of our town. This entry, however, is not about that or about the follies of war, or even about why it is that young men (and now women) wind up doing the dangerous work of war that is decided by old men (and now old women), although that would be a worthy subject. No, the focus here is the name of the soldier, or rather the last name, O’Brien, and the Irishness of it.
A quick run through of the names of the students listed in the “Manet” for the Class of 1964 will illustrate my point. If Irish names are not in the majority, then they predominant, and that does not even take into consideration the half or quarter Irish heritage that is hidden behind other names. And that is exactly the point. If North Quincy in the old days was not exactly “Little Dublin”, the heritage of the Irish diaspora certainly was nevertheless apparent for all to see, and hear. That North Quincy was merely a way station away from the self-contained Irish ghettos of Dorchester and South Boston to the Irish Riveiras of the area was, or rather is, also apparent as anyone who has been in the old town of late will note.
And that too is the point. Today Asian- Americans, particularly the Chinese and Vietnamese, and other minorities have followed that well-trodden path to Quincy. And they have made, and will make, their mark on the ethos of this hard-working working class part of town. So while the faint aroma of corn beef and cabbage (and colorful pasta dishes, from the other main ethnic group of old Quincy, the Italians) has been replaced by the pungent smells of moo shi and poi and the bucolic brogue by some sing-song Mandarin dialect the life of the town moves on.
Yet, I can still feel, when I aimlessly walk certain streets, the Irishness of the diaspora “old sod”. To be sure, as a broken amber liquor bottle spotted on the ground reminded me, there were many whiskey-sodden nights (complete with the obligatory beer chaser) that many a man spent his pay on to keep his “demons” from the door. And to be sure, as well, the ubiquitous pot on the old iron stove for the potato-ladened boiled dinner that stretched an already tight food budget just a little longer when the ever present hard times cast their shadow at that same door. And, of course, there was the great secret cultural relic; the relentless, never-ending struggle to keep the family “dirty linen” from the public eye. But also this: the passed down heroic tales of our forbears, the sons and daughters of Roisin, in their heart-rending eight hundred year struggle against the crushing of the “harp beneath the crown”; of the whispered homages to the ghosts of our Fenian dead; of great General Post Office uprisings, large and small; and, of the continuing struggle in the North. Yes, as that soldier’s plaque symbolizes, an Irish presence will never completely leave the old town, nor will the willingness to sacrifice.
Oh, yes, that Frank O’Brien for whom the square in front of the old school was named , would have been my grand uncle, the brother of my Grandmother Radley (nee O’Brien) from over on Young Street across from the Welcome Young Field.
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?
As March 17th Approaches- A moment in history…
"A Terrible Beauty Is Born", a recurring line from the great Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats,"Easter 1916"
At the corner of Hand Street and East Street forming a wedge in front of our old beige-bricked high school, and from that vantage point giving the building a majestic “mighty fortress is our home” look, there is a plaque that commemorates a fallen soldier of World War I, and is officially known as the Frank O’Brien Square. The corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many. That plaque furthermore now competes, unsuccessfully, with a huge Raider red billboard telling one and all of the latest doings, or upcoming events or honoring somebody or something, and in due course will be relegated to the “vaults’ of the history of our town. This entry, however, is not about that or about the follies of war, or even about why it is that young men (and now women) wind up doing the dangerous work of war that is decided by old men (and now old women), although that would be a worthy subject. No, the focus here is the name of the soldier, or rather the last name, O’Brien, and the Irishness of it.
A quick run through of the names of the students listed in the “Manet” for the Class of 1964 will illustrate my point. If Irish names are not in the majority, then they predominant, and that does not even take into consideration the half or quarter Irish heritage that is hidden behind other names. And that is exactly the point. If North Quincy in the old days was not exactly “Little Dublin”, the heritage of the Irish diaspora certainly was nevertheless apparent for all to see, and hear. That North Quincy was merely a way station away from the self-contained Irish ghettos of Dorchester and South Boston to the Irish Riveiras of the area was, or rather is, also apparent as anyone who has been in the old town of late will note.
And that too is the point. Today Asian- Americans, particularly the Chinese and Vietnamese, and other minorities have followed that well-trodden path to Quincy. And they have made, and will make, their mark on the ethos of this hard-working working class part of town. So while the faint aroma of corn beef and cabbage (and colorful pasta dishes, from the other main ethnic group of old Quincy, the Italians) has been replaced by the pungent smells of moo shi and poi and the bucolic brogue by some sing-song Mandarin dialect the life of the town moves on.
Yet, I can still feel, when I aimlessly walk certain streets, the Irishness of the diaspora “old sod”. To be sure, as a broken amber liquor bottle spotted on the ground reminded me, there were many whiskey-sodden nights (complete with the obligatory beer chaser) that many a man spent his pay on to keep his “demons” from the door. And to be sure, as well, the ubiquitous pot on the old iron stove for the potato-ladened boiled dinner that stretched an already tight food budget just a little longer when the ever present hard times cast their shadow at that same door. And, of course, there was the great secret cultural relic; the relentless, never-ending struggle to keep the family “dirty linen” from the public eye. But also this: the passed down heroic tales of our forbears, the sons and daughters of Roisin, in their heart-rending eight hundred year struggle against the crushing of the “harp beneath the crown”; of the whispered homages to the ghosts of our Fenian dead; of great General Post Office uprisings, large and small; and, of the continuing struggle in the North. Yes, as that soldier’s plaque symbolizes, an Irish presence will never completely leave the old town, nor will the willingness to sacrifice.
Oh, yes, that Frank O’Brien for whom the square in front of the old school was named , would have been my grand uncle, the brother of my Grandmother Radley (nee O’Brien) from over on Young Street across from the Welcome Young Field.
Monday, March 15, 2010
*All Out On March 20th To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars -A Guest Commentary From "The National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars
Click on the title to link to the "National Assembly To End The Afghan And Iraq Wars" Website.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed needed divorce and consequent free ride that one Barack Obama has received- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were, and rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed needed divorce and consequent free ride that one Barack Obama has received- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were, and rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*From The "UJP" Website- For Those Who Can't Make It To Washington March 20th- A Local Boston Action
Click on the headline to link to the "UJP-Boston" Website for an announcement for a local Boston anti-war action for those who cannot go to Washington.
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
I have already argued in previous entries about the importance of massing in Washington, D.C. on March 20th for this event. Bring your own slogans and banners, but be there to start building the long-delayed and needed divorce from one Barack Obama who has been given a pass on war issues- for no known rational reason. We knew, because he made it clear from the beginning what his priorities were in 2008, and he rubbed our noses in it last year. Now we need to get our priorities clear. Obama- Troops Out Now!
*****
Obviously some people will not be able to go to Washington on March 20th for health, economic, family, or other reasons so here is a local opportunity to show your opposition to Obama's wars. Same struggle, same fight! Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Iraq and Afghanistan!
*A Snapshot View Of The Leaders Of The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution-Alexandra Kollontai
Click on title to link to the "Alexandra Kollontai Internet Archives" for the works of this 1917 Bolshevik secondary revolutionary leader Alexandra Kollantai, and later Workers Opposition leader.
March Is Women's History Month
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Kollontai's caliber. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
March Is Women's History Month
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Kollontai's caliber. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
*A Snapshot View Of The Leaders Of The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution-Inessa Armand
Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for the 1917 Bolshevik secondary revolutionary leader Inessa Armand.
March Is Women's History Month
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Armand's caliber. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
March Is Women's History Month
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Armand's caliber. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
*From The Pen Of Communist International Leader Karl Radek - On "Larissa Reisner" (An Early Bolshevik Leader)
Click on title to link to the "Karl Radek Internet Archive" for other of the works of this important secondary Bolshevik leader and high Communist International official.
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Radek's caliber. Although Radek had his ups and downs in his later days as a Comintern official, he stood tall in October. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
Markin comment:
No revolution can succeed without men and women of Radek's caliber. Although Radek had his ups and downs in his later days as a Comintern official, he stood tall in October. As Trotsky noted, on more than one occasion, the West, for lots of reason, in his day had not produced such cadre. I believe that observation, for the most part, is even truer today.
*The Latest From The "Socialist Appeal" Website
Click on the title to link to the "Socialist Appeal" Website.
Markin comment:
The question of a Fifth International proposed by Hugo Chavez and seconded, apparently by the IMT, will require a longer answer. But for this minute I wonder, and I wonder seriously why so-called orthodox Marixts would be heeding a call from a, what in the final analysis is just another Latin American caudillo with some oil money. We have heard about the epicenter of world revolution being in Latin America and other "Third World" spots before, if I recall, with the guerilla foci, and the results were not pretty whatever revolutionary impulses drove that movement.
I might add that Lenin, Trotsky and the other leaders of the Communist International were very precise (remember the 21 conditions) about who they were going to let in the Communist International. "Hermano" Chavez would not even get in the side door in those days. More, much more on this later, especially on Alan Woods' rationale for dumping the historic work of Leon Trotsky that he allegedly stands on just to be a "cheerleader" for some quasi-socialist, and in this I am giving Chavez much the best of it. U.S. Hands Off Venezuela!
Markin comment:
The question of a Fifth International proposed by Hugo Chavez and seconded, apparently by the IMT, will require a longer answer. But for this minute I wonder, and I wonder seriously why so-called orthodox Marixts would be heeding a call from a, what in the final analysis is just another Latin American caudillo with some oil money. We have heard about the epicenter of world revolution being in Latin America and other "Third World" spots before, if I recall, with the guerilla foci, and the results were not pretty whatever revolutionary impulses drove that movement.
I might add that Lenin, Trotsky and the other leaders of the Communist International were very precise (remember the 21 conditions) about who they were going to let in the Communist International. "Hermano" Chavez would not even get in the side door in those days. More, much more on this later, especially on Alan Woods' rationale for dumping the historic work of Leon Trotsky that he allegedly stands on just to be a "cheerleader" for some quasi-socialist, and in this I am giving Chavez much the best of it. U.S. Hands Off Venezuela!
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