***The Roots Is The Toots-Billie’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame-Bill Haley And The Comet’s Rock Around The Clock

 

 

I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing a commercially- produced classic rock series over the past few years. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we, we small time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie who I will talk about later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yeah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.

In many ways 1956 was the key year, at least to my recollection. And here is why. Elvis may have been burning up the stages, making all the teenage girls down South sweat, making slightly older women sweat and throw undergarments too, and every guy over about eight years old start growing sideburns before then but that was the year that I actually saw him on television and started be-bopping off his records. Whoa. And the same with Bill Haley and the Comets, even though in the rock pantheon they were old, almost has-been guys, by then. And Chuck Berry. And for the purposes of this particular review, James Brown, ah, sweet, please, please, please James Brown (and the Flames, of course) with that different black, black as the night, beat that my mother (and others too) would not even let in the house, and maybe not even in our whole white working- class neighborhood. But remember that transistor radio and remember when rock rocked.

Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. I told you about him once when I was reviewing a 30th anniversary of rock film concert segment by Bo Diddley. I told the story of how he, and we, learned first-hand down at the base, the nasty face of white racism in this society. No even music, and maybe particularly not even music, was excepted then from that dead of night racial divide, North or South if you really want to know. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or maybe almost best friend we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music (which is where the innocent Bo Diddley imitation thing just mentioned came from although that story was later than the story I want to tell you now).

But see we were “projects kids,” and that meant, and meant seriously, no dough kids. No dough to make one look, a little anyway, like one of the hot male teen rock stars such as Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis. Now this “projects” idea started out okay, I guess, the idea being that returning veterans from World War II, at least some vets like my father, needed a leg up in order to provide for their families. And low- rent public housing was the answer. Even if that answer was four-family unit apartment buildings really fit for one family, one growing three boy family anyway, and no space, no space at all for private, quiet dreams. Of course by 1955, ‘56 during the “golden age” of working- class getting ahead (or at least to many it must seem so now) there was a certain separation between those who had moved on to the great suburban ranch house dream land and those who were seemingly fated to end up as “the projects” fixtures, and who developed along the way a very identifiable projects ethos, a dog-eat-dog ethos if you want to know the truth. It ain’t pretty down at the base, down at the place where the thugs, drifters, grifters, and midnight sifters feed off the rough-edged working poor.

That didn’t stop Billie, or me for that matter, from having our like everybody else dreams, quiet spaced or not. In fact, Billie had during his long time there probably developed the finest honed-edge of “projects” ethos of anyone I knew, but that came later. For now, for the rock minute I want to speak of, Billie was distractedly, no beyond distraction as you will see, trying to make his big break through as a rock performer. See Billie knew, probably knew in his soul, but anyway from some fan magazine that he was forever reading that old Elvis and Jerry Lee (and many of the rockers of the day, black and white alike) were dirt poor just like us. Rough dirt poor too. Farm land, country, rural, shack, white trash, dirt poor which we with our “high style” city ways could barely comprehend.

And there was Elvis, for one, up in big lights. With all the cars, and not junkie old fin-tailed Plymouths or chromed Fords but Cadillacs, and half the girls in the world, and all of them “hot” (although we did not use that word then), or so it seemed. Billie was hooked and hooked hard on that rock star performer fantasy. It consumed his young passions. And for what purpose? If you answered to impress the girls, “the projects” girls right in front of him, hey, now you are starting to get it. And this is what this little story is about.

This was late 1956, maybe early 1957, anyway it’s winter, a cold hard winter in the projects, meaning all extra dough was needed for heat, or some serious stuff like that. But see here old Billie and I (as his assistant, or manager, it was never clear which but I was to be riding his star, no question) had no time for cold, for snow or for the no dough to get those things because what was inflaming our minds was that a teen caravan was coming to town in a few weeks. No, not to the projects, Christ no, but downtown at the high school auditorium. And what this teen caravan thing was (even though we were not officially teens and would not be so for a while) was a talent show, a big time talent show, like a junior American Bandstand television show, looking for guys and girls who could be the next teen heartthrobs. There were a lot of them in those days, those kinds of backwater talent shows and maybe now too.

This news is where two Billie things came into play so you get an idea of the kind of guy he was back then. First, one night, one dark, snowy night Billie had the bright idea than he and I should go around town and take down all the teen caravan announcement advertisements from the telephone poles and other spots where they were posted. We did, and I need say no more on the matter. Oh, except that a couple of days later, and for a week or so after that, there was a big full-page ad in the local newspaper and ads on the local radio. That’s one Billie thing and the other, well, let me back up.

When Billie got wind of the contest he went into one of his rants, a don’t mess with Billie or his idea of the moment rant and usually it was better if you didn’t, and that rant was directed first to no one else but his mother. He needed dough to get an outfit worthy of a “prince of rock” so that he could stand out for the judges. Moreover the song he was going to do was Bill Haley and The Comet’s Rock Around The Clock. I will say he knew that song cold, and the way I could tell was that at school one day he sang it and the girls went crazy. And some of the guys too. Hell, girls started following old Billie around. He was in heaven (honest, I on the other hand, was indifferent to them, or their charms just then). So the thought that he might win the contest was driving him mad (that same energy would be used later with less purpose but that story is for another day)

Hell, denim jeans, sneakers, and some old hand-down ragamuffin shirt from an older brother ain’t going to get anyone noticed, except maybe to be laughed at. Now, like I said, we were no dough projects boys. And in 1956 that meant serious problems, serious problems even without a damn cold winter. See, like I said before the projects were for those who were on the down escalator in the golden age of post-World War II affluence. In short, as much as he begged, bothered and bewildered his mother there was no dough, no dough at all for the kind of sparkly suit (or at least jacket) that Billie was desperate for. Hell, he even badgered his dad, old Billie, Senior, and if you badgered old Billie then you had better be ready for some hard knocks and learn how to pick yourself up off the ground, sometimes more than once. Except this time, this time something hit Old Billie, something more than that bottle of booze or six, hard stinky-smelling booze, that he used to keep his courage and television-watching up. He told Mrs. Billie (real name, Iris) that he would spring for the cloth if she would make the suit. Whoopee! We are saved and even Billie, my Billie, had a kind word for his father on this one.

I won’t bore you with the details of Mrs. Billie’s (there you have me calling her that, I always called her Mrs. Bradley, or ma’am) efforts on behalf of Billie’s career. Of course the material for the suit came from the Bargain Center located downtown near the bus terminal. You don’t know the Bargain Center? Sure you do, except it had a different name where you lived maybe and it has names like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, etc. now. Haven’t you been paying attention? Where do you think the material came from? Brooks Brothers? Please. Now this Bargain Center was the early low- rent place where I, and about half the project kids got their first day of school and Easter outfits (the mandatory twice yearly periods for new outfits in those days). You know the white shirts with odd-colored pin-stripes, a size or two too large, the black chinos with cuffs, christ with cuffs like some hayseed, and other items that nobody wanted someplace else and got a second life at the “Bargie.” At least you didn’t have to worry about hand-me-downs because most of the time the stuff didn’t wear that long.

I will say that Mrs. B. did pretty good with what she had to work with and that when the coat was ready it looked good, even if it was done only an hour before the show. Christ, Billie almost flipped me out with his ranting that day. And I had seen some bad scenes before. In any case it was ready. Billie went to change clothes upstairs and when he came down everybody, even me, hell, even Old Billie was ooh-ing and ah-ing. Now Billie, to be truthful, didn’t look anything like Bill Haley. I think he actually looked more like Jerry Lee. Kind of thin and wiry, lanky maybe, with brown hair and blue eyes and a pretty good chin and face. I would say now a face that girls would go for; although I am not sure they would all swoon over him, except maybe the giggly ones.

So off we go on the never on time bus, a bus worthy of its own stories, to downtown and the auditorium, even my mother and father who thought Billie was the cat’s meow when I brought him around. Billie’s father, Old Billie of the small dreams, took a pass on going. He had a Friday night boxing match that he couldn’t miss and the couch beckoned (an argument could be made that Old Billie was a man before his time in the couch potato department). However all is forgiven him this night for his big idea, and his savior dough. We got to the school auditorium okay and Billie left us for stardom as we got in our rooting section seats. A few minutes later Billie ran up to us to tell us that he was fifth on the list so don’t go anywhere, like out for a cigarette or something.

We sat through the first four acts, a couple of guys doing Elvis stuff (so-so) and a couple of girls (or rather trios of girls) who did some serious be-bop stuff and had great harmonies. Billie, I sensed, was going to have his work cut out for him this night. Finally Billie came out, prompted the four-piece backup band to his song, and he started for the mike. He started out pretty good, in good voice and a couple of nice juke moves, but then about half way through; as he was wiggling and swiggling through his Rock Around The Clock all of a sudden one of the arms of his jacket fell off and landed in the front row. Billie didn’t miss a beat. This guy was a showman. Then the other jacket arm fell off and also went into the first row. Except this time a couple of swoony girls, girls from our school were tussling, seriously tussling, each other for it. See, they thought it was part of Billie’s act. And what they didn’t know as Billie finished up was that Mrs. Billie (I will be kind to her and not call her what Billie called her) in her rush to finish up didn’t sew the arms onto the body of the jacket securely so they were just held together by some temporary stitches.

Well, needless to say Billie didn’t win (one of those girl trios did, and rightly so, although I didn’t tell Billie that). But next day, and many next days after that, Billie had more girls hanging off his arms than he could shake a stick at. And you know maybe Billie was on to something after all because I started to notice those used-to-been scrawny, spindly-legged, pigeon-toed giggling girls, their new found bumps and curves, and their previously unremarkable winsome girlish charms, especially when Billie would give me his “castoffs.” So maybe his losing was for the best. My “for the best.”

*********

Rock Around The Clock

 

One, Two, Three O'clock, Four O'clock rock,
Five, Six, Seven O'clock, Eight O'clock rock.
Nine, Ten, Eleven O'clock, Twelve O'clock rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

Put your glad rags on and join me hon',
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one.

 

CHORUS:

We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylight,
We're gonna rock, we're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more.

 

CHORUS

When the chimes
ring five, six, and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.

 

CHORUS

When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,

I'll be going strong and so will you.

CHORUS

When the clock strikes twelve we'll cool off then,
Start rockin' 'round the clock again.

CHORUS

Add song meaning

---

Not sure what to write? See example

Example Song Meanings

Here is where you can write about what the highlighted lyrics are about and their meaning. An example would be...

"'Post code envy' describe the envious feeling towards the people who can live in expansive area with well known post code (such as 90210 for hollywood)."

You can also add pictures, videos and links to other sites using the links at the top of the box

SUBMIT

Thank You For Your Submission

---

Your song meaning will appear once it has been deemed awesome by our team of wizards. Add more meanings to earn more points!

 

Songwriters
MYERS, JAMES / FREEDMAN, MAX

Published by
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Read more: Bill Haley - Rock Around The Clock Lyrics | MetroLyrics

 

 

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-C.L.R. James (1901-1989)

BOOK REVIEW

BLACK JACOBIN-TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE AND THE SAN DOMINGO REVOLUTION, C.R.L.JAMES,VINTAGE BOOKS, 1989 NEW YORK
The French Revolution, as all great revolutions do, had effects on world politics and the struggle of other peoples whom it awoken to political life in its aftermath. The fight for freedom in French San Domingo (now Haiti, the name that I will use to avoid confusion hereafter) led by Toussaint to a point just short of independence is a prime example of that effect. Without the revolution in the metropolis it is very unlikely that at that time the struggle in Haiti could have been successful, or progressed as far as it did. The history of the times was replete with isolated unsuccessful slave rebellions. Why it was successful in Haiti and how that success was accomplished, mainly under the leadership of Toussaint in its decisive phases, is the subject of the eccentric Marxist, later Pan-Africanist historian C.L.R. James. Although originally written in 1938 Black Jacobin is still the best biography of Toussaint in English.

The freedom struggle in Haiti, a tropical island well suited to intensive agricultural development for the new international market in those goods necessary for the embryonic industrial system, was above all the struggle for the abolition of slavery. The fight against that servile condition was a struggle that many revolutionaries, white and black, and former revolutionaries of the time broke their teeth on. Today that freedom struggle, successful in its way in the Haiti of the early 19th century, remains a shining example of the most successful fight against slavery by the slaves. So it pays to pay particular attention to the fight.

The forces which pushed the French Revolution forward in the metropolis had their its own set of priorities, among them the fight to move the population from a condition of subjugation to a monarch to citizens of a democracy. I have noted elsewhere how important that changed social status was to the historical and psychological development of modern humankind. That same psychology applied to the struggle in Haiti although even more so under conditions of chattel slavery. Thus, the events in French had their reflection in the colonies particularly in Haiti. One can observe in France the changes in attitude and policy from the early revolutionary days when representatives all classes opposed to the monarchy were 'good fellows and true' through the rise of the leftist Robespierre regime based on the plebian masses, its eventually overthrow and establishment of the Directory and then the various manifestations of Napoleon's rule. That Napoleonic regime and its treacherous colonial policy attempting to reimpose slavery was a very far drop down hill from the early, heady days when even moderate revolutionaries were in both places prepared to go quite far to eliminate slavery.

There is something of a truism in the statement that great revolutions throw up personalities fit for the times. Certainly revolutions shake up the traditional order of things and let some individuals who might have stayed dormant rise to the occasion. That is the case with Toussaint. For most of his life he was a middle level functionary on his master’s estate respected by most but not slated for greatness. Early on, as the struggle against slavery heated up among the black slaves, he exhibited the military, social, political diplomatic and other skills that would eventual thrust him into the leadership of the liberation struggle.

This is really saying something special about the man because in the context of that Haitian revolution with the initial disputes between British, Spanish and French interests and then the conflicting interests on the island itself between white, black and mulatto would have driven a lesser man around the bend. That it did not do so and that in his errors of judgement that were, at times, grievous especially around his seemingly obsessive commitment to maintain the French connection, does not take away from the grandeur of the experience. A cursory look at the latter developments on the island and the seemingly never ending series of tin pot despots who in their turn devastated the island only brings out Toussaint’s fascinating role, warts and all, in the earlier liberation struggle in broader relief.

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

C.L.R. James (1901-1989)

The death of C.L.R. James in May 1989 brought to an end a remarkable life which embodied some of the distinctive movements of the twentieth century. An examination of the different facets of his career as an historian, political activist arid journalist, and a writer on art, literature and cricket, opens a window on the modern world. Two of its major currents, Marxism and Pan-Africanism, defined the substance of James’s work; but the particular quality of his approach was shaped by historical circumstances, the demands of time and place.
At the risk of oversimplification we could label the five main periods of James’s life as follows: 1901-32 Trinidad, the making of a colonial intellectual; 1932-38 Britain, Trotskyist and Pan-Africanist; 1938-53 America, Marxist theoretician and Black activist; 1953-66 Africa and the Caribbean, the struggle for independence; 1967-89 International, teacher and mentor.
James’s writings reflected this pattern, containing both the specific political problems he addressed at any one time and yet charting more general developments in his ideas and methods. Throughout his life, James was a lively and prominent contributor to debate, exploring the issues of the day largely through newspaper columns and internal discussion documents. These were the preparatory stages to his major statements which appeared as full-scale works towards the close of each phase of his career. It is not possible here to examine the substance of these texts, but only to situate them by sketching the broad contours of James’s life, and by highlighting the features of its successive phases.
Although James’s pre-war experiences in Britain and Europe were critical to his political formation, it is important to remember that when he left his native Trinidad in 1932, he was mature and educated, and widely read in history, literature anti the classics. Furthermore, his method and perspective on the world were already formed. Both were encapsulated in his understanding of cricket. His own active participation in the game, combined with an intensive study of its evolution and development, led James to see cricket as a metaphor for society (reflecting its structure, movement, personalities); and, at the core of its interpretation, lay an historical approach.
James’s youth was not marked by any obvious political interest, but he reached adulthood at a time of change and unrest in Trinidad’s colonial society. He was aware, in particular, of the growing agitation among West Indian servicemen returning from the First World War with new experiences and an exposure to revolutionary ideas. Their spokesman, Captain Cipriani, articulated the more general dissatisfactions with Crown Colony government and, during the 1920s, James followed his rise as Trinidad’s popular political leader.
At the same time James, a member of the island’s literary circle, was writing fiction which celebrated the vitality of ordinary men and women living in the urban slums or ‘barrackyards’. The themes and characters he chose, however, were not dictated by conscious political considerations or by an explicit desire for social realism. Rather, they grew out of the material available to him as a writer in Trinidad. Barrackyard life, vibrant and unexplored, was a creative source and a form of life native to the Caribbean. Through its discovery, James and his contemporaries began to break the hold of the English tradition over the subject matter of colonial writing.
In the spring of 1932 James left Trinidad in search of a career as a writer in London’s Bloomsbury. But he was soon embarked on a course different from the one he expected: “I arrived in England intending to make my way as a writer of fiction, but the world went political and I went with it.”
James’s first taste of radical politics came with his move to Nelson, the militant Lancashire textile town which employed his friend, Learie Constantine, as a professional cricketer. Here they collaborated on Constantine’s cricket memoirs and James completed and published The Life of Captain Cipriani. It was abridged a year later by Leonard Woolf as The Case for West Indian Self-Government. Its appearance marked the end of the first phase of James’s life, one firmly situated in the formative conditions of his Caribbean youth.
James learned a great deal from his stay in Lancashire, witnessing the day-to-day struggles and becoming familiar with the pragmatic political outlook of its working class communities. It was in Nelson, too, that he first became acquainted with Marxism.
Later he joined the Trotskyist movement and he focused his attention on the question of the revolution in Europe. This work taught him, above all, the importance of international working class collaboration, and it lay at the heart of his response to the Abyssinian crisis of 1935-36. The equivocation, however, of the leaders of the organised labour movement on the issue of workers’ sanctions against Italy came as a harsh lesson to James, and he expressed it clearly at the time:

Africans must win their own freedom. Nobody will win it for them. They need co-operation, but that co-operation must be with the revolutionary movement in Europe and Asia.

The Abyssinian crisis turned James decisively towards Africa. In addition it gave focus to a number of general questions concerning leadership and the masses in revolutionary situations, and the relationship between European powers and the colonial world, which were beginning to crystallise in his study of the 1791 San Domingo slave revolution.
James’s work on these issues was further strengthened by the arrival in London, in 1936, of George Padmore. Together they established, with other activists, the African Service Bureau, an organisation dedicated to the cause of colonial freedom. This initiative lay firmly within the tradition of immigrant radicalism which was a distinctive part of British political life – a tradition of activists from abroad who had advocated general ideals (such as colonial emancipation) whilst inserting themselves into local political struggles.
James’s approach to politics was distinctive in two ways. First of all, in contrast to many of his colleagues who ventured into history only after reading Marx, James was steeped in the history and literature of Europe before he studied the principal works of the Marxist tradition. His historical perspective had been established in the West Indies and the method he developed through the study of cricket marked every aspect of his career in Britain. Secondly, James rejected the widely held view of radicals that the revolution had to take place first in Europe; only then would its leaders be able to grant colonial subjects their freedom. He knew from history and from his own experiences the great potential of the so-called ‘backward peoples’.
The major texts of James’s years in Britain (World Revolution, The Black Jacobins, The History of Negro Revolt) all appeared towards the end of his stay. They reflected the direction in which his ideas were moving, specifically his attempt to integrate the struggles of black and colonial peoples into the revolutionary concerns of European Marxism. They also contained the seeds of James’s future work, work both practical and theoretical, which he brought to maturity during his 15 year sojourn in America.
Upon his arrival in the United States, at the end of 1938, James undertook an extensive speaking tour for the Socialist Workers Party. He addressed audiences on the approaching war in Europe, and on the Negro problem. These issues formed the basis for his discussions with Trotsky in Coyoacan, Mexico and they defined James’s concerns for over a decade.
In order to clarify his position as a Marxist on the key issues raised by the two questions, James embarked on philosophical study, whilst engaging in intensive political activity, especially in the black communities.
The more deeply he penetrated into the lives of America’s blacks, both the industrial workers of the northern cities and the agricultural labourers in the south, the more certain James became of the key rôle they would play in America’s future. Their struggle, founded in the history and day-to-day experience of a stark inequality, had an independent vitality and developing organic perspective of its own. For James the black question was the American question. It encapsulated the central contradictions of a society whose original ideals of freedom and equality were, in the twentieth century, crushed by the coercive power of industrial capitalism.
The other main strand of James’s American work was stimulated initially by the confusion in the SWP following tine signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939.
James, with a handful of collaborators, most notably Raya Dunayevskaya (a Russian expert) and Grace Lee (a student of German philosophy) established the Johnson-Forest Tendency, which worked within Max Shachtman’s breakaway Workers Party. They quickly discovered that in examining the nature of the Soviet Union and its relationship to the development of capitalism, they were drawn deeply into questions of philosophy, specifically into examining the Hegelian dialectic.
James’s theoretical investigations and political activism fed directly into each. other, and the results were presented in a series of publications. Among the most important were The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem ire the United States (1948), Notes on Dialectics (1948) and State Capitalism and World Revolution (1950).
In establishing an independent Marxist position based on the work of Lenin, James had reached the conclusion that Trotskyism was not just wrong in its ideas, but fundamentally wrong in its method. He broke decisively with the movement; he was also ready to break with the old European forms of political life, which he had come to see as irrelevant to America, and an incubus on world development.
James had long been engaged in the project of seeking to understand American society, studying its literature and history, but also paying serious attention to the popular arts. He read detective novels and comic strips, he watched B movies, and followed the careers of Hollywood film stars. He became a ‘neighbourhood man’, observing closely the daily lives of men and women, their social relations, their living space, the routines of work and leisure. There are few hints of this enormous project in James's voluminous contributions to the debates within Trotskyism during the 1940s; but in 1950 he sketched out his ideas in a manuscript of almost 400 pages.
His essay on American civilisation 1 represents, in style and content, the crux of James’s development as a political thinker and activist. It stands between the major theoretical works of the 1930s and 1940s and the broader perspective of his mature years.
Here he abandoned the European model of intellectual leadership, party politics and culture (‘old bourgeois civilisation’) and situated himself in the New World with an original conception of political life. He found in America the conditions for a fundamental revolution in human relations, of a size and scope commensurate with the developments in the organisation of production. In seeking to integrate lives fragmented by the division of labour, the mass of the American people would create new forms of political association and expression. Politics could no longer be separate from everyday life.
The uncertainty of James’s position in America, however, forced him to abandon work on this draft. In 1952, interned on Ellis Island as he awaited deportation, he wrote his book on Herman Melville – Mariners, Renegades and Castaways. In its themes and preoccupations it was clearly taken from the more ambitious and comprehensive study of America he had already begun. His concern was with no less than the conditions of survival of modern civilisation.
Both works may be understood as the first volume of James's autobiography, not just because together they contain the fullest statement of his political position as he reached the peak of his mental powers, but also because they have at their core the excavation of the intellectual tradition to which James was so closely bound. Their writing cleared the way for the second autobiographical volume. It went further back, exploring the formative conditions of James’s Caribbean upbringing, and it appeared a decade later as Beyond the Boundary.
After his expulsion from the United States in 1953, James found himself adrift. He had broken with the organised revolutionary movement in which he had worked for 20 years; and he had been forcibly separated from the vitality and expansiveness of the New World.
Pan-Africanism was an important focus for James in the years 1953-66, the era of decolonisation. He devoted much of his time to addressing problems which faced the newly-independent countries in Africa and the Caribbean.
The writing of Beyond A Boundary became his other major intellectual project. In the context of the New World, James had moved beyond the European tradition with its separation of politics and culture, art and entertainment, intellectuals and the common people. Beyond A Boundary's broad imaginative sweep gave expression to this newly-found freedom.
In the middle of writing this book James accepted an invitation to return to Trinidad as editor of a party newspaper. The People’s National Movement was led by Dr Eric Williams, a former pupil of James, and was set to lead the island to independence. James returned to the Caribbean in 1958, at a time when it was alive with political debate and when many of the unresolved tensions, released by changes in society, found expression on and around the cricket field. He was, at once, the same and a different man from the young, educated, colonial intellectual who, some 26 years earlier, had left Trinidad in search of a literary career abroad. This was the island of his formation and Beyond A Boundary was securely rooted there; but the quality of his analysis drew on the decades of intensive political work in Europe and America. Furthermore, it was an autobiography for reasons more profound.
In James’s mind the completion of the book and the imminent independence of the Caribbean islands were intimately connected. He sought through cricket to integrate history with personal biography, to ‘see’ himself, and, in this way, he merged his unique vision of humanity with the historical moment which brought forth a new society.
James never retreated from this vision, from his belief in the creativity and capacity of the Caribbean people; but all around him political and economic conditions thwarted its realisation. He left Trinidad on the eve of its independence and Beyond A Boundary was published a year later in 1963, to great critical acclaim. It was his last major original work, representing as it did the completion of a personal journey which had carried him from a tiny outpost of the British Empire into the centre of world politics.
In the final phase of his life, 1967-89, James travelled widely, and wrote essays and lectured to audiences in Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. He continued to explore the themes which had been established during his creative years, and which constitute his original work.
James was working until his death. He was preparing several manuscripts for publication and he continued to receive many visitors at his London home. His ease with people of different backgrounds and experiences, his interest in the details of their lives, and his keen sense of their historical place laid the basis for exchanges of great range and depth. For others, engagement with James's ideas and method had developed through a study of his writings. Their rich legacy is the tangible evidence of James’s profound and enquiring humanity.
Anna Grimshaw

Notes

1. This work, to be published shortly as The Struggle For Happiness, is being edited with an introduction by Anna Grimshaw and Keith Hart. The present essay is drawn substantially from that introduction.

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-Honor An Historic Leader Of The American Labor Movement-“Big Bill Haywood  

 

 

 

 EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND, AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. DURING THE MONTH WE ALSO HONOR OTHER HISTORIC LEADERS AS WELL ON THIS SITE.

Book Review

Big Bill Haywood, Melvyn Dubofsky, Manchester University Press, Manchester England, 1987

If you are sitting around today wondering, as I occasionally do, what a modern day radical labor leader should look like then one need go no further than to observe the career, warts and all, of the legendary Bill Haywood. To previous generations of radicals that name would draw an automatic response. Today’s radicals, and others interested in social solutions to the pressing problems that have been bestowed on us by the continuation of the capitalist mode of production, may not be familiar with the man and his program for working class power. Professor Dubofsky’s little biographical sketch is thus just the cure for those who need a primer on this hero of the working class.

The good professor goes into some detail, despite limited accessibility, about Haywood’s early life out in the Western United States in the late 19th century. Those hard scrabble experiences made a huge imprint on the young Haywood as he tramped from mining camp to mining camp and tried to make ends mean, any way he could. Haywood, moreover, is the perfect example of the fact that working class political consciousness is not innate but gained through the hard experiences of life under the capitalist system. Thus, Haywood moved from itinerant miner to become a leading member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and moved leftward along the political spectrum along the way. Not a small part in that was due to his trial on trumped up charges in Idaho for murder as part of a labor crackdown against the WFM by the mine owners and their political allies there.

As virtually all working class militants did at the turn of the 20th century, Big Bill became involved with the early American socialist movement and followed the lead of the sainted Eugene V. Debs. As part of the ferment of labor agitation during this period the organization that Haywood is most closely associated with was formed-The Industrial Workers of the World (hereafter IWW, also known as Wobblies). This organization- part union, part political party- was the most radical expression (far more radical than the rather tepid socialist organizations) of the American labor movement in the period before World War I.

The bulk of Professor Dubofsky’s book centers, as it should, on Haywood’s exploits as a leader of the IWW. Big Bill’s ups and downs mirrored the ups and downs of the organization. The professor goes into the various labor fights that Haywood led highlighted by the great 1912 Lawrence strike (of bread and roses fame), the various free speech fights but also the draconian Wilsonian policy toward the IWW after America declared war in 1917. That governmental policy essentially crushed the IWW as a mass working class organization. Moreover, as a leader Haywood personally felt the full wrath of the capitalist government. Facing extended jail time Haywood eventually fled to the young Soviet republic where he died in lonely exile in 1928.

The professor adequately tackles the problem of the political and moral consequences of that escape to Russia for the IWW and to his still imprisoned comrades so I will not address it here. However, there are two points noted by Dubofsky that warrant comment. First, he notes that Big Bill was a first rate organizer in both the WFM and the IWW. Those of us who are Marxists sometimes tend to place more emphasis of the fact that labor leaders need to be “tribunes of the people” that we sometimes neglect the important “trade union secretary” part of the formula. Haywood seems to have had it all. Secondly, Haywood’s and the IWW’s experience with government repression during World War I, repeated in the “Red Scare” experience of the 1950’s against Communists and then later against the Black Panthers in the 1960’s should be etched into the brain of every militant today. When the deal goes down the capitalists and their hangers-on will do anything to keep their system. Anything. That said, read this Haywood primer. It is an important contribution to the study of American labor history.

***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator – Out In The Slumming Mean Streets -Take Two

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Those who have been following this series about the exploits of the famous Ocean City (located just south of Los Angeles then now incorporated into the county) private detective Michael Philip Marlin (hereafter just Marlin the way everybody when he became famous after the Galton case out on the coast) and his contemporaries in the private detection business like Freddy Vance, Charles Nicolas (okay, okay Clara too), Sam Archer, Miles Spade, Johnny Spain, know that he related many of these stories to his son, Tyrone Fallon, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tyrone later, in the 1970s, related these stories to the journalist who uncovered the relationship , Joshua Lawrence Breslin, a friend of my boyhood friend, Peter Paul Markin, who in turn related them to me over several weeks in the late 1980s. Despite that circuitous route I believe that I have been faithful to what Marlin presented to his son. In any case I take full responsibility for what follows.        

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

Yeah, you know all the names of the streets, Hollywood and Vine, Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, Rodeo Drive, and twenty others, streets where the American dream, celluloid version, was to come true for sweet sixteens from Omaha, Cincinnati, and, hell, Greenwood down in Mississippi too. All the towns where girls had 1940s dreams, Lana Turner dreams, meaning every town on the continent (and for black Mississippi girls, Greenwood girls, Lena Horne stormy weather dreams).  Guys, hulks too, with leading man cowboy or man-about-town dreams, from Toledo, Scranton and Biloxi. Every color, every sex, every religion, including those without, getting hopes up high as the sky after landing with a couple of dollars and the last of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the Greyhound bus station over on Vine.  (Or maybe some dusty, bedraggled hitchhike highway let-off point if he or she was in a hurry for fame and didn’t have the bus or train fare.) Hoping beyond hope that if they sat at just the right drugstore soda fountain at just the right time they would be “discovered.”

Problem, was, is, that the dream was fit to size for only a small number of those hordes who bussed in from Lansing, Yonker, and Portland (east or west take your pick), Clarksdale too. And that is where the knight in shining armor, the old wind-mill chaser, the old Los Angeles fixture private eye, Michael Philip Marlin, came in, came in to try and save one such weary female traveler cold before the lights went out, before the dream turned to bitter ashes. Worse before she turned up in some party-girl whorehouse working her way down to the streets to feed some “jones” some “john” fixe don her, some private “blue” movie for some rich, eccentric, weird producer where she was finally the “star”, or dead in some floating ravine because returning home to some forsaken white- picket fence reality was not an option after tinsel-town.   

Just in case you don’t know, private cops, more so than the public ones with their full petty cash drawer for their bevy of snitches on the payroll, depend on information from lots of places, have favors done for them from lots of people, with or without information. That is what caused our white knight Marlin to be out in the mean streets of Hollywood one night in 1940. Seems that a guy, a guy, Mike Davis, who ran the Dee-Drop Inn Diner over on Noon Street in the fair city of angels had done Marlin a few good turns and so he asked Marlin to look into a cold case, a case of a young black woman, Millie Jones, from back home down in the Delta who, stardust in her eyes, wound up face down in a forsaken ravine with about seven slashes across her body. Not a pretty sight.  (A cold case for the public police is one where they are clueless on how to solve it without having to leave their desks and dump it before it even has time to get looked at, most cases as it turned out.)

So Marlin asked around and got nowhere, got nowhere from the cops, from anybody who knew the girl, knew she had taken that “blue” movie marquee route after some pretty- boy son of a director put her on the nod (and gave her the clap too). Nada. Nada, until he accidently witnessed a strange scene just off of Knight Street where a young good-looking black woman with a lovely shape and long legs, Terry Blake, appeared to have been set up by somebody because when she went to out on the street to meet a man in a Cadillac, maybe a john, maybe a go-for, half of the Hollywood Precinct came out of the woodwork. (Yeah when there is the periodic cry of the citizenry for the cops to do something they stage these “easy arrests” to placate the public and then go back to sleep until the next outcry.)

On a hunch, out of some preternatural sense that this was a bad set-up, Marlin swooped her up before she open the door to the vehicle. A good hunch too because as things unfolded later, she was just a pigeon in the play. Naturally when money is involved (as Marlin also found out later she was supposed to pick up a cool fifty K from the man in the Caddy), and not just money, the fingers of Tripper Lamb had to be all over the deal. Tripper used his Club Capri over on Sunset Boulevard as a front for all his illegal operations; drugs, women, booze, numbers, and a special service for whatever Hollywood big-shot wanted, anything.

And that anything is how Terry almost got set-up for a five to ten count. Terry, fresh off the buses from down in Greenwood, Mississippi with “I’m as pretty as Lena Horne stardust in her eyes” but with not even a peanut butter sandwich as she left the bus at Vine needed a job and a place to stay. Now no question she was good- looking, an in demand “high yella” to boot and so one of Tripper’s gang who kept an eye out for such talent at bus stations, truck stop diners, drugstore soda fountains, and not surprisingly low-rent whorehouses swooped in on her with talk of meeting Hollywood stars, parties, maybe even a part in a movie. Terry said, well, that was what she was here for and so started her career as a “hostess” in one of Tripper’s clubs where high-rollers with a taste for black flesh congregated.

And to show her appreciation for her start and for a roof over her head Tripper asked Terry, pretty please asked her to do this little, little favor of picking up that bag of dough from a black Caddy on Knight Street. The set-up part, the craven throwing some hick black girl, even if beautiful, to the wolves though was a result of Tripper feeling some heat from the cops (his “cops on the take who informed him what was what ) who were feeling the heat from the tax-paying citizens of Los Angeles. Just using Terry to pay off old debts to the cops by giving them an easy collar and plenty of ink about busting that damn money laundering ring stuff that had half the town nervous about the next shoot-out.

Terry, once Marlin found out what the hell had come down and told her of her pigeon status, was mad as hell. And Marlin sensing a roll in the hay with a luscious dame if he helped out gathered in Terry’s anger. Gathered it too because no way, no way in hell was Tripper Lamb going to let some hick from wherever she was from bust up his operations once she confronted him, unwisely confronted him, unknown to Marlin, that she was ready to squawk to the newspaper boys who always craved a good corruption story and the local good citizens’ committee looking evidence of sin. Naturally Tripper had one of his gunsels, Big Nig, assigned to shut her up, shut her up permanently, and he almost did except Marlin coming up the street and noticing a flash car that did not belong on the edges of “from hunger” Flatley Street when the stardust came off from those who were thrown back on the heap after having their minute in the sun got the drop on the big guy (and he really was big, black, about six -five and two- fifty). After some gunplay the big guy fell, gone.  

After that incident Terry, on Marlin’s advice slipped out of sight (was holed up over in Ocean City in a friend of Marlin’s apartment). With Big Nig’s untimely demise it had become strictly a war between one Michael Philip Marlin and one John “Tripper” Lamb. Naturally Tripper came up short. He had tried to set up an ambush by luring Marlin over the Club Capri to have a chat and arrange a truce. Problem for Tripper was that Marlin had arrived an hour before the “meet” and had seen Tripper deploying his troops. Marlin just slipped around the loop and waited for Tripper in his office. Sat right at the big man’s desk as he came in, Tripper reached for his gun and Marlin, gun in hand already, put two in the gangster’s heart.     

As it turned out Marlin didn’t get that couple of rolls in the hay with Terry, although she was willing since he had saved her neck, had kept her from Millie’s fate, before he put her back on the bus to Greenwood but that was the breaks. It came out after Tripper Lamb’s demise that Millie had been on a downward spiral once some good- time walking daddy put her on the nod, and had turned her into a trick for sex perverts. Of course she had worked at one of Trippers’ high-roller clubs and one night she had gotten caught up with a weird guy and when she tried to resist his perversions he cut her six ways to Sunday. Terry blanched when she heard that story. So yeah, Marlin scraped the stardust off her, gave her bus-fare and eating money and put her on that bus to get her far away from the means slumming streets of the city of angels where she could not survive. 

***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Ike Turner’s Rocket 88

…she hadn’t thought about the upcoming date all that much, hadn’t thought about how Art was going to squire her to the first dance of the school year, the decisive Fall Frolic. Decisive in that one’s date, one’s successful date, at that event usually foretold who one would be going to the senior prom with. It wasn’t that she was crazy for Art, not in the way best friend, Jenny, was over Sal, Sal with the wavy black hair and athletic build, crazy to let him do what he wanted with her, but she did see him a one part of her “item” for the senior year if only he showed a little spark her way. Damn, she almost had to force the issue and invite him to the dance herself after they had spent some time together in school talking and then he walking her home after school, talking. So they had spent their time together before the dance in that way. And here it was the big night and she was now preening herself as expected of any girl going to the Frolics with a guy that might form part of an “item” for senior year.

She wasn’t sure when she heard the rumble of the engine coming up the street maybe just before the car stopped in front of her house but she definitely heard it before Art knocked on the door downstairs as her mother welcomed him in while she was finishing her last preparations. As she came down she noticed that he looked especially handsome in his suit and hair parted just so. Things already looked up for the evening. She did not know the half of it though until he opened the front door for her as they were leaving and she spied that big old Cadillac sitting in front of her sidewalk. Seems that old Art once he got the message from the time around the dance invitation started his own version of the courting ritual and convinced his friend, Spider Mack, to let him borrow his souped-up Caddy. And off they went, she proud to be seem in the company of a man who knew how to bring a girl to the dance in style.

But that was only the half of it since once they got to the school gym when the Frolics were held annually Art seemed a man transformed as the cover band hired for the evening, the Ready Riders, kissed off the old classics that guided previous dances and kicked out the jams. She noticed that Art had become almost a whirling dervish as he rocked to some older rhythm and blues stuff and then laid out the program when the band tore into a big riffing dose of Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 that everybody at Doc’s Drugstore over on Main was dropping endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box to hear over and over. As the dance ended she, they ran into Jenny and Sal, and she, she who had secretly scorned the stuff Jenny told her that she and Sal did down at Adamsville Beach, suggested that the foursome go down to that very beach to, well, she said cool off after the dance. But you know what she meant. So, yes, if anybody was interested she and Art were an “item” that year …               

*********
Rocket 88         

You woman have heard of jalopies
You heard the noise they make
Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88
Yes, it's great, just won't wait
Everybody likes my Rocket '88
Baby, we'll will ride in style movin' all along

V-8 motor and this modern design
Black convertible top and the girls don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy
Blow your horn, rocket, blow your horn

Step in my rocket and don't be late
We're pullin' out about a half past eight
Goin' on the corner and havin' some fun
Takin' my rocket on a long, hot run
Ooh, goin' out, oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun

Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88
I'll be around every night about eight
You know it's great, don't be late
Everybody likes my Rocket '88
Girls will ride in style movin' all along

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/jackie-brenston/rocket-88-lyrics/#jxXskKb8Yxv3Z2RP.99

 

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Where is the SAP going?(1933)

Markin comment:

The Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia in October 1917 was consciously predicated by the leadership (Lenin, Trotsky, etc., some others pushing forward, some being dragged along in the fight) on the premise that the Russian revolution would not, could not, stand alone for long either against the backlash onslaught of world imperialism, or on a more positive note, once the tasks of socialist construction reached a certain point. The purpose of the Communist International, founded in 1919 in the heat of the Russian civil war, by the Bolsheviks and their international supporters was the organizational expression of that above-mentioned premise. To work through and learn the lessons of the Bolshevik experience and to go all out to defeat world imperialism and create a new social order. I might add that political, social, and military conditions in war-weary World War I Europe in 1918 and 1919 made those premises something more than far-fetched utopian hopes. And central to those hopes were events in Germany.

If the original premise of Marxism (espoused specifically by both Marx and Engels in their respective political lifetimes) that the revolution would break out in an advanced capitalist European country then Germany, with its high level of capitalist development and socialist traditions and organizations, was the logical place to assume such an event would occur. And that premise, despite the betrayals of the German social democratic leadership in the war period, animated Lenin and Trotsky in their planning for the extension of socialist revolution westward. The rise of a “peace” socialist wing (the Independent Socialists) during the late phases of the war, the events around the smashing of the German monarchy and the creation of a socialist-led bourgeois republic in the wake of military defeat, the ill-starred Spartacist uprising, the working class response to the later Kapp Putsch, the also-ill-starred March Action of 1921, and the possibilities of a revolution in 1923 in reaction to the French exactions in the Ruhr and other events that year all made for a period of realistic revolutionary upheaval that was fertile ground for revolutionaries. And revolutionary hopes.

As we are painfully, no, very painfully, aware no revolution occurred in that period and that hard fact had profound repercussions on the then isolated Russian experiment. That hard fact has also left a somewhat unresolved question among communist militants, thoughtful communist militants anyway, about the prospects then. The question boils down to, as foreshadowed in the headline to this entry, whether there was any basis for the notion that a revolution could have occurred in Germany in 1923. We know what happened because it didn’t, but there are sometimes valuable conditionals pose in absorbing the lessons of history, our communist history. The yes or no of a German revolution is one such question. I have given my opinion previously-if there was no chance of revolution in Germany in 1923, win or lose, then the whole notion of proletarian revolution was just a utopian dream of a bunch of European outcast radicals. The corollary to that proposition is that, in the year 2010, the socialist cooperative notion that we fight for, other than as an abstract intellectual idea, is utopian, and that we are the mad grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) of those mad Europeans. That idea, with world imperialism wreaking havoc and breathing down our backs relentlessly in all quarters makes that corollary ill-founded. 

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

Where is the SAP going?

What follows is a translation of Wohin treibt die SAP?, which appeared in Permanente Revolution (no.6, 2 February 1933), the magazine of the German Trotskyists, and which was republished in facsimile form by the GIM, the German section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. We owe our thanks to the comrades of the International Communist League for translating this article.
The polemic retains much of its validity, in spite of its ephemeral character. Shortly after its publication, the left faction of the SAP, led by Jakob Walcher, which had left Brander’s KPO, took over the leadership of the SAP, and earned Trotsky’s praise by turning it in a revolutionary direction.
The party conference of the SAP will convene in a few days. It is supposed to adopt a position on important questions concerning the SAP's further course and fate. There are numerous valuable individuals in the ranks of the SAP who are seriously seeking a solution. The discussion which has erupted at present in the pages of the SAZ is an expression of the mood which is dominant among the SAP membership. It is certain that the numerous unspent young people in the SAP will yet be of significance for the proletarian revolution. For that reason we turn to these members with our suggestions and our criticism; for that reason we speak openly about our assessment of the situation and perspectives of the SAP. What motivates us is not cheap ridicule, à la Thälmann and Brandler, of the fact that the SAP is headed downwards, but the attempt to engage in a serious discussion of politics and principles with the members of the SAP.
Brandlerite and other bureaucrats fell over themselves in a vehement uproar when at the beginning of 1932 Trotsky in his What Next? called the SAP a “living current” and spoke clearly about the tasks that confront it. But the point is really not to scorn the efforts of the workers seeking a path – such are Brandlerite or Thälmannite methods – but rather to stand at their side in order to find and work out the right path. That is the task of all Marxist-Leninists.
Fifteen months have passed since the foundation of the SAP. At the time it was no doubt more a forced than a voluntary founding. This circumstance already showed the weakness of Seydewitz, Rosenfeld and Co, and showed that they remained utterly true to themselves in an indecisive opposition which could not seriously weaken the accursed and bloodstained traitors of the party executive nor strengthen the left. Fickleness, indecisiveness, helplessness, defencelessness: those around Seydewitz have remained true to their character even today. This was the inheritance they brought with them into the young SAP and thus, since things have their own logic, from the outset they necessarily weighed down the new party with decrepitude, and in a short time led it into new conflicts.
Around the ‘core troops’ of the Seydewitzes and Rosenfelds there immediately rallied groups and grouplets of the most diverse nature, of which the ‘Minority of the KPO’ was undoubtedly the most significant. It had gone through the school of the KPD and Comintern, through the experience of revolutionary class struggle beginning with the Spartakusbund, broke away from the rotting stagnation of the Brandler-Thalheimer bureaucratic clique, and had to face a revolutionary test once again in the SAP. In this regard the KPO Minority was confronted with great tasks, and could be characterised as the more advanced element of the SAP.
The Minority of the KPO preferred to evade the most serious and fundamental tasks, namely, the clarification of the principles of Marxism-Leninism. Seeing eye-to-eye with Seydewitz, they confined themselves – in keeping with the formulation of Communist commonplaces – to so-called ‘mass actions’, to a ‘United Front policy’ – and did not let themselves be overly oppressed by all these questions of principle. They were content to attack the KPD’s false United Front policy, the revolutionary trade union position and the lack of inner-party democracy. But this could not distinguish them in the least from Brandler, and justified even less the foundation of a party of their own, no matter how much talk there was about setting up a Communist ‘model party’. The KPO Minority has so far proved too weak to clarify within the SAP the experience of the past few years, which has a bearing on principles, and has zealously avoided taking a clear position of principle on the fundamental experience of the Comintern, and on the problems which caused and are causing the parting of the ways in the Comintern. It is possible to have Brandlerite swamp politics even without Brandler.
We Bolshevik-Leninists saw and still see in the SAP a product of the errors of the Stalin faction in the Comintern, and particularly in its German section. There were and are concrete questions of political principle which we pose to the SAP membership:

To the left elements of the SAP we say, “Revolutionaries are tempered not only in strikes and street battles but, first of all, during struggles for the correct policies of their own party. Take the Twenty-one Conditions, worked out, in their own time, for the admission of new parties into the Comintern. Take the works of the Left Opposition where the Twenty-one Conditions are applied to the political developments of the last eight years. In the light of these ‘conditions’ open a planned attack against centrism within your own ranks and lead the matter to its conclusion. Otherwise nothing will remain for you except the hardly respectable rôle of serving as a left cover for centrism.” (Trotsky, What Next?)

Trotsky's formulation of the question is as relevant now as it was when the SAP was launched, and takes on more significance in the current disputes. Up to now the SAP has been content to note with approval individual statements by the Left Opposition opposing Thälmann’s policies. When it comes to questions having the character of eminently important principles, however, it has been more cautious than if it were walking on eggs.
Trotsky told Walcher, Frölich and Co:

A platform is essential! We have in mind not a document recapitulating the commonplaces of the Communist catechism, but clear and concrete answers to those questions of the proletarian revolution which have torn the ranks of Communism for the past nine years and which retain their burning significance even now. Lacking this, one can only become dissolved in the SAP and hinder, not facilitate, its development towards Communism. (What Next?)

Did the Walcher group undertake a serious treatment of even one of the questions posed? This cannot be asserted, try as one might. We would like to raise here briefly for the members of the SAP only a few of the most important questions:
1. You often say that the SAP must be a Communist party. At present there are three currents in Communism: a right wing current, represented in Germany by Brandler, a centrist one, represented by the Stalin faction, and a left wing current, which is embodied by the International Left Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists). What is your assessment of these currents? The SAP struggles against the ‘ultra-left tactics’ of the present-day KPD and Comintern, i.e. the Stalin faction. This formulation about the present ‘ultra-left tactics’ is a Brandlerite invention. In reality the KPD and Comintern oscillate from ultra-left to the crassest right wing opportunism. That is the essence of the Stalin faction’s bureaucratic centrism. Are you only against the ‘ultra-left errors’? Are you for the right-wing, opportunistic ones? But the Stalin faction’s oscillations must have a certain axis: have you thought about and seriously discussed this question of bureaucratic centrism? Or are you prepared to dissolve into the KPD and Comintern as soon as they give up their ultra-left errors?
2. Has the SAP taken a critical position on the experience of the last 10 years of German politics, and does it make a principled assessment of it? Such an assessment is of decisive importance, and for the further strategic perspectives of German developments one cannot do without it. The German proletariat’s defeat in October 1923 also falls under this question. What is your position on that? Do you simply uncritically take over Brandler’s theory? Do you believe that your party can remain without a principled political decision and swim about among the various opinions, striving in truly centrist fashion to break completely with no one and to solidarise decisively with no one? An article by Paul Frölich, Papen-Schleicher-Hitler, in the SAZ (25 December 1932), offers a typical and even comical example of this. He writes: “Such a system [the Schleicher regime] possesses characteristic features of Bonapartism, an analogy first referred to by Trotsky. But whilst he also applied this characterisation to Bruning and Papen, in our opinion it was not legitimate until now, with the Schleicher regime ...” Frölich committed the indiscretion of solidarising with the view of the Left Opposition on the question of Bonapartism, but he immediately shrank back and corrected himself: ‘now’ one could speak of Bonapartism; then, when Trotsky used this explanation for the first time, it was not correct. Why it is wrong to predict probable developments and to make an assessment on the basis of the embryonic forms at hand remains Frölich’s secret. This example aptly characterises the instinct for self preservation of a group without principles.
But there are also other examples of this. The SAZ has published several critiques of Trotsky’s works, most recently on the History of the Russian Revolution and The Soviet Economy in Danger. But, unfortunately, these reviews in the SAZ are lacking in any endeavour to deal seriously with reality. They are the critiques of people out for a stroll in politics, and are designed merely to dodge questions of the utmost importance in a dilettantish way.
3. Revolutionary Marxists must be internationalists. Proletarian internationalism is not a pretty title, but a serious commitment. It is not saying much to publish a little article now and then on some international question or other: international solidarity must be expressed in the daily life of the organisation. But with whom do you solidarise internationally? – the English ILP or some other centrist party which, because of its fickleness, cannot have a stimulating impact on the working class. Yet you want to be Communists: what does the ILP have to do with Communism?
4. You sympathise with the Soviet Union. But that in itself does not mean much. All possible and impossible groups and individuals ‘sympathise’ with the Soviet Union. What is decisive, however, is the question: what is your position on the problems of the development of the USSR?
Thousands of Bolshevik-Leninists are persecuted, exiled, or imprisoned by the Stalin bureaucracy. Do you know of this? Do you know the reasons for this persecution? Do you know the works of the Left Opposition, the fundamental works on the prospects for development which Rakovsky wrote in exile? Have you discussed them, and what position as a matter of principle do you take on these questions?
The fate of the world working class for several decades depends on the course of events in the USSR. Can you and do you desire to pass over such a vital question for the proletariat with non-committal phrases?
5. The questions of the Chinese revolution are among the most important problems of the post-war period. By its policy the Stalinist faction in the Comintern drove this revolution in 1925-27 to a severe defeat. Are you content to criticise with empty words, or to pass over this in silence? What is the experience gained and what are the lessons of the Chinese revolution? What are its further prospects?
6. Have you taken a position on the tactical and strategic disputes which arose from the Spanish revolution, the most important event of the past few years? What is your view of it in terms of principles? Are you content merely to ‘sympathise’ with the revolution and be fellow travellers, but to avoid a thorough study of the experience? That does a very poor service to the working class and the proletarian revolution.
7. Perhaps one could say that you have touched upon the problem of the Anglo-Russian Committee – touched, but no more. A little section in the Rotes Gewerkschaftsbuch is devoted to this question: but what came of it? Here, as everywhere, are the non-committal ‘ifs and buts’, the meaningless ‘partly-partly’, ‘on the one hand-on the other hand’. But these questions are crucial questions for a revolutionary Communist policy.
8. Or let us take the Münzenbergite Anti-War Congress in Amsterdam. Against this sham congress, which lulls the workers to sleep, which is designed to pull them into the wake of reformist, pacifist, traitorous groups and leads them to disaster, the International Left Opposition waged an energetic principled struggle. Did we hear even one word of criticism issue from the SAP? Not one. Rosenfeld, among others, was allowed to dance about on the stage as a showpiece, happy to say that his party “agrees with the views of the congress” (“although, to be sure, the Third International also made mistakes on some occasions”). Afterwards he got a thrashing for this in the Münzenberg press, which finally moved the SAZ to ask the ‘critical’ question: why is only Nicole’s sincerity accepted but not Rosenberg and the SAP’s? Meanwhile the anti-war congress is buried and forgotten. It was a feast to Kleineibst and Kuster’s taste. And there is not a peep to be heard about it in the present ‘principled discussion’: Seydewitz-Walcher-Kilster-Frölich-Rosenfeld: all too much of a muchness in this question.
Since in the SAP no attention has been paid up to now to the great decisive questions of principle of the past 10 years, the question of the ‘declaration of principles’ is currently at the centre of the internal struggle. All symptoms indicate that this formulation of the question is a kind of cobbled solution to the conflict. The disputed declaration of principles contains nothing but general formulations, true to the spirit of half-measures. And even with the adoption of the declaration of principles with no reservations, still nothing has been achieved. The SAP’s difficulties, its weakness, its decline – none of this is alleviated ore, whit. All the current disputes on this basis will not bring the SAP forward one decisive step.
No matter how we work through the results of the SAP discussion to date ’ we find nothing but abstract words about “democratic or Bolshevik organisational principles”. The dispute concerns the framework of the party, not its content. How are we to fight about a question when no one has yet taken a position on it, and everyone pulls back from it as though it were a hot iron? The leadership has kept the party devoid of principled revolutionary content. The ranks see that it is impossible to mark time any longer. The decisive questions we have briefly sketched out here must finally be made the basis of a serious discussion of principles.
On 20 November 1932 Fritz Sternberg published a lead article in the SAZ, The political situation and the tasks of the SAP, in which he admonishes the SAP to intensify its work in the proletarian mss organisations, and emphasises the need to proceed with the work with unwavering intensity. In this context he goes on to say:

Here, in the immediate future we will be exposed not only to the attacks of the SPD and KPD but also of the smaller Communist groups, such as the Trotskyists, the KPO, etc. For example, the Trotskyists who have only the most marginal success to show for their many years of oppositional work in the KPD, have recently been trying to effect a certain decomposition in our ranks. Let it be said most emphatically to them, as to all the small groups, that they will only harm themselves by this work. Because if the German working class is really to recover, if reformism is to be smashed and the KPD's ultra-left tactics are to be liquidated, this work would be enormously hindered if the SAP were to disintegrate.

Walcher also wrote something similar in the SAZ. When Trotsky called the SAP a “living current”, it was noted with satisfaction in the pages of the SAPist press. Trotsky confronted the “living current” with concrete tasks. The Left Opposition is trying to the best of its ability to contribute to solving these tasks in the SAP’s ranks. The SAZ tops call this “working towards decomposition”. We think otherwise.
What do Sternberg and Walcher mean by “decomposition”? The fact that, at a given moment, elements of an organisation who essentially did not belong there are leaving it, can often mean a step forward for the organisation if the others, those who remain, weld themselves together more firmly on the ground of clear principles. They can stimulate the working class, and thereby also grow massively. Such a state of affairs cannot be characterised as “decomposition”. Real decomposition consists in this: forces which are drifting apart are crumbling away more and more, and no principled and tactical ground exists for those who are left. That is real decomposition, and that is where the policy of the Walcher group is going. We are for the first kind, and thus it cannot be said that the Left Opposition wants to “effect the decomposition” of the SAP.
The SAP itself attends most consistently to this task of “decomposition”. Its situation today is the expression of significant and actute decomposition. Are the Trotskyists to blame for this? Walcher in the SAZ (15 December) tries to assert this in part. To conclude from the present discussion, the SAP’s future path as envisioned by both the Walcher and the Seydewitz groups guarantees with utter certainty that the process of decomposition will continue and deepen. If the SAP’s decomposition were a highly internal and private matter between Walcher and Seydewitz no one would give a damn, and we would maintain the silence of the tomb. But the SAP is no such private affair. The SAP has grown weaker and weaker, and has catastrophically lost votes in the elections; it has lost the better part of the 50,000 members it formerly claimed.
But where have these members gone? The SAZ unfortunately says nothing about this, Let us assume that a part went to the KPD, a part back to the SPD, and a part vanished into indifference. Whom has the decline, a decline occurring through no fault of us Trotskyists, strengthened? The executive of the Social Democratic Party without a doubt; likewise, without a doubt, the CC of the KPD. The decline of the SAP has effected a strengthening of Stalinism, whose effects (at least the ultra-left ones) the SAP set out to combat. That is the fatal logic of centrism. It is certain that this process will continue, and that it can yet significantly increase in intensity! Are the Trotskyists to blame for this? If we can be blamed for anything, then it is only for paying far too little attention to the SAP. We accept this blame and are attempting to make up for it by strengthening our efforts to bring questions of principle into the ranks of the SAP in a comradely spirit.
Sternberg is right: the struggle against reformism and the liquidation of the “ultra-left tactics” of Stalinism will be, if not “enormously”, weakened nonetheless if the SAP wretchedly “disintegrates”. We know and heed this well. But the SAP is being driven to disintegration by the vacillating, indecisive policies of Seydewitz, and of Walcher as well. Past experience has proven this only too well. We struggle energetically against the SAP’s purposeless and directionless “disintegration” precisely because we want to prevent an obstruction of the struggle against reformism and to prevent the consolidation, not only of the KPD’s “ultraleft tactics”, but of the Stalin faction’s bureaucratic centrism as a whole.
We say again to the members of the SAP: do what the Walcher group has so far refused to do. Do not be content with recapitulating the commonplaces of the Communist catechism, give clear and concrete answers to those questions of the proletarian revolution which have torn the ranks of Communism for the past ten years, and which today and – in far greater measure for the future – retain their burning significance. Our aim is not “disintegration”, but that the proletarian forces of substance in the SAP should achieve clarity against the swampy and adventurist policies of the Stalin faction’s bureaucratic centrism. Uncritical immersion in these policies is a danger, and both Seydewitz and Walcher are leading decisive sections of the SAP membership in this direction.