*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- The Spanish Left (1930s version)in its Own Words-Eyewitness Report From Barcelona

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

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

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

Markin comment:

There is no question that in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s the prime driving force was the working class of Catalonia, and within that province its capital, Barcelona, was the key hot-bed for revolutionary action. The role of Barcelona thus is somewhat analogous to that of Petrograd (later Leningrad) in the Russian revolution of 1917 and deserves special attention from those of us later revolutionaries trying to draw the lessons of the hard-bitten defeat of the Spanish revolution. All the parties of the left (Socialist Party, Communist Party, left bourgeois radicals, Catalan nationalists, Anarchists, various ostensible Trotskyists, the POUM, and non-party trade unionists) had militants there, and had myriad associated social and political organizations that drove the revolution forward in the early days before the working class surrendered its hard-fought gains to the bourgeoisie or in Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky’s memorable phrase, “the shadow of the bourgeoisie.”

That said, the May Days in Barcelona take added importance for those of us who believe that in the ebb and flow of revolution that the actions taken there by the various parties, or more pertinently, those actions not taken by some, particularly the POUM (and left-anarchists) sealed the fate of the revolution and the struggle against Franco. A description of the flow of the events, a fairly correct description of the events if not of the political conclusions to be drawn, in those days by a militant who was there, Hugo Oehler, is an important aid in understanding what went wrong.

Note: Hugo Oehler was noting but a pain in the butt for Jim Cannon and others in the United States who were trying to coalesce a Trotskyist party that might be able to affect events that were rapidly unrolling here in the heart of the Great Depression. Nevertheless Cannon praised Oehler as a very good and honest mass worker. That meant a lot coming from Cannon. One does not have to accept Oehler’s political conclusions to appreciate this document. Moreover, his point about trying to link up with the Friends of Durritti is an important point that every militant in Barcelona should have been pursuing to break the masses of anarchist workers from the CNT-FAI. Time ran out before these links could be made decisive. But that is a commentary for another day. Read this (and Orwell and Souchy as well) to get a flavor of what was missed in those May days.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- The Spanish Left (1930s version)in its Own Words-The Anarchists Defend Their Politics

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

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

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- The Spanish Left (1930s version)in its Own Words-The POUM On Nationalism

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

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

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- The Spanish Left (1930s version)in its Own Words-The Communist Party Calls for a Pro Army

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

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

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- The Spanish Left (1930s version)in its Own Words-The Communist Party Denounces the POUM

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

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

* “Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives

Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed below.

The split in the Socialist Workers Party between the majority (Leon Trotsky, James Cannon) and the minority factions (Max Schachtman, James Burnham)

Socialist Workers Party/Workers Party Split
The Second World War

By the Editors of The New International
October 1939

Markin comment:

Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls, comrades, that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Pete Seeger's "Hold The Line"- The "Night of The Long Knives" At Peekskill-1949

Click on the title to link a Wikipedia entry for the Peekskill riots.

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.

*********
Markin comment:

One does not have to be very politically sophisticated to notice that very large parts of the so-called Tea Party movement are driven, and driven to a rage, by the fact that a black man, a very gentile black man as it turns out, is president. And that those same elements are enraged by the very word immigrant although I always want to check THEIR green cards when they start ranting on the subject. I will not even speak of their attitudes toward the words Moslem and mosque, or abnormal fears for their guns, or separation of church and state and a million other things that stir their innards. Oh, I forgot the “reds under every bed” phobia. No, I guess they no longer have that on their agenda.

The point is that some of this rabble is making the same kind of noises and the same kind of physical threats that spearheaded the anti-communist riots at Peekskill, New York in the late 1940s during the dawn of the red scare “night of the long knives” here in America. Although this crowd is on the margins now, watch out. And as the point of Pete Seeger’s song indicates-hold the line.

**********

HOLD THE LINE

Let me tell you the story of a line that was held,
And many brave men and women whose courage we know well,
How we held the line at Peekskill on that long September day!
We will hold the line forever till the people have their way.

Chorus (after each verse):
Hold the line!
Hold the line!
As we held the line at Peekskill
We will hold it everywhere.
Hold the line!
Hold the line!
We will hold the line forever
Till there's freedom ev'rywhere.

There was music, there was singing, people listened everywhere;
The people they were smiling, so happy to be there -
While on the road behind us, the fascists waited there,
Their curses could not drown out the music in the air.

The grounds were all surrounded by a band of gallant men,
Shoulder to shoulder, no fascist could get in,
The music of the people was heard for miles around,
Well guarded by the workers, their courage made us proud.

When the music was all over, we started to go home,
We did not know the trouble and the pain that was to come,
We go into our buses and drove out through the gate,
And saw the gangster police, their faces filled with hate.

Then without any warning the rocks began to come,
The cops and troopers laughed to see the damage that was done,
They ran us through a gauntlet, to their everlasting shame,
And the cowards there attacked us, damnation to their name.

All across the nation the people heard the tale,
And marveled at the concert, and knew we had not failed,
We shed our blood at Peekskill, and suffered many a pain,
But we beat back the fascists and we'll beat them back again!

Words by Lee Hays; Music by Pete Seeger (1949)
(c) 1959 (renewed) by Sanga Music Inc.

*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"- The Struggle In South Africa

Click on the headline to link to a Workers Vanguard article on the struggle in South Africa spearheaded by the public workers unions.

Markin comment (9/18/2010):

The International Communist League (ICL), the international organization of which Workers Vanguard is the flagship publications, in numerous articles and published conference reports has emphasized, correctly I believe, that in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union that the political consciousness of the international working class, although unevenly, has taken big steps backward in its consciousness. The shorthand way to speak of such a condition is that on a day to day basis the bulk of the workers do not connect their defensive struggles with the struggle for socialism.

Seemingly working class history for the past 150 years or so is a blank page although those in the least bit familiar with that history know that it is rich in examples, positive and negative, of working class struggle for our communist future. Although one could see that retrograde situation developing, in some cases graphically as on the American labor scene, well before that demise something snapped in the international labor movement in reaction to the incessant “communism is dead” triumphalism of the international capitalist class and its mouthpieces. Although that situation is slowly changing under the conditions of the current capitalist onslaught, especially in Europe, that sense of the decline of political consciousness is still pervasive.

That brings us to the class consciousness that underlies the article under review in this entry on the situation in South Africa. I mentioned above (as the ICL has in its articles as well) that the decline of political consciousness was not monolithic. South Africa, due to many factors in its national framework not the least the massive struggle against apartheid, may represent the classic contrary case. In the immediate post-Soviet period when everyone, their brothers, their sisters, and their great-aunts was disclaiming anything but hardened and eternal hostility to the word communism, communist organizations, or even lukewarm socialist formations in South Africa they were making an event, a public event, out of the legalization of the Communist Party.

Of course, we know, at least those of us who claim the Trotskyist tradition, that this was the just the legalization of another old time Stalinist, class- collaborationist, two-stage revolution operation but that party represented communism down at the base, communist revolution as the “comrades” understood it. Hey, these guys and gals, these street militants, were waving red flags night and day with the expectation that not only apartheid was over with the African National Congress(ANC) taking over the reins of government but that the meek (militant meek, that is, the others get nothing in this wicked old world) shall finally inherit the earth. It gives me no satisfaction, none whatsoever, nor should it to you that their illusions have been cruelly dashed overt the past sixteen years.

If South Africa represented (and in many ways still does, witness the recent wide-spread strikes AGAINST the ANC-SACP-COSATU government) something like the vanguard of political consciousness in the international labor movement it also represents the classic Stalinist (and not Stalinist alone) stagist theory of revolution in less advanced countries. In short, first the democratic revolution then, in the future, the socialist revolution. Sixteen years on and the “comrades” are still waiting. Thus we have a pretty good idea when that second stage kicks in-never.

And that is my second point. If the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 proved once and for all that the bourgeoisie of an emerging capitalist country is incapable, for a thousand reasons not the least its myriad intermingled links to the major imperialist powers, of leading (or maybe even tolerating) a democratic revolution then several decades later the emerging (or already existing) bourgeoisies in less advanced capitalist countries are even less likely to so. In South Africa Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution retains its validity. No, not just it validity, more than that it is merely the beginning of political wisdom for those crushed “comrades” down at the base still waiting for the second promised stage. Thus the order of the day is for the black-centered workers movement to break with the ANC as a matter of elementary political hygiene.

Sometimes one can overuse analogies (although that does not prevent anyone from doing so, or it hasn’t in the past, including by this writer) from one period to the next. Obviously there are major differences (not the least the question of political leadership of the working class) between the situation in Russia 1917 and South Africa today but I keep being drawn to the Menshevik’s notion in 1917 (and before and after, as well) that the bourgeoisie should lead the democratic revolution in Russia and the role of peasant and working class socialist organizations was to “support” or “push” them forward. That candidate in 1917 was the Cadet party (Constitutional Democrats); today in South Africa (at least for now) for the Mensheviks of today, the SACP and its hangers-on, it is the ANC. So what, as is pretty well described in the linked article above, we see in South Africa is what Russia might have looked like if the Menshevik “vision” had worked out. No, thank you, then and now. Learn the lessons outlined in Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Forward!

* “Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives

Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed below.

THE DECLARATION OF FOUR
(1933)

On the Necessity and Principles of a New International

Markin comment:

Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls, comrades, that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Party and Class( In South Africa)

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Party and Class( In South Africa)

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Correspondence Between Leon Trotsky And Others And The South African Comrades

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here today as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Land Question: Race and Class (in South Africa)

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here today as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Raff Lee and the Pioneer Trotskyists of Johannesburg

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Trotskyist Groups in South Africa

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Trotskyists and the Trade Unions (In South Africa)

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Resistance and Socialism in South Africa

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Economic Background to South Africa

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

Markin comment:

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

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal-The Voice Of The Voiceless- "On Punishing Lynne" (Stewart)

Click on the headline to link to a From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal entry (via Workers Vanguard) on Attorney Lynne Stewart.

Markin comment:

You know it really is a crying shame when a people’s lawyer like Attorney Lynne Stewart (ya, I know she has been disbarred but a certificate of good bourgeois conduct alone does not an attorney make) has been set up in the way that she has been by the American imperial “justice” system. Look, according to all the case law and the American Bar Association’s own Code of Conduct a lawyer, even a half-baked, wet-behind-the-ears one is suppose to zealously advocate for the legal rights of her client. The key word is zealous, honored as any honest attorney will tell you more often in the breech than the observance when the court opens for business, especially if the judge has a golf date (or worst, if the attorney does).

Lynne Stewart though, like New York Attorney Conrad Lynn before her (and precious few others), a similar people's lawyer, obviously did not take that course in law school where the worldly-wise law professor tells you, no, screams at you, not to take the unpopular cases; the ones involving the poor, the desperate, and the unrepresented. The no dough cases. Take those nice trusteeship things, commercial real estate, or the like. So, in a funny way, Attorney Stewart has only herself to blame for not taking that course. No so funny though is this- Free Attorney Lynne Stewart Now!

*The Latest From The Hands Off Honduras Coalition- The Struggle Continues!-Video Updates

Click on the headline to link to a Hands Off Honduras website entry on the continuing struggle against the military regime there.

Markin comment:

See also today's entry from Workers Vanguard on Honduras that gives background detail on the struggle since last year's (2009) military coup.