Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 15 Sep 2011
Palestine
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It's almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What'll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it'll be defeat - a worthless half loaf in place of what's easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here's the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, "Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama," saying:
"Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition."
The "specific formula" says it all. Only an easily attainable one delivers statehood and full de jure UN membership. Anything less continues status quo betrayal.
Instead of going for it with overwhelming support, bet on Abbas petitioning only for reshuffling the deck chairs, leaving status quo denial in place.
Apparently he's less concerned about justice than embarrassing Washington, if Obama followed through with his threatened Security Council veto. Bet on it, and it won't be long before it's known.
On September 13, New York Times writers Steven Myers and David Kirkpatrick headlined, "US Scrambles to Avert Palestinian Vote at UN," saying:
Ahead of next week in New York, "maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between....Egypt, Israel and Turkey."
While Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Palestinian statehood "not a choice but an obligation," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby said after meeting with PA officials:
"(I)t is obvious that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries are leaning towards going to the General Assembly" for a meaningless status upgrade from "observer entity" to "observer state," leaving them back at square one.
Even so, Obama, Hillary Clinton, regional envoy Tony Blair (a reinvented war criminal), EU representative Catherine Ashton, US Middle East envoy David Hale, and pro-Israeli hardliner Dennis Ross want Abbas to call the whole thing off.
In their minds, even a fig leaf is too much.
Only Israeli interests matter. Palestinians must accept their status as powerless occupied people and shut up.
"The administration has spent months trying to avoid" the embarrassment of a Security Council veto, even though under international law it's toothless. Only the General Assembly admits new members. The Security Council recommends.
Both get their say on admissions. One body alone matters, and it's ready to do the right thing if proper procedures are followed.
Lots of times, Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had their say more for Israel than Palestine.
Erekat, in fact, signaled no change now, saying:
"We don't intend to confront the US, or anyone else for that matter (suggesting Israel and its EU allies)."
The early 2011 released Palestine Papers revealed that policy position was longstanding, siding with Israel against his own people.
So did Abbas as chief Oslo negotiator where he sold them out entirely and did so ever since.
Expect no change of heart now. For him, Erekat and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, it would be entirely out of character. Leopards can't change their spots, nor snakes in the grass.
Nor Congress, threatening to cut off aid in the event of a UN vote, what most in it call a "confrontation," not long delayed justice.
The same Congress backs Obama's imperial wars, banker bailouts, austerity hardship for needy Americans, and repressive police state laws to slap them down if they complain.
The deck indeed is stacked, and unrepresented Palestinians hold no aces.
So hinted Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president and author of "Peace Not Apartheid."
His September 13 New York Times op-ed headlined, "After the UN Vote on Palestine," saying:
Camp David promises proved hollow. Despite overwhelming Knesset approval, "call(ing) for honoring all aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967)," Israel systematically violated its provisions.
Key ones included denying "the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security."
Others mandated:
"(i) Withdrawal of Israel(i) armed forces from territories occupied in (1967);" and
"(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
In 1948, Palestinians lost 78% of their historic homeland. In 1967, they lost the rest. Camp David I, Madrid, Oslo, Oslo II, Wye River, Camp David II, Taba, and decades of peace process futility accomplished nothing.
Every post-Camp David I negotiation favored Israel. Palestinians' only choice was take it or leave it. Nothing's changed now. Carter knows it but didn't say. So do Palestinians and the Arab street with no power.
Carter did say Washington "basically withdr(ew) from active participation in the peace process. The Palestinians and other Arabs have interpreted US policy as acquiescing on the occupation and (being) biased against them."
Given what they're up against, "what are the options for the future?"
Instead of explaining the futility of peace process negotiations because Palestinians have no willing partner, Carter called for "comprehensive" efforts "based on the fully compatible US official policy, previous UN resolutions and the Quartet's previous demands."
In other words, he recommends another round of what won't work instead of suggesting what may, and saying US policy must back it. With enough (sorely lacking) commitment, Israel would have a hard time saying no, but don't bet it wouldn't try.
Yet Carter's vision calls for "peace for Israel and all its neighbors. The United States would regain its leadership role in the region, based on its commitment to freedom, democracy and justice, and a major cause of widespread animosity toward America within the Arab world would be eliminated."
Shamefully, Carter omitted mention of America's imperial wars. That the business of America is war. That permanent war is official policy.
That eroding homeland social justice pays for them. That repressive police state laws slap down resisters.
That post-9/11, $10 trillion or more was spent on militarism with all categories included.
That over the same period, millions of lives were lost. Many millions more were harmed, and killer weapons destroyed nonbelligerent countries lawlessly.
Libya, of course, is Washington's latest trophy. Even so, death and destruction continue daily, turning the entire country into a hellish charnel house.
At home, unbridled greed, corruption, and imperial lawlessness define America.
Torture, extraordinary renditions, indefinite detentions without charge, military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial profiling are official policies.
Special Forces death squads murder people globally who disagree with US policies.
Decades of bad policies, including his own, have America on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin.
America's middle class is disappearing. Growing millions suffer from poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair. America's media don't notice, let alone care.
America partners with Israel's most lawless policies. Its leaders (including himself) support the worst of world despots and brutes.
Democracy in America is a sham illusion. Whistleblowing and dissent can be called criminal.
Times op-eds alone won't change things, especially ones falling way short of the mark.
On October 1, Carter turn's 87. Arguably, his post-presidency is the best of the lot, though far from perfect.
At this stage in life, why not go all the way burnishing it.
What better way than by forthrightly challenging US policies causing so much harm to so many, including permanent imperial wars and social injustice.
Then support Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership. At the same time, denounce Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, saying "harsh and grave consequences" will follow a UN vote.
That's the kind of legacy worth working for!
It's true for everyone, not just him!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
persecution
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, thousands of political prisoners languish unjustly behind bars or await trial.
They include lawyers for challenging injustice, especially for defending the "wrong" clients after America declared war on humanity.
Longtime human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart got 10 years for doing it. In a recent interview she said:
"I believe I am one of an historical progression that maintains the struggle to change (America's) perverted landscape....It seems that being a political prisoner must be used as a means of focusing people's attention on the continuing atrocities around them....I might think I hadn't been doing my utmost if they didn't believe I was dangerous enough to be locked up!"
Explaining how outrageously prisoners are treated, she added:
"Human rights do not exist in prison....I see day-to-day brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations."
It shows up in "adequate medical care, the appalling diet....no access to the Web....an absence of legal advice," and so much else "to keep us dumbed-down, docile and estranged."
"The outside world is oblivious....brainwashed into believing (everyone locked up is) less than human."
Inhumanity is official policy in America's gulag. It's by far the world's largest, and for many in it as brutal as some of the worst. A growing part includes filling prison beds for profit, many in them victimized by injustice.
Lynne's there for defending a client Bush officials wanted locked up for life - no matter his innocence.
Paul Bergrin now awaits his turn, behind bars ahead of his trial. A previous article discussed his case, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/targeting-lawyers-case-of-paul-ber
It said the Sixth Amendment assures defendants in "all criminal prosecutions" the right to speedy, public, fair trials with "the Assistance of (competent) Counsel for his (or her) defense" provided free if unable to pay for it.
The Fourteenth Amendment holds government subservient to the law and guarantees due process respect for everyone's legal right to judicial fairness on matters relating to life, liberty, or property.
In America and elsewhere, defending unpopular clients is a long, honored tradition. So is upholding the law and challenging unfettered power defiling it. Yet doing it risks lawyers being criminalized for doing their job too vigorously or making enemies in high places.
Before being targeted, Bergrin was a formidable advocate. The New Times Times called him a "top prosecutor" before becoming one of New Jersey's "most prominent defense lawyers representing clients as varied as Abu Ghraib defendants, the rap stars Lil' Kim and Queen Larifah, and members of Newark's notorious street gangs."
They and others deserve the same legal rights as everyone, nothing less. So does Bergrin as an unjustly accused defendant, targeted for doing his job.
He defended US soldiers accused of killing four Iraqis near Samarra during Operation Iron Triangle in May 2006. The case made international headlines when evidence showed Col. Michael Steele gave orders to "kill all military age males."
Stjepan Mestrovic's important book explained what happened, titled "The 'Good Soldier' on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq."
It was no ordinary murder case. It involved government conspiracy, cover-up and intrigue against scapegoated soldiers to absolve higher-ups throughout the chain of command to the top.
As a result, four soldiers were convicted of conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, or obstruction of justice for following orders. If disobeyed they'd have been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, fined and imprisoned.
Guilt or innocence didn't matter. They never had a chance, and for using his formidable skills for them, neither perhaps does Paul.
Obama officials want him crucified and locked away for life, turning justice into a four-letter word like for so many others targeted for political advantage.
Prosecutorial Charges
On May 20, 2009, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press released headlined "Newark Lawyer Arrested, Charged with Racketeering Conspiracy, Including Murder of a Federal Witness (along with) Three Others Also Arrested and Charged."
The 14-count indictment (now 33) accused him of "using various legal entities, including (his law office) to conduct illegal activities, including murder, to protect criminal clients, perpetuate their activities and shield them from prosecution."
Specifically cited was his alleged role in the "murder of a confidential witness in an Essex County (New Jersey) federal drug case, and his efforts to hire a hitman from Chicago to kill at least one witness in a Monmouth County drug case."
Bergrin was charged with "racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, murder of a federal witness, and conspiracy to murder a federal witness, and, separately, witnesses in a state case, as well as Travel Act violations and conspiracy to commit Travel Act violations."
If convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, potentially he faces life in prison.
Bergrin v. Attack Journalism
On June 5, New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson headlined, "The Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey," practically convicting him without trial by his title.
Naming some of Essex County's most notorious scoundrels, including Mafia boss Lucky Luciano, he called Bergrin a "strong candidate for addition to this list.... facing charges that are a good bet to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life."
In other words, he swallowed government accusations hook, line and sinker pre-trial, what legitimate journalism never should do. He accepted inflammatory charges as truth, no matter how implausible and bogus.
American justice accuses innocent victims spuriously with crimes they didn't commit, including terrorism, conspiracy to commit it, and murder.
In Bergrin's case, Jacobson admitted that federal authorities hated him, without saying why. It was because of his skill and commitment to expose their crimes, the same ones ongoing daily in war theaters.
Anyone doing that for a living or pro bono will be targeted the same way. Authorities don't like effective thorns in their side, so stop at nothing to remove them. Innocence doesn't matter, only continuity of unchallenged crimes of war and against humanity with impunity.
Bergrin knew it and wanted top chain of command officials exposed and prosecuted. As a result, he's behind bars facing possible life in prison.
Based on government charges and uncorroborated hearsay, Jacobson said he'd "gone rogue," crossed "that border between what was allowed and what was not..."
Yet he admitted that "(h)e knew the reality, how the deck was stacked, and was willing to fight fire with fire" for justice. "He went to war for you," said a former client. "That's why Paul was loved in the streets." They're aren't enough like him.
The deck is so stacked against him that former counsel Lawrence Lustberg believes it's impossible he can get a fair trial in this environment. Attack journalism, of course, doesn't help.
ABA (American Bar Association) Journal contributor, Martha Neil, discussed Bergrin's case in previous articles.
On June 7, she headlined "Expanded New RICO Indictment Accuses Alleged Rogue Attorney of More Law-Firm-Related Charges," saying:
A "new racketeering indictment (read more like) the latest John Grisham legal thriller" from murder one to piling on lots more. In other words, the more charges, the more likely some will stick, whether or not credible.
On August 30, she headlined, "High-Profile Defense Attorney Accused of Practicing Law in RICO Enterprise May Represent Himself," saying:
Jailed since 2009 "on charges that he ran his law practice as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise," he may do what "one expert" calls a good idea, given his skill representing others.
"Three of the government's main cooperating witnesses (include) his mistress and alleged top criminal associate, his former law partner, and a drug kingpin ex-client."
All copped a plea for lighter treatment in return for testifying against Bergrin, the main target prosecutors locked up for life, even by framing him on bogus charges.
On September 12, Neil headlined, "Attorney Paul Bergrin's Biggest Trial is About to Begin: His Own Racketeering Case," saying:
Federal Judge William Martini agreed to let him proceed pro se, but he'll "be restricted in his courtroom movements."
He won't be allowed to approach jurors, hand documents to witnesses, or participate in private out of earshot sidebar conferences at the bench where legal issues are considered.
At the same time, federal marshals will monitor him closely, giving jurors the appearance of a guilty man going through the motions.
Overcoming a stacked deck will be Bergrin's greatest challenge. Some, however, say if anyone can do it he can, given his reputation as a formidable adversary other lawyers feared, knowing how tough he is to beat.
However, judicial restrictions will impede his every move, making jurors believe he lacks credibility and is guilty. On October 11, his trial is scheduled to begin, fair or foul.
A Final Comment
The entire case is based on fabrication and intimidation to suppress hard truths and convict lawyers trying to expose them. Bergrin was framed to discredit and silence him. In November 2009, he said:
"This virtual nightmare has destroyed everything I worked my heart and soul out for, including my family. What hurts me the most is I am not guilty and totally innocent."
I was about to change the course of history that I had affirmative proof that President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assist. Secy. of (Defense) Wolfowitz, Carbone and White House Counsel, (Alberto) Gonzales (later US Attorney General) had lied, deliberately and intentionally when they denied knowledge of the torture techniques at Abu Ghraib."
He never got a chance to prove it. Instead, he's been convicted in the court of public opinion. His trial won't be about alleged crimes. It's for threatening the wrong people up the chain of command to the top.
Imagine the possibilities if he'd done it, putting Bush/Cheney & Co. in the dock, instead of himself because he tried.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
persecution
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, thousands of political prisoners languish unjustly behind bars or await trial.
They include lawyers for challenging injustice, especially for defending the "wrong" clients after America declared war on humanity.
Longtime human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart got 10 years for doing it. In a recent interview she said:
"I believe I am one of an historical progression that maintains the struggle to change (America's) perverted landscape....It seems that being a political prisoner must be used as a means of focusing people's attention on the continuing atrocities around them....I might think I hadn't been doing my utmost if they didn't believe I was dangerous enough to be locked up!"
Explaining how outrageously prisoners are treated, she added:
"Human rights do not exist in prison....I see day-to-day brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations."
It shows up in "adequate medical care, the appalling diet....no access to the Web....an absence of legal advice," and so much else "to keep us dumbed-down, docile and estranged."
"The outside world is oblivious....brainwashed into believing (everyone locked up is) less than human."
Inhumanity is official policy in America's gulag. It's by far the world's largest, and for many in it as brutal as some of the worst. A growing part includes filling prison beds for profit, many in them victimized by injustice.
Lynne's there for defending a client Bush officials wanted locked up for life - no matter his innocence.
Paul Bergrin now awaits his turn, behind bars ahead of his trial. A previous article discussed his case, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/targeting-lawyers-case-of-paul-ber
It said the Sixth Amendment assures defendants in "all criminal prosecutions" the right to speedy, public, fair trials with "the Assistance of (competent) Counsel for his (or her) defense" provided free if unable to pay for it.
The Fourteenth Amendment holds government subservient to the law and guarantees due process respect for everyone's legal right to judicial fairness on matters relating to life, liberty, or property.
In America and elsewhere, defending unpopular clients is a long, honored tradition. So is upholding the law and challenging unfettered power defiling it. Yet doing it risks lawyers being criminalized for doing their job too vigorously or making enemies in high places.
Before being targeted, Bergrin was a formidable advocate. The New Times Times called him a "top prosecutor" before becoming one of New Jersey's "most prominent defense lawyers representing clients as varied as Abu Ghraib defendants, the rap stars Lil' Kim and Queen Larifah, and members of Newark's notorious street gangs."
They and others deserve the same legal rights as everyone, nothing less. So does Bergrin as an unjustly accused defendant, targeted for doing his job.
He defended US soldiers accused of killing four Iraqis near Samarra during Operation Iron Triangle in May 2006. The case made international headlines when evidence showed Col. Michael Steele gave orders to "kill all military age males."
Stjepan Mestrovic's important book explained what happened, titled "The 'Good Soldier' on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq."
It was no ordinary murder case. It involved government conspiracy, cover-up and intrigue against scapegoated soldiers to absolve higher-ups throughout the chain of command to the top.
As a result, four soldiers were convicted of conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, or obstruction of justice for following orders. If disobeyed they'd have been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, fined and imprisoned.
Guilt or innocence didn't matter. They never had a chance, and for using his formidable skills for them, neither perhaps does Paul.
Obama officials want him crucified and locked away for life, turning justice into a four-letter word like for so many others targeted for political advantage.
Prosecutorial Charges
On May 20, 2009, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press released headlined "Newark Lawyer Arrested, Charged with Racketeering Conspiracy, Including Murder of a Federal Witness (along with) Three Others Also Arrested and Charged."
The 14-count indictment (now 33) accused him of "using various legal entities, including (his law office) to conduct illegal activities, including murder, to protect criminal clients, perpetuate their activities and shield them from prosecution."
Specifically cited was his alleged role in the "murder of a confidential witness in an Essex County (New Jersey) federal drug case, and his efforts to hire a hitman from Chicago to kill at least one witness in a Monmouth County drug case."
Bergrin was charged with "racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, murder of a federal witness, and conspiracy to murder a federal witness, and, separately, witnesses in a state case, as well as Travel Act violations and conspiracy to commit Travel Act violations."
If convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, potentially he faces life in prison.
Bergrin v. Attack Journalism
On June 5, New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson headlined, "The Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey," practically convicting him without trial by his title.
Naming some of Essex County's most notorious scoundrels, including Mafia boss Lucky Luciano, he called Bergrin a "strong candidate for addition to this list.... facing charges that are a good bet to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life."
In other words, he swallowed government accusations hook, line and sinker pre-trial, what legitimate journalism never should do. He accepted inflammatory charges as truth, no matter how implausible and bogus.
American justice accuses innocent victims spuriously with crimes they didn't commit, including terrorism, conspiracy to commit it, and murder.
In Bergrin's case, Jacobson admitted that federal authorities hated him, without saying why. It was because of his skill and commitment to expose their crimes, the same ones ongoing daily in war theaters.
Anyone doing that for a living or pro bono will be targeted the same way. Authorities don't like effective thorns in their side, so stop at nothing to remove them. Innocence doesn't matter, only continuity of unchallenged crimes of war and against humanity with impunity.
Bergrin knew it and wanted top chain of command officials exposed and prosecuted. As a result, he's behind bars facing possible life in prison.
Based on government charges and uncorroborated hearsay, Jacobson said he'd "gone rogue," crossed "that border between what was allowed and what was not..."
Yet he admitted that "(h)e knew the reality, how the deck was stacked, and was willing to fight fire with fire" for justice. "He went to war for you," said a former client. "That's why Paul was loved in the streets." They're aren't enough like him.
The deck is so stacked against him that former counsel Lawrence Lustberg believes it's impossible he can get a fair trial in this environment. Attack journalism, of course, doesn't help.
ABA (American Bar Association) Journal contributor, Martha Neil, discussed Bergrin's case in previous articles.
On June 7, she headlined "Expanded New RICO Indictment Accuses Alleged Rogue Attorney of More Law-Firm-Related Charges," saying:
A "new racketeering indictment (read more like) the latest John Grisham legal thriller" from murder one to piling on lots more. In other words, the more charges, the more likely some will stick, whether or not credible.
On August 30, she headlined, "High-Profile Defense Attorney Accused of Practicing Law in RICO Enterprise May Represent Himself," saying:
Jailed since 2009 "on charges that he ran his law practice as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise," he may do what "one expert" calls a good idea, given his skill representing others.
"Three of the government's main cooperating witnesses (include) his mistress and alleged top criminal associate, his former law partner, and a drug kingpin ex-client."
All copped a plea for lighter treatment in return for testifying against Bergrin, the main target prosecutors locked up for life, even by framing him on bogus charges.
On September 12, Neil headlined, "Attorney Paul Bergrin's Biggest Trial is About to Begin: His Own Racketeering Case," saying:
Federal Judge William Martini agreed to let him proceed pro se, but he'll "be restricted in his courtroom movements."
He won't be allowed to approach jurors, hand documents to witnesses, or participate in private out of earshot sidebar conferences at the bench where legal issues are considered.
At the same time, federal marshals will monitor him closely, giving jurors the appearance of a guilty man going through the motions.
Overcoming a stacked deck will be Bergrin's greatest challenge. Some, however, say if anyone can do it he can, given his reputation as a formidable adversary other lawyers feared, knowing how tough he is to beat.
However, judicial restrictions will impede his every move, making jurors believe he lacks credibility and is guilty. On October 11, his trial is scheduled to begin, fair or foul.
A Final Comment
The entire case is based on fabrication and intimidation to suppress hard truths and convict lawyers trying to expose them. Bergrin was framed to discredit and silence him. In November 2009, he said:
"This virtual nightmare has destroyed everything I worked my heart and soul out for, including my family. What hurts me the most is I am not guilty and totally innocent."
I was about to change the course of history that I had affirmative proof that President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assist. Secy. of (Defense) Wolfowitz, Carbone and White House Counsel, (Alberto) Gonzales (later US Attorney General) had lied, deliberately and intentionally when they denied knowledge of the torture techniques at Abu Ghraib."
He never got a chance to prove it. Instead, he's been convicted in the court of public opinion. His trial won't be about alleged crimes. It's for threatening the wrong people up the chain of command to the top.
Imagine the possibilities if he'd done it, putting Bush/Cheney & Co. in the dock, instead of himself because he tried.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
The Latest From The "Jobs With Justice Blog"-The Seemingly One-Sided Struggle Continues-It's High Time To Push Back-Push Back Hard-30 For 40 Is The Slogan Of The Day.
Click on the headline to link to the Jobs With Justice Blog for the latest national and international labor news, and of the efforts to counteract the massively one-sided class struggle against the international working class movement.
From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009
With Unemployment Rising- The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program
Google To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009
With Unemployment Rising- The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program
Google To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
The Latest From The “Veterans For Peace” Website-Gear Up For The 2011-12 Anti-War Season-Troops Out Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Veterans For Peace website for the latest news.
Re-posted From American Left History- Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the ‘street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
Re-posted From American Left History- Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the ‘street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-The Founding Conference Of The Fourth International (1938)-"On The Mexican Question"
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
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 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.
********
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
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 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.
********
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
From The Annals Of The Class Struggle-ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners (1978)- A Model For Today's Labor Struggles
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for backgrond information concerning the great nationwide coal strike of 1977-78, a classic class-war battle with many lesson, good and bad, for today's labor militants.
Markin comment:
In the wake of the recent somewhat isolated strike action at Verizon this summer and the struggle of the public worker unions in Wisconsin earlier this year that cried out for general strike solidarity action by all of organized labor, private and public, a little glimpse at the kind of solidarity actions by other parts of the organized, if only as an exemplary action, is worth taking note of. The class battles looming ahead will provide of opportunity to take these measures from paper to power. Forward!
ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners
The Spartacist League championed attempts by labor militants to bring other unions out on strike to smash Taft-Hartley and exposed the fake-lefts who helped sabotage this crucial defense of the miners...
—excerpted from WV No. 197, 17 March 1978
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14—As the mine workers face the most critical hour in their 100-day-old strike, the labor movement must ensure that they do not stand alone. With Carter lowering the boom by invoking Taft-Hartley it is the urgent duty of the unions to undertake protest strike action against this government strikebreak¬ing. Last week the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse¬men's Union (ILWU) became the first major U.S. union to move in this direction.
On Friday, March 10 the ILWU International Executive Board (IEB) adopted a resolution whose substance was as follows:
1) to authorize the International officers to call a 24-hour longshore strike coastwide, to protest the use of Taft-Hartley against the miners; 2) to call on the rest of the ILWU, particularly Hawaii and the Warehouse Division, to join in this action; 3) to call on the rest of organized labor in cities where the ILWU has locals to join the 24-hour stop-work action.
Such solidarity action with the coal miners is precisely what is needed at this moment. It could be the spark which ignites the rest of labor to join in this crucial battle, but some of the ILWU tops are predictably dragging their feet. Trade-union militants must raise an urgent clamor demanding that a coastwide dock shutdown and citywide work stoppages against Taft-Hartley and for victory to the miners strike be implemented NOW!...
Ferment in the ILWU
The earliest breakthrough leading to the ILWU resolution came in Local 13 in the San Pedro/Long Beach/Los Angeles area where several hundred longshoremen passed a resolution at the March 2 membership meeting calling for a one-day work action. According to a statement circulated by Chick Loveridge, an IEB member: "Local13 is urging President Carter not to interfere on the side of the mine owners, no Taft-Hartley. Local 13 is calling for a one-day supporting action, by closing down the port of LB/ LA and urging all other ports on the West Coast to do the same. Local 13 is also inviting all other labor organizations to join us in a meeting of support on the day the ports are closed down"
Parallel to the Local 13 action, Stan Gow and Howard Keylor,
members of the Local 10 (S.F. longshore) Executive Board and
publishers of "Longshore Militant," a class-struggle opposition
newsletter in the Local, along with the Militant Caucus in Local 6,
began circulating a petition on March 8 to"call on president Herman
and the Bay Area 1LWU local presidents to organize a 24-hour Bay
Area-wide protest strike against government strikebreaking in the
coalfields." The petition quoted a statement made by Herman at a
February 24 rally, where he boasted: "If they try mining coal with
bayonets or visit harm on the miners, there will be actions here and
throughout the country "
With a couple of days' circulation the petition gathered over 100 signatures in Local 10 and 150 in Local 6, as well as the signatures of Local 13 president Art Almeida and Seattle Local 19 president Dick Moork. This petition was an important factor in forcing the Local 10 Executive Board on March 9 to come out for some kind of solidarity action in support of the miners strike.
Strike Support Coalition
Herman himself had made the call for solidarity actions before some 1,000 assembled trade unionists at a February 24 rally organized by the so-called "Miners Strike Labor/Community Support Coalition," a collection of top Bay Area labor bureaucrats such as John Crowley of the Central Labor Council and Walter Johnson, president of Retail Clerks Local 1100. When this coalition held an organizing meeting March 11 at the Retail Clerks headquarters, about 200 trade union militants showed up, clearly upsetting the conservative trade union tops. Early in the meeting the Coalition's co-chairman, Larry Wing, president of ILWU Local 10, mentioned that the ILWU IEB favored a 24-hour coastwide work stoppage and was calling the rest of labor to join in. Wing also noted the IEB had voted a $25,000 donation to the mine workers as well as a $1 per-month/per-member assessment of the ILWU membership for the miners' families.
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
This simple motion immediately polarized the meeting, for the encrusted U.S. labor bureaucracy cannot abide even such elementary actions of class solidarity. Caught off guard, the nervous bureaucrats sought a way out of this dilemma and found it with the criminal aid of the Communist Party (CP) and the SWP. While both groups are vying to play chief hatchetman against labor militancy for the union tops, at this meeting the SWP clearly led the pack in wrecking the chances of solidarity strike action.
The fight which followed found the CP supporters caught in the middle. With the BART militants' motion simply calling for implementing the 1LWU resolution, they did not want to completely disavow it. But aware that the ILWU bureaucracy was seeking to minimize its impact, neither did they want to go too far out on a limb. Thus early on in the heated discussion Franklin Alexander, well-known CP supporter in ILWU Local 6, said he was "not ready" to vote for such a motion because it was "too soon," and later tried to kill it by referring it to the steering committee. (Ironically Billy Proctor, a CP supporter in Local 10, had signed the "Longshore Militant" petition earlier in the week.)
But the SWP supporters present did not beat around the bush. Mobilizing their small army of hitherto silent "Coalition" members to come out and defeat the motion, they effectively denounced the ILWU resolution as "ultra-left"! First Roland Sheppard, SWP floor leader, openly attacked the solidarity motion on the grounds that:
1) "The job of this body is to support the miners" [read Miller]; 2) "The ILWU actually isn't calling for the action, only looking for the mood in the ranks"; and 3) One must "walk before you run." Actually the SWP is on its hands and knees, a position it got used to during its 1960's peace crawls. And as if the miners who have been on strike for three months would not appreciate the support of a solidarity strike, John Olmstead, a Teamster, seconded Sheppard's remarks and actually cautioned that the motion would "alienate the union membership"!...
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
By voting time the several score SWP supporters had lined up a solid voting bloc of themselves and the most rabid right-wing bureaucrats present. Even so the first voice vote was disputed and a second hand vote was only defeated by a margin of roughly 120 to 70, with CP supporters such as Figueiredo, Franklin and several others abstaining. As if this wasn't enough, the SWP even opposed a subsequent proposal for nothing more frightening than a Saturday rally. (This was tabled to the steering committee!)
This sabotage of the solidarity strike proposal is the most blatant proof yet that the S WP's "turn to the unions" means covering for the bureaucrats and outright sabotage of vitally needed militant labor action. Surely the spectacle of these "socialists" denouncing the call of the ILWU Executive Board as, in substance, adventurist is downright grotesque. No conscious union militant can consider these reformists as anything but despicable betrayers of labor's cause. Because they are seeking to establish themselves as sophisticated braintrusters and apparatchiks for the liberal wing of labor officialdom these pimps for the bureaucracy are fiercely determined to maintain capitalist stability—sometimes even more so than the union tops themselves, who are occasionally subject to pressure from the ranks. Today the most rabid opponent of sympathy protest strikes to aid the miners—excepting only the reactionary Meanyites—is the SWP.
*********
Australian Labour Council Vows to Aid U.S. Coal Strike
SYDNEY—On 16 March the Newcastle, New South Wales Trades and Labour Council approved the following statement of solidarity with striking coal miners in America:
"The U.S. coal miners are currently in the forefront of American labour in their battle to safeguard their union rights and working conditions against the onslaught of the coal bosses and the Carter government. A victory by the miners in their strike is in the interest of the labour movement internationally and all attempts at strikebreaking by U.S. employers and the Carter government must be resisted. We pledge our full support and we condemn the U.S. government union bashing through its use of the Taft-Hartley Act."
The motion was referred for action to the Waterfront Group of Unions in Newcastle, which is a major port for shipment of Australian coal. On 21 March the WGU also passed this motion and sent a cable in solidarity with U.S. miners. Bob Rose, secretary of the Waterfront Group, told the Spartacist League that they are not going to ship coal to the U.S. as an expression of solidarity with the coal strike.
The Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand held demonstrations in support of the American miners strike in front of U.S. consulates in Sydney and Melbourne on 14 and 15 March respectively. At these demonstrations and in its press the SL/ ANZ called for a black ban [hot-cargoing] on all coal to the U.S. for the duration of the strike, a demand for which it alone on the Australian left has consistently fought.
Markin comment:
In the wake of the recent somewhat isolated strike action at Verizon this summer and the struggle of the public worker unions in Wisconsin earlier this year that cried out for general strike solidarity action by all of organized labor, private and public, a little glimpse at the kind of solidarity actions by other parts of the organized, if only as an exemplary action, is worth taking note of. The class battles looming ahead will provide of opportunity to take these measures from paper to power. Forward!
ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners
The Spartacist League championed attempts by labor militants to bring other unions out on strike to smash Taft-Hartley and exposed the fake-lefts who helped sabotage this crucial defense of the miners...
—excerpted from WV No. 197, 17 March 1978
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14—As the mine workers face the most critical hour in their 100-day-old strike, the labor movement must ensure that they do not stand alone. With Carter lowering the boom by invoking Taft-Hartley it is the urgent duty of the unions to undertake protest strike action against this government strikebreak¬ing. Last week the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse¬men's Union (ILWU) became the first major U.S. union to move in this direction.
On Friday, March 10 the ILWU International Executive Board (IEB) adopted a resolution whose substance was as follows:
1) to authorize the International officers to call a 24-hour longshore strike coastwide, to protest the use of Taft-Hartley against the miners; 2) to call on the rest of the ILWU, particularly Hawaii and the Warehouse Division, to join in this action; 3) to call on the rest of organized labor in cities where the ILWU has locals to join the 24-hour stop-work action.
Such solidarity action with the coal miners is precisely what is needed at this moment. It could be the spark which ignites the rest of labor to join in this crucial battle, but some of the ILWU tops are predictably dragging their feet. Trade-union militants must raise an urgent clamor demanding that a coastwide dock shutdown and citywide work stoppages against Taft-Hartley and for victory to the miners strike be implemented NOW!...
Ferment in the ILWU
The earliest breakthrough leading to the ILWU resolution came in Local 13 in the San Pedro/Long Beach/Los Angeles area where several hundred longshoremen passed a resolution at the March 2 membership meeting calling for a one-day work action. According to a statement circulated by Chick Loveridge, an IEB member: "Local13 is urging President Carter not to interfere on the side of the mine owners, no Taft-Hartley. Local 13 is calling for a one-day supporting action, by closing down the port of LB/ LA and urging all other ports on the West Coast to do the same. Local 13 is also inviting all other labor organizations to join us in a meeting of support on the day the ports are closed down"
Parallel to the Local 13 action, Stan Gow and Howard Keylor,
members of the Local 10 (S.F. longshore) Executive Board and
publishers of "Longshore Militant," a class-struggle opposition
newsletter in the Local, along with the Militant Caucus in Local 6,
began circulating a petition on March 8 to"call on president Herman
and the Bay Area 1LWU local presidents to organize a 24-hour Bay
Area-wide protest strike against government strikebreaking in the
coalfields." The petition quoted a statement made by Herman at a
February 24 rally, where he boasted: "If they try mining coal with
bayonets or visit harm on the miners, there will be actions here and
throughout the country "
With a couple of days' circulation the petition gathered over 100 signatures in Local 10 and 150 in Local 6, as well as the signatures of Local 13 president Art Almeida and Seattle Local 19 president Dick Moork. This petition was an important factor in forcing the Local 10 Executive Board on March 9 to come out for some kind of solidarity action in support of the miners strike.
Strike Support Coalition
Herman himself had made the call for solidarity actions before some 1,000 assembled trade unionists at a February 24 rally organized by the so-called "Miners Strike Labor/Community Support Coalition," a collection of top Bay Area labor bureaucrats such as John Crowley of the Central Labor Council and Walter Johnson, president of Retail Clerks Local 1100. When this coalition held an organizing meeting March 11 at the Retail Clerks headquarters, about 200 trade union militants showed up, clearly upsetting the conservative trade union tops. Early in the meeting the Coalition's co-chairman, Larry Wing, president of ILWU Local 10, mentioned that the ILWU IEB favored a 24-hour coastwide work stoppage and was calling the rest of labor to join in. Wing also noted the IEB had voted a $25,000 donation to the mine workers as well as a $1 per-month/per-member assessment of the ILWU membership for the miners' families.
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
This simple motion immediately polarized the meeting, for the encrusted U.S. labor bureaucracy cannot abide even such elementary actions of class solidarity. Caught off guard, the nervous bureaucrats sought a way out of this dilemma and found it with the criminal aid of the Communist Party (CP) and the SWP. While both groups are vying to play chief hatchetman against labor militancy for the union tops, at this meeting the SWP clearly led the pack in wrecking the chances of solidarity strike action.
The fight which followed found the CP supporters caught in the middle. With the BART militants' motion simply calling for implementing the 1LWU resolution, they did not want to completely disavow it. But aware that the ILWU bureaucracy was seeking to minimize its impact, neither did they want to go too far out on a limb. Thus early on in the heated discussion Franklin Alexander, well-known CP supporter in ILWU Local 6, said he was "not ready" to vote for such a motion because it was "too soon," and later tried to kill it by referring it to the steering committee. (Ironically Billy Proctor, a CP supporter in Local 10, had signed the "Longshore Militant" petition earlier in the week.)
But the SWP supporters present did not beat around the bush. Mobilizing their small army of hitherto silent "Coalition" members to come out and defeat the motion, they effectively denounced the ILWU resolution as "ultra-left"! First Roland Sheppard, SWP floor leader, openly attacked the solidarity motion on the grounds that:
1) "The job of this body is to support the miners" [read Miller]; 2) "The ILWU actually isn't calling for the action, only looking for the mood in the ranks"; and 3) One must "walk before you run." Actually the SWP is on its hands and knees, a position it got used to during its 1960's peace crawls. And as if the miners who have been on strike for three months would not appreciate the support of a solidarity strike, John Olmstead, a Teamster, seconded Sheppard's remarks and actually cautioned that the motion would "alienate the union membership"!...
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
By voting time the several score SWP supporters had lined up a solid voting bloc of themselves and the most rabid right-wing bureaucrats present. Even so the first voice vote was disputed and a second hand vote was only defeated by a margin of roughly 120 to 70, with CP supporters such as Figueiredo, Franklin and several others abstaining. As if this wasn't enough, the SWP even opposed a subsequent proposal for nothing more frightening than a Saturday rally. (This was tabled to the steering committee!)
This sabotage of the solidarity strike proposal is the most blatant proof yet that the S WP's "turn to the unions" means covering for the bureaucrats and outright sabotage of vitally needed militant labor action. Surely the spectacle of these "socialists" denouncing the call of the ILWU Executive Board as, in substance, adventurist is downright grotesque. No conscious union militant can consider these reformists as anything but despicable betrayers of labor's cause. Because they are seeking to establish themselves as sophisticated braintrusters and apparatchiks for the liberal wing of labor officialdom these pimps for the bureaucracy are fiercely determined to maintain capitalist stability—sometimes even more so than the union tops themselves, who are occasionally subject to pressure from the ranks. Today the most rabid opponent of sympathy protest strikes to aid the miners—excepting only the reactionary Meanyites—is the SWP.
*********
Australian Labour Council Vows to Aid U.S. Coal Strike
SYDNEY—On 16 March the Newcastle, New South Wales Trades and Labour Council approved the following statement of solidarity with striking coal miners in America:
"The U.S. coal miners are currently in the forefront of American labour in their battle to safeguard their union rights and working conditions against the onslaught of the coal bosses and the Carter government. A victory by the miners in their strike is in the interest of the labour movement internationally and all attempts at strikebreaking by U.S. employers and the Carter government must be resisted. We pledge our full support and we condemn the U.S. government union bashing through its use of the Taft-Hartley Act."
The motion was referred for action to the Waterfront Group of Unions in Newcastle, which is a major port for shipment of Australian coal. On 21 March the WGU also passed this motion and sent a cable in solidarity with U.S. miners. Bob Rose, secretary of the Waterfront Group, told the Spartacist League that they are not going to ship coal to the U.S. as an expression of solidarity with the coal strike.
The Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand held demonstrations in support of the American miners strike in front of U.S. consulates in Sydney and Melbourne on 14 and 15 March respectively. At these demonstrations and in its press the SL/ ANZ called for a black ban [hot-cargoing] on all coal to the U.S. for the duration of the strike, a demand for which it alone on the Australian left has consistently fought.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-Engels to Sorge-1886
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886
Engels to Sorge-1886
Source: Science and Society Volume II, Number 3, 1938;
Translated and Edited: by Leonard E. Mins.
London, April 29, 1886.
Dear Sorge:
Your letters of February 15th and 28th and March 8th, and postcard of March 21st received.
The manuscript [of Capital] contains largely the same things that Marx noted in his copy for the third edition. In other passages, which provide for more insertions from the French, I am not binding myself to these unconditionally, (1) because the work for the third edition was done much later, and hence is decisive for me, and (2) because, for a translation to be made in America, far away from him, Marx would rather a have had many a difficult passage correctly translated from the French simplification than incorrectly from the German, and this consideration now vanishes. Nevertheless, it has given me many very useful hints which will, in time, find application for the German edition too. As soon as I am through with it I shall return it to you by registered mail....
The Broadhouse-Hyndman translation of Capital is nothing but a farce. The first chapter was translated from the German, full of mistakes to the point of ridiculousness. Now it is being translated from the French — the mistakes are the same. At the present rate of speed the thing won’t be finished by 1900.
Thanks for the calendar. I had, it is true, not suspected that Douais is so terribly underrated as a great man. Let him take the consciousness of his greatness, together with all of its underrating, with him into the grave without having it lessened in a pastry mold. But he was the right man for America, and if he had remained an ordinary democrat, I would have wished him the best of luck. But, as it is, he got into the wrong pew. As for the purist who declaims against our style and punctuation: he knows neither German nor English, else he wouldn’t find Anglicisms where there aren’t any. The German he admires, which was drilled into us in school, with its horrible periodic structure and the verb at the very end — separated from the subject by ten miles of intervening matter — it took me thirty years to unlearn that German again. That bureaucratic schoolmaster’s German, for which Lessing doesn’t exist at all, is on the decline even in Germany. What would this good fellow say if he heard the deputies speaking in the Reichstag, who have abolished this horrible construction because they always got tangled up in it, and spoke like the Jews: “Als der Bismarck ist gekommen vor die Zwangswahl, hat er lieber den Papst gekusst auf den Hintern als die Revolution auf den Mund.” This advance was first introduced by little Lasker; it is the only good thing he did. If Mr. Purist comes to Germany with his schoolmaster’s German, they will tell him he talks American. “You know how petty the learned German philistine is” — he seems to be particularly so in America. German sentence structure together with its punctuation as taught in the schools forty or fifty years ago deserves only to be thrown on the scrap-heap, and that is happening to it in Germany at last.
I think I have already written you that an American lady, married to a Russian, has gotten it into her head to translate my old book. I looked over the translation, which required considerable work. But she wrote that publication was assured and it had to be done at once, and so I had to do it. Now it turns out that she turned the negotiations over to a Miss Foster, the secretary of a women’s rights society, and the latter committed the blunder of giving it to the Socialist Labor Party. I told the translator what I thought of this, but it was too late. Moreover, I am glad that the gentlemen over there do not translate anything of mine; it would turn out beautifully. Their German is enough, and then their English!
The gentlemen of the Volkszeitung must be satisfied. They have gained control of the whole movement among the Germans and their business must be flourishing. It is a matter of course that a man like Dietzgen is pushed to the rear there. Playing with the boycott and with little strikes is, of course, much more important than theoretical enlightenment. But with all that the cause is moving ahead mightily in America. A real mass movement exists among the English-speaking workers for the first time. That it proceeds gropingly at first, clumsy, unclear, unknowing, is unavoidable. All that will be cleared up; the movement will and must develop through its own mistakes. Theoretical ignorance is a characteristic of all young peoples, but so is practical rapidity of development, too. As in England, all the preaching is of no use in America until the actual necessity exists. And this is present in America now, and they are becoming conscious of it. The entrance of the masses of native-born workers into the movement in America is for me one of the greatest events of 1886. As for the Germans over there, let the sort flourishing now join the Americans gradually; they will still be somewhat ahead of them. And lastly, there still is a central core among the Germans over there which retains theoretical insight into the nature and the course of the whole movement, keeps the process of fermentation going, and finally rises to the top again.
The second great event of 1886 is the formation of a workers party in the French Chamber by Basly and Camelinat, two handpicked “worker” deputies nominated and elected by the Radicals, who, contrary to all the regulations, did not become servants of their Radical masters, but spoke as workers. The Decazeville strike brought the split between them and the Radicals to a head — five other deputies joined them. The Radicals had to come out in the open with their policy towards the workers, and, as the government exists only with the Radicals’ support, that was dreadful, for they were justifiably held accountable by the workers for each of the government’s acts. In short, the Radicals: Clemenceau and all the others, behaved wretchedly; and then there took place what no preacher had succeeded in accomplishing up to then: the French workers’ defection from the Radicals. And the second result was: the union of all the socialist fractions for joint action. Only the miserable Possibilists kept apart, and consequently they are falling asunder more and more every day. The government helped this new departure tremendously by its blunders. For it wants to float a loan of 90,000,000 francs and needs high finance for this purpose, but the latter is also a stockholder in Decazeville and refuses to lend the money unless the government breaks the strike. Hence the arrest of Duc and Roche. The workers’ reply is: Roche’s candidacy in Paris for next Sunday (elections to the Chamber) and Due’s (Quercy’s) candidacy for the Municipal Council, where he is certain of election. In brief, a splendid movement is merrily under way in France again, and the best thing about it is that our people, Guesde, Lafargue, Deville, are the theoretical leaders.
The reaction upon Germany did not fail to make its appearance. The revolutionary speech and action of the Frenchmen made the whining of Geiser, Viereck, Auer and Co. appear more feeble than ever, and thus only Bebel and Liebknecht spoke in the Last debate on the Socialist Law, both of them very good. With this debate we can show our faces in respectable society again, which was by no means the case with all of them. In general it is good for the Germans to have their leadership disputed somewhat, especially since they have elected so many philistine elements (which was unavoidable, to be sure). In Germany everything becomes philistine in quiet periods; the spur of French competition then becomes absolutely necessary, nor will it be lacking. French socialism has suddenly grown from a sect into a party, and only now and only thereby is the mass affiliation of the workers possible, for the latter are sick and tired of sectarianism, and that was the secret of their following the extremist bourgeois party, the Radicals. Next Sunday will show considerable progress in the elections, though it is scarcely to be expected that Roche will win.
I think the printing of the English translation of Capital, Volume I, will begin in two to three weeks. I am far from through with revision, but 300 pages are ready for the printer and another hundred almost ready. Another thing. A Mr. J. T. McEnnis interviewed me a few days ago under the pretext of getting advice on labor legislation for, the State of Missouri. I soon discovered that newspaper business was behind it, and he confessed that he was working for the leading democratic paper of St. Louis, but gave me his word of honor that he would submit, every word to me in advance for revision. The man was sent to me by the Russian Stepniak. Nearly two weeks have passed, and I am afraid he did not keep his promise. I have forgotten the name of the St. Louis paper. Therefore, if anything is printed regarding the interview, please have the enclosed statement printed in the Sozialist, Volkszeitung, and anywhere else you think necessary. If the man does come and keep his promise, I shall of course, let you know at once, and you can then tear up the statement. Here the movement is not progressing at all, luckily enough. Hyndman and Co. are political careerists who spoil everything, while the anarchists are making rapid progress in the Socialist League. Morris and Bax — one as an emotional socialist and the other as a chaser after philosophical paradoxes — are wholly under their control for the present and must now undergo this experience in corpere vili. You will note from the Commonweal that Aveling, largely thanks to Tussy’s energy, no longer shares the responsibility for this swindle, and that is good. And these muddleheads want to lead the British working class! Fortunately the latter wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them.
Best regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886
Engels to Sorge-1886
Source: Science and Society Volume II, Number 3, 1938;
Translated and Edited: by Leonard E. Mins.
London, April 29, 1886.
Dear Sorge:
Your letters of February 15th and 28th and March 8th, and postcard of March 21st received.
The manuscript [of Capital] contains largely the same things that Marx noted in his copy for the third edition. In other passages, which provide for more insertions from the French, I am not binding myself to these unconditionally, (1) because the work for the third edition was done much later, and hence is decisive for me, and (2) because, for a translation to be made in America, far away from him, Marx would rather a have had many a difficult passage correctly translated from the French simplification than incorrectly from the German, and this consideration now vanishes. Nevertheless, it has given me many very useful hints which will, in time, find application for the German edition too. As soon as I am through with it I shall return it to you by registered mail....
The Broadhouse-Hyndman translation of Capital is nothing but a farce. The first chapter was translated from the German, full of mistakes to the point of ridiculousness. Now it is being translated from the French — the mistakes are the same. At the present rate of speed the thing won’t be finished by 1900.
Thanks for the calendar. I had, it is true, not suspected that Douais is so terribly underrated as a great man. Let him take the consciousness of his greatness, together with all of its underrating, with him into the grave without having it lessened in a pastry mold. But he was the right man for America, and if he had remained an ordinary democrat, I would have wished him the best of luck. But, as it is, he got into the wrong pew. As for the purist who declaims against our style and punctuation: he knows neither German nor English, else he wouldn’t find Anglicisms where there aren’t any. The German he admires, which was drilled into us in school, with its horrible periodic structure and the verb at the very end — separated from the subject by ten miles of intervening matter — it took me thirty years to unlearn that German again. That bureaucratic schoolmaster’s German, for which Lessing doesn’t exist at all, is on the decline even in Germany. What would this good fellow say if he heard the deputies speaking in the Reichstag, who have abolished this horrible construction because they always got tangled up in it, and spoke like the Jews: “Als der Bismarck ist gekommen vor die Zwangswahl, hat er lieber den Papst gekusst auf den Hintern als die Revolution auf den Mund.” This advance was first introduced by little Lasker; it is the only good thing he did. If Mr. Purist comes to Germany with his schoolmaster’s German, they will tell him he talks American. “You know how petty the learned German philistine is” — he seems to be particularly so in America. German sentence structure together with its punctuation as taught in the schools forty or fifty years ago deserves only to be thrown on the scrap-heap, and that is happening to it in Germany at last.
I think I have already written you that an American lady, married to a Russian, has gotten it into her head to translate my old book. I looked over the translation, which required considerable work. But she wrote that publication was assured and it had to be done at once, and so I had to do it. Now it turns out that she turned the negotiations over to a Miss Foster, the secretary of a women’s rights society, and the latter committed the blunder of giving it to the Socialist Labor Party. I told the translator what I thought of this, but it was too late. Moreover, I am glad that the gentlemen over there do not translate anything of mine; it would turn out beautifully. Their German is enough, and then their English!
The gentlemen of the Volkszeitung must be satisfied. They have gained control of the whole movement among the Germans and their business must be flourishing. It is a matter of course that a man like Dietzgen is pushed to the rear there. Playing with the boycott and with little strikes is, of course, much more important than theoretical enlightenment. But with all that the cause is moving ahead mightily in America. A real mass movement exists among the English-speaking workers for the first time. That it proceeds gropingly at first, clumsy, unclear, unknowing, is unavoidable. All that will be cleared up; the movement will and must develop through its own mistakes. Theoretical ignorance is a characteristic of all young peoples, but so is practical rapidity of development, too. As in England, all the preaching is of no use in America until the actual necessity exists. And this is present in America now, and they are becoming conscious of it. The entrance of the masses of native-born workers into the movement in America is for me one of the greatest events of 1886. As for the Germans over there, let the sort flourishing now join the Americans gradually; they will still be somewhat ahead of them. And lastly, there still is a central core among the Germans over there which retains theoretical insight into the nature and the course of the whole movement, keeps the process of fermentation going, and finally rises to the top again.
The second great event of 1886 is the formation of a workers party in the French Chamber by Basly and Camelinat, two handpicked “worker” deputies nominated and elected by the Radicals, who, contrary to all the regulations, did not become servants of their Radical masters, but spoke as workers. The Decazeville strike brought the split between them and the Radicals to a head — five other deputies joined them. The Radicals had to come out in the open with their policy towards the workers, and, as the government exists only with the Radicals’ support, that was dreadful, for they were justifiably held accountable by the workers for each of the government’s acts. In short, the Radicals: Clemenceau and all the others, behaved wretchedly; and then there took place what no preacher had succeeded in accomplishing up to then: the French workers’ defection from the Radicals. And the second result was: the union of all the socialist fractions for joint action. Only the miserable Possibilists kept apart, and consequently they are falling asunder more and more every day. The government helped this new departure tremendously by its blunders. For it wants to float a loan of 90,000,000 francs and needs high finance for this purpose, but the latter is also a stockholder in Decazeville and refuses to lend the money unless the government breaks the strike. Hence the arrest of Duc and Roche. The workers’ reply is: Roche’s candidacy in Paris for next Sunday (elections to the Chamber) and Due’s (Quercy’s) candidacy for the Municipal Council, where he is certain of election. In brief, a splendid movement is merrily under way in France again, and the best thing about it is that our people, Guesde, Lafargue, Deville, are the theoretical leaders.
The reaction upon Germany did not fail to make its appearance. The revolutionary speech and action of the Frenchmen made the whining of Geiser, Viereck, Auer and Co. appear more feeble than ever, and thus only Bebel and Liebknecht spoke in the Last debate on the Socialist Law, both of them very good. With this debate we can show our faces in respectable society again, which was by no means the case with all of them. In general it is good for the Germans to have their leadership disputed somewhat, especially since they have elected so many philistine elements (which was unavoidable, to be sure). In Germany everything becomes philistine in quiet periods; the spur of French competition then becomes absolutely necessary, nor will it be lacking. French socialism has suddenly grown from a sect into a party, and only now and only thereby is the mass affiliation of the workers possible, for the latter are sick and tired of sectarianism, and that was the secret of their following the extremist bourgeois party, the Radicals. Next Sunday will show considerable progress in the elections, though it is scarcely to be expected that Roche will win.
I think the printing of the English translation of Capital, Volume I, will begin in two to three weeks. I am far from through with revision, but 300 pages are ready for the printer and another hundred almost ready. Another thing. A Mr. J. T. McEnnis interviewed me a few days ago under the pretext of getting advice on labor legislation for, the State of Missouri. I soon discovered that newspaper business was behind it, and he confessed that he was working for the leading democratic paper of St. Louis, but gave me his word of honor that he would submit, every word to me in advance for revision. The man was sent to me by the Russian Stepniak. Nearly two weeks have passed, and I am afraid he did not keep his promise. I have forgotten the name of the St. Louis paper. Therefore, if anything is printed regarding the interview, please have the enclosed statement printed in the Sozialist, Volkszeitung, and anywhere else you think necessary. If the man does come and keep his promise, I shall of course, let you know at once, and you can then tear up the statement. Here the movement is not progressing at all, luckily enough. Hyndman and Co. are political careerists who spoil everything, while the anarchists are making rapid progress in the Socialist League. Morris and Bax — one as an emotional socialist and the other as a chaser after philosophical paradoxes — are wholly under their control for the present and must now undergo this experience in corpere vili. You will note from the Commonweal that Aveling, largely thanks to Tussy’s energy, no longer shares the responsibility for this swindle, and that is good. And these muddleheads want to lead the British working class! Fortunately the latter wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them.
Best regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
The Latest From The British Leftist Blog-"Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism"
Click on the headline to link to the latest from the British Leftist blog-Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Kathy Mattea's"Black Lung"
Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Kathy Mattea performing about the classic coal country health issue that never goes away, "Black Lung".
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 comment:
I can add nothing here to the song, except that the struggle portrayed in the accompanying film review on this date, "Harlan County, U.S.A.", brings that safety issue home in a very big way.
Black Lung Lyrics
Sign a petition under working condition
Union is in bed with the coal operators
Carry our freedom, looking for something
To get your family a better life for every single day
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
All the men look the same
When they come out the mine
No prejudice for the mighty black lung
Rank and file workers, rank and file minds
Take off the gloves and sock it to 'em
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
Hey unbeliever (Hey)
Black lung fever (Hey)
Transmit receiver (Hey)
Stand up deceiver (Hey)
Well I don't like it either (Hey)
No predjucide for the Black lung fever(no)
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name
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 comment:
I can add nothing here to the song, except that the struggle portrayed in the accompanying film review on this date, "Harlan County, U.S.A.", brings that safety issue home in a very big way.
Black Lung Lyrics
Sign a petition under working condition
Union is in bed with the coal operators
Carry our freedom, looking for something
To get your family a better life for every single day
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
All the men look the same
When they come out the mine
No prejudice for the mighty black lung
Rank and file workers, rank and file minds
Take off the gloves and sock it to 'em
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
Hey unbeliever (Hey)
Black lung fever (Hey)
Transmit receiver (Hey)
Stand up deceiver (Hey)
Well I don't like it either (Hey)
No predjucide for the Black lung fever(no)
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name
Friday, September 23, 2011
“Yes, Now Is The Time For Your Tears.”-Troy Davis, R.I.P. - Down With The Barbaric Death Penalty!-Never Forget- A Short Additional Note
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Troy Anthony Davis and information on his case.
"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."
last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963
Markin comment (posted September 22, 2011):
Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.
On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.
Additional Markin comment posted September 23, 2011:
No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."
last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963
Markin comment (posted September 22, 2011):
Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.
On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.
Additional Markin comment posted September 23, 2011:
No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
"Yes, Now Is The Time For Your Tears"- Photos Of Boston Protest Of The Execution Of Troy Davis By The State Of Georgia -Including His Last Statement To Supporters-Down With The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
Click on the headline to link to a Boston IndyMedia entry for a post-execution protest, on September 22, 2011 at Copley Square in Boston, of the execution of Troy Anthony Davis by the State Of Georgia.
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-The Founding Conference Of The Fourth International (1938)-"Resolution On The Situation In Poland"
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
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 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.
*******
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
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 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.
*******
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-Interview with Karl Marx-by H.-Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Internet Archive
Interview with Karl Marx-by H.-Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879
London, December 18 [1878] – In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, the northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the cornerstone of modern socialism. He was exiled from his native country – Germany – in 1844, for propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848, he returned, but in a few months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home, they certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly springs from a firm belief in them, and, however much we may deprecate their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of the now venerable exile.
Our correspondent has called upon him twice or thrice, and each time the Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He must be over seventy years of age.[18] His physique is well knit, massive, erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the ancient-looking German woman [Helene Demuth] who waits upon visitors has instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and having fixed his one eyeglass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to interest one. And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Moliere, Racine, Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., etc. During my conversation I was struck with
His Intimacy with American Questions which have been uppermost during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising accuracy with which he criticized our national and state legislation, impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information from inside sources.[19] But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby – socialism – he does not indulge in those melodramatic flights generally attributed to him, but dwells upon his utopian plans for “the emancipation of the human race” with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in the next.
Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of Capital, and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime I will give you a few extracts from the printed general rules of The International Society published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The Preamble sets forth “that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor – that is, the sources of life – lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; that all efforts aiming at” the universal emancipation of the working classes “have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country,” and the Preamble calls for “the immediate combination of the still-disconnected movements.” It goes on to say that the International Association acknowledges “no rights without duties, no duties without rights” – thus making every member a worker. the Association was formed at London “to afford a central medium of communication and cooperation between the workingmen’s societies in the different countries,” aiming at the same end, namely: “the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes.” “Each member,” the document further says, “of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the associated workingmen."
The Society Consists of a general Congress, which meets annually, a general Council, which forms “an international agency between the different national and local groups of the Association, so that the workingmen in one country can be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every other country." This Council receives and acts upon the applications of new branches or sections to join the International, decides differences arising between the sections, and, in fact, to use an American phrase, “runs the machine." The expenses of the General Council are defrayed by an annual contribution of an English penny per member. Then come the federal councils or committees, and local sections, in the various countries. The federal councils are bound to send one report at least every month to the General Council, and every three months a report on the administration and financial state of their respective branches. whenever attacks against the International are published, the nearest branch or committee is bound to send at once a copy of such publication to the General Council. The formation of female branches among the working classes is recommended.
The General Council comprises the following: R. Applegarth, M.T. Boon, Frederick Bradnick, G.H. Buttery, E. Delahaye, Eugene Dupont (on mission), William Hales, G. Harris, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, Harriet Law, Frederick Lessner, Lochner, Charles Longuet, C. Martin, Zevy Maurice, Henry Mayo, George Milner, Charles Murray, Pfander, John Pach, Ruhl Sadler, Cowell Stepney, Alfred Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, John Weston. The corresponding secretaries for the various countries are: Leo Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; T. Mottershead, Denmark; A. Serrailler, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; Charles Rochat, Holland; J.P. McDonell, Ireland; Frederick Engels, Italy and Spain; Walery Wroblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; J.G. Eccarius, United States; Le Moussu, for French branches of United States.
During my visit to Dr. Marx, I alluded to the platform given by J.C. Bancroft Davis in his official report of 1877 as the clearest and most concise exposition of socialism that I had seen.[20] He said it was taken from the report of the socialist reunion at Gotha, Germany, in May, 1875. The translation was incorrect, he said, and he Volunteered Corrections which I append as he dictated:[21]
First: Universal, direct, and secret suffrage for all males over twenty years, for all elections, municipal and state.
Second: Direct legislation by the people.[22] War and peace to be made by direct popular vote.
Third: Universal obligation to militia duty. No standing army.
Fourth: Abolition of all special legislation regarding press laws and public meetings.
Fifth: Legal remedies free of expense. Legal proceedings to be conducted by the people.
Sixth: Education to be by the state – general, obligatory, and free. Freedom of science and religion.[23]
Seventh: All indirect taxes to be abolished. Money to be raised for state and municipal purposes by direct progressive income tax.
Eighth: Freedom of combination among the working classes.
Ninth: The legal day of labor for men to be defined. The work of women to be limited, and that of children to be abolished.
Tenth: Sanitary laws for the protection of life and health of laborers, and regulation of their dwelling and places of labor, to be enforced by persons selected by them.
Eleventh: Suitable provision respecting prison labor. In Mr. Bancroft Davis’ report there is
A Twelfth Clause[24], the most important of all, which reads: “State aid and credit for industrial societies, under democratic direction.” I asked the Doctor why he omitted this, and he replied:
“When the reunion took place at Gotha, in 1875, there existed a division among the Social Democrats. The one wing were partisans of Lassalle, the others those who had accepted in general the program of the International organization, and were called the Eisenach party. The twelfth point was not placed on the platform, but placed in the general introduction by way of concession to the Lassallians. Afterwards it was never spoken of. Mr. Davis does not say that is was placed in the program as a compromise having no particular significance, but gravely puts it in as one of the cardinal principles of the program.”[25]
“But,” I said, “socialists generally look upon the transformation of the means of labor into the common property of society as the grand climax of the movement.”
“Yes; we say that this will be the outcome of the movement, but it will be a question of time, of education, and the institution of higher social status.”
“This platform,” I remarked, “applies only to Germany and one or two other countries.”
“Ah!” he returned, “if you draw your conclusions from nothing but this, you know nothing of the activity of the party. Many of its points have no significance outside of Germany. Spain, Russia, England, and America have platforms suited to their peculiar difficulties. The only similarity in them is the end to be attained.”
“And that is the supremacy of labor?”
“That is the Emancipation of Labor”
“Do European socialists look upon the movement in America as a serious one?”
“Yes: it is the natural outcome of the country’s development. It has been said that the movement has been imported by foreigners. When labor movements became disagreeable in England, fifty years ago, the same thing was said; and that was long before socialism was spoken of. In American, since 1857, only has the labor movement become conspicuous.[26] Then trade unions began to flourish; then trades assemblies were formed, in which the workers in different industries united; and after that came national labor unions. If you consider this chronological progress, you will see that socialism has sprung up in that country without the aid of foreigners, and was merely caused by the concentration of capital and the changed relations between the workmen and employers.”
“Now,” asked our correspondent, “what has socialism done so far?”
“Two things,” he returned. “Socialists have shown the general universal struggle between capital and labor – The Cosmopolitan Chapter in one word – and consequently tried to bring about an understanding between the workmen in the different countries, which became more necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor, pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by the international action of workmen. The working classes move spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its character and its ends will be.”
“Which means the overthrowing of the present social system,” I interrupted.
“This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one hand,” he continued, “and the mere working power in the hands of the laborers to sell a commodity, we claim is merely a historical phase, which will pass away and give place to A Higher Social Condition.
We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial resources of modern countries. From a socialistic standpoint the means already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon trade unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In America the need of an independent workingmen’s party has been made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques have seized upon the legislatures, and politics has been made a trade. But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and hypocrisy that there is on this side of the ocean.”
I asked him to give me a reason for the rapid growth of the socialistic party in Germany, when he replied:
“The present socialistic party came last. Theirs was not the utopian scheme which made headway in France and England. The German mind is given to theorizing, more than that of other peoples. From previous experience the Germans evolved something practical. This modern capitalistic system, you must recollect, is quite new in Germany in comparison to other states. Questions were raised which had become almost antiquated in France and England, and political influences to which these states had yielded sprang into life when the working classes of Germany had become imbued with socialistic theories. therefore, from the beginning almost of modern industrial development, they have formed an Independent Political Party.
They had their own representatives in the German parliament. There was no party to oppose the policy of the government, and this devolved upon them. To trace the course of the party would take a long time; but I may say this: that, if the middle classes of Germany were not the greatest cowards, distinct from the middle classes of America and England, all the political work against the government should have been done by them.”
I asked him a question regarding the numerical strength of the Lassallians in the ranks of the Internationalists.
“The party of Lassalle,” he replied, “does not exist. Of course there are some believers in our ranks, but the number is small. Lassalle anticipated our general principles. When he commenced to move after the reaction of 1848, he fancied that he could more successfully revive the movement by advocating cooperation of the workingmen in industrial enterprises. It was to stir them into activity. He looked upon this merely as a means to the real end of the movement. I have letters from him to this effect.”[27]
“You would call it his nostrum?”[28]
“Exactly. He called upon Bismarck, told him what he designed, and Bismarck encouraged Lassalle’s course at that time in every possible way.”
“What was his object?”
“He wished to use the working classes as a set-off against the middle classes who instigated the troubles of 1848.”
“It is said that you are the head and front of socialism, Doctor, and from your villa here pull the wires of all the associations, revolutions, etc., now going on. What do you say about it?”
The old gentleman smiled: “I know it.”
“It Is Very Absurd yet it has a comic side. For two months previous to the attempt of Hoedel, Bismarck complained in his North German Gazette that I was in league with Father Beck, the leader of the Jesuit movement, and that we were keeping the socialist movement in such a condition that he could do nothing with it.”
“But your International Society in London directs the movement?”
“The International Society has outlived its usefulness and exists no longer.[29] It did exist and direct the movement; but the growth of socialism of late years has been so great that its existence has become unnecessary. Newspapers have been started in the various countries. These are interchanged. That is about the only connection the parties in the different countries have with one another. The International Society, in the first instance, was created to bring the workmen together, and show the advisability of effecting organization among their various nationalities. The interests of each party in the different countries have no similarity. This specter of the Internationalist leaders sitting at London is a mere invention. It is true that we dictated to foreign societies when the Internationalist organization was first accomplished. We were forced to exclude some sections in New York, among them one in which Madam Woodhull was conspicuous.[30] that was in 1871. there are several American politicians – I will not name them – who wish to trade in the movement. They are well known to American socialists.”
“You and your followers, Dr. Marx, have been credited with all sorts of incendiary speeches against religion. Of course you would like to see the whole system destroyed, root and branch.”
“We know,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation, “that violent measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as socialism grows, Religion Will Disappear.
Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part.”
“The Reverend Joseph Cook,[31] of Boston – you know him –”
“We have heard of him, a very badly informed man upon the subject of socialism.”
“In a lecture lately upon the subject, he said, ‘Karl Marx is credited now with saying that, in the United States, and in Great Britain, and perhaps in France, a reform of labor will occur without bloody revolution, but that blood must be shed in Germany, and in Russia, and in Italy, and in Austria.’”
“No socialist,” remarked the Doctor, smiling, “need predict that there will be a bloody revolution in Russia, Germany, Austria, and possibly Italy if the Italians keep on in the policy they are now pursuing. The deeds of the French Revolution may be enacted again in those countries. That is apparent to any political student. But those revolutions will be made by the majority. No revolution can be made by a party, but By a Nation”.
“The reverend gentleman alluded to,” I remarked, “gave an extract from a letter which he said you addressed to the Communists of Paris in 1871. Here it is:
‘We are as yet but 3,000,000 at most. In twenty years we shall be 50,000,000 – 100,000,000 perhaps. Then the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York – in short, the whole world. And before this new insurrection, such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a hideous nightmare; for the popular conflagration, kindled at a hundred points at once, will destroy even its memory!’
Now, Doctor, I suppose you admit the authorship of that extract?”
“I never wrote a word of it. I never write Such Melodramatic Nonsense.
I am very careful what I do write. That was put in Le Figaro, over my signature, about that time. There were hundreds of the same kind of letters flying about them. I wrote to the London Times and declared they were forgeries; but if I denied everything that has been said and written of me, I would require a score of secretaries.”
“But you have written in sympathy with the Paris Communists?”
“Certainly I have, in consideration of what was written of them in leading articles; but the correspondence from Paris in English papers is quite sufficient to refute the blunders propagated in editorials. The Commune killed only about sixty people; Marshal MacMahon and his slaughtering army killed over 60,000. There has never been a movement so slandered as that of the Commune.”
“Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?”
“No great movement,” Karl answered, “has ever been inaugurated Without Bloodshed.
“The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country gives proof of this, and as for assassination,” he went on to say, “it is not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; kings have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted before socialism was born. Every attempt, however, now made upon a royal or state individual is attributed to socialism. The socialists would regret very much the death of the German Emperor at the present time. He is very useful where he is; and Bismarck has done more for the cause than any other statesman, by driving things to extremes.”
I asked Dr. Marx What He Thought of Bismarck.
He replied that “Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by building up a despotism under the plea of unification. his course has been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup d’etat; but it will fail. The socialists of Germany, as of France, protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued manifestoes foretelling the German people, if they allowed the pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the ruthless oppression of the productive masses. The Social-Democratic party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders imprisoned. Still their deputies alone dared to protest, and very vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible annexation of French provinces. However, Bismarck carried his policy by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was fought, and when he could make no conquests, he was called upon for original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the state needs it. Under a sham constitution he has taxed the people for his military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now he seeks to do it with no constitution at all. For the purpose of levying as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of socialism,[32] and has done everything in his power To Create an Emeute.”
“You have continual advice from Berlin?”
“Yes,” he said; “my friends keep me well advised. It is in a perfectly quiet state, and Bismarck is disappointed. He has expelled forty-eight prominent men – among them Deputies Hasselman and Fritsche and Rackow, Bauman, and Adler, of the Freie Presse.[33] These men kept the workmen of Berlin quiet. Bismarck knew this. He also knew that there were 75,000 workmen in that city upon the verge of starvation. Once those leaders were gone, he was confident that the mob would rise, and that would be the cue for a carnival of slaughter. The screws would then be put upon the whole German Empire; his petty theory of blood and iron would then have full sway, and taxation could be levied to any extent. So far no emeute has occurred, and he stands today confounded at the situation and the ridicule of all statesmen.”
H.[34]
Transcribed in 1996 by Zodiac
Html Markup in 1999 by Brian Baggins.
Notes and Introduction added by Ellen Schwartz
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Internet Archive
Interview with Karl Marx-by H.-Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879
London, December 18 [1878] – In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, the northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the cornerstone of modern socialism. He was exiled from his native country – Germany – in 1844, for propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848, he returned, but in a few months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home, they certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly springs from a firm belief in them, and, however much we may deprecate their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of the now venerable exile.
Our correspondent has called upon him twice or thrice, and each time the Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He must be over seventy years of age.[18] His physique is well knit, massive, erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the ancient-looking German woman [Helene Demuth] who waits upon visitors has instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and having fixed his one eyeglass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to interest one. And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Moliere, Racine, Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., etc. During my conversation I was struck with
His Intimacy with American Questions which have been uppermost during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising accuracy with which he criticized our national and state legislation, impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information from inside sources.[19] But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby – socialism – he does not indulge in those melodramatic flights generally attributed to him, but dwells upon his utopian plans for “the emancipation of the human race” with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in the next.
Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of Capital, and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime I will give you a few extracts from the printed general rules of The International Society published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The Preamble sets forth “that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor – that is, the sources of life – lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; that all efforts aiming at” the universal emancipation of the working classes “have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country,” and the Preamble calls for “the immediate combination of the still-disconnected movements.” It goes on to say that the International Association acknowledges “no rights without duties, no duties without rights” – thus making every member a worker. the Association was formed at London “to afford a central medium of communication and cooperation between the workingmen’s societies in the different countries,” aiming at the same end, namely: “the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes.” “Each member,” the document further says, “of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the associated workingmen."
The Society Consists of a general Congress, which meets annually, a general Council, which forms “an international agency between the different national and local groups of the Association, so that the workingmen in one country can be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every other country." This Council receives and acts upon the applications of new branches or sections to join the International, decides differences arising between the sections, and, in fact, to use an American phrase, “runs the machine." The expenses of the General Council are defrayed by an annual contribution of an English penny per member. Then come the federal councils or committees, and local sections, in the various countries. The federal councils are bound to send one report at least every month to the General Council, and every three months a report on the administration and financial state of their respective branches. whenever attacks against the International are published, the nearest branch or committee is bound to send at once a copy of such publication to the General Council. The formation of female branches among the working classes is recommended.
The General Council comprises the following: R. Applegarth, M.T. Boon, Frederick Bradnick, G.H. Buttery, E. Delahaye, Eugene Dupont (on mission), William Hales, G. Harris, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, Harriet Law, Frederick Lessner, Lochner, Charles Longuet, C. Martin, Zevy Maurice, Henry Mayo, George Milner, Charles Murray, Pfander, John Pach, Ruhl Sadler, Cowell Stepney, Alfred Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, John Weston. The corresponding secretaries for the various countries are: Leo Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; T. Mottershead, Denmark; A. Serrailler, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; Charles Rochat, Holland; J.P. McDonell, Ireland; Frederick Engels, Italy and Spain; Walery Wroblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; J.G. Eccarius, United States; Le Moussu, for French branches of United States.
During my visit to Dr. Marx, I alluded to the platform given by J.C. Bancroft Davis in his official report of 1877 as the clearest and most concise exposition of socialism that I had seen.[20] He said it was taken from the report of the socialist reunion at Gotha, Germany, in May, 1875. The translation was incorrect, he said, and he Volunteered Corrections which I append as he dictated:[21]
First: Universal, direct, and secret suffrage for all males over twenty years, for all elections, municipal and state.
Second: Direct legislation by the people.[22] War and peace to be made by direct popular vote.
Third: Universal obligation to militia duty. No standing army.
Fourth: Abolition of all special legislation regarding press laws and public meetings.
Fifth: Legal remedies free of expense. Legal proceedings to be conducted by the people.
Sixth: Education to be by the state – general, obligatory, and free. Freedom of science and religion.[23]
Seventh: All indirect taxes to be abolished. Money to be raised for state and municipal purposes by direct progressive income tax.
Eighth: Freedom of combination among the working classes.
Ninth: The legal day of labor for men to be defined. The work of women to be limited, and that of children to be abolished.
Tenth: Sanitary laws for the protection of life and health of laborers, and regulation of their dwelling and places of labor, to be enforced by persons selected by them.
Eleventh: Suitable provision respecting prison labor. In Mr. Bancroft Davis’ report there is
A Twelfth Clause[24], the most important of all, which reads: “State aid and credit for industrial societies, under democratic direction.” I asked the Doctor why he omitted this, and he replied:
“When the reunion took place at Gotha, in 1875, there existed a division among the Social Democrats. The one wing were partisans of Lassalle, the others those who had accepted in general the program of the International organization, and were called the Eisenach party. The twelfth point was not placed on the platform, but placed in the general introduction by way of concession to the Lassallians. Afterwards it was never spoken of. Mr. Davis does not say that is was placed in the program as a compromise having no particular significance, but gravely puts it in as one of the cardinal principles of the program.”[25]
“But,” I said, “socialists generally look upon the transformation of the means of labor into the common property of society as the grand climax of the movement.”
“Yes; we say that this will be the outcome of the movement, but it will be a question of time, of education, and the institution of higher social status.”
“This platform,” I remarked, “applies only to Germany and one or two other countries.”
“Ah!” he returned, “if you draw your conclusions from nothing but this, you know nothing of the activity of the party. Many of its points have no significance outside of Germany. Spain, Russia, England, and America have platforms suited to their peculiar difficulties. The only similarity in them is the end to be attained.”
“And that is the supremacy of labor?”
“That is the Emancipation of Labor”
“Do European socialists look upon the movement in America as a serious one?”
“Yes: it is the natural outcome of the country’s development. It has been said that the movement has been imported by foreigners. When labor movements became disagreeable in England, fifty years ago, the same thing was said; and that was long before socialism was spoken of. In American, since 1857, only has the labor movement become conspicuous.[26] Then trade unions began to flourish; then trades assemblies were formed, in which the workers in different industries united; and after that came national labor unions. If you consider this chronological progress, you will see that socialism has sprung up in that country without the aid of foreigners, and was merely caused by the concentration of capital and the changed relations between the workmen and employers.”
“Now,” asked our correspondent, “what has socialism done so far?”
“Two things,” he returned. “Socialists have shown the general universal struggle between capital and labor – The Cosmopolitan Chapter in one word – and consequently tried to bring about an understanding between the workmen in the different countries, which became more necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor, pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by the international action of workmen. The working classes move spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its character and its ends will be.”
“Which means the overthrowing of the present social system,” I interrupted.
“This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one hand,” he continued, “and the mere working power in the hands of the laborers to sell a commodity, we claim is merely a historical phase, which will pass away and give place to A Higher Social Condition.
We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial resources of modern countries. From a socialistic standpoint the means already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon trade unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In America the need of an independent workingmen’s party has been made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques have seized upon the legislatures, and politics has been made a trade. But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and hypocrisy that there is on this side of the ocean.”
I asked him to give me a reason for the rapid growth of the socialistic party in Germany, when he replied:
“The present socialistic party came last. Theirs was not the utopian scheme which made headway in France and England. The German mind is given to theorizing, more than that of other peoples. From previous experience the Germans evolved something practical. This modern capitalistic system, you must recollect, is quite new in Germany in comparison to other states. Questions were raised which had become almost antiquated in France and England, and political influences to which these states had yielded sprang into life when the working classes of Germany had become imbued with socialistic theories. therefore, from the beginning almost of modern industrial development, they have formed an Independent Political Party.
They had their own representatives in the German parliament. There was no party to oppose the policy of the government, and this devolved upon them. To trace the course of the party would take a long time; but I may say this: that, if the middle classes of Germany were not the greatest cowards, distinct from the middle classes of America and England, all the political work against the government should have been done by them.”
I asked him a question regarding the numerical strength of the Lassallians in the ranks of the Internationalists.
“The party of Lassalle,” he replied, “does not exist. Of course there are some believers in our ranks, but the number is small. Lassalle anticipated our general principles. When he commenced to move after the reaction of 1848, he fancied that he could more successfully revive the movement by advocating cooperation of the workingmen in industrial enterprises. It was to stir them into activity. He looked upon this merely as a means to the real end of the movement. I have letters from him to this effect.”[27]
“You would call it his nostrum?”[28]
“Exactly. He called upon Bismarck, told him what he designed, and Bismarck encouraged Lassalle’s course at that time in every possible way.”
“What was his object?”
“He wished to use the working classes as a set-off against the middle classes who instigated the troubles of 1848.”
“It is said that you are the head and front of socialism, Doctor, and from your villa here pull the wires of all the associations, revolutions, etc., now going on. What do you say about it?”
The old gentleman smiled: “I know it.”
“It Is Very Absurd yet it has a comic side. For two months previous to the attempt of Hoedel, Bismarck complained in his North German Gazette that I was in league with Father Beck, the leader of the Jesuit movement, and that we were keeping the socialist movement in such a condition that he could do nothing with it.”
“But your International Society in London directs the movement?”
“The International Society has outlived its usefulness and exists no longer.[29] It did exist and direct the movement; but the growth of socialism of late years has been so great that its existence has become unnecessary. Newspapers have been started in the various countries. These are interchanged. That is about the only connection the parties in the different countries have with one another. The International Society, in the first instance, was created to bring the workmen together, and show the advisability of effecting organization among their various nationalities. The interests of each party in the different countries have no similarity. This specter of the Internationalist leaders sitting at London is a mere invention. It is true that we dictated to foreign societies when the Internationalist organization was first accomplished. We were forced to exclude some sections in New York, among them one in which Madam Woodhull was conspicuous.[30] that was in 1871. there are several American politicians – I will not name them – who wish to trade in the movement. They are well known to American socialists.”
“You and your followers, Dr. Marx, have been credited with all sorts of incendiary speeches against religion. Of course you would like to see the whole system destroyed, root and branch.”
“We know,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation, “that violent measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as socialism grows, Religion Will Disappear.
Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part.”
“The Reverend Joseph Cook,[31] of Boston – you know him –”
“We have heard of him, a very badly informed man upon the subject of socialism.”
“In a lecture lately upon the subject, he said, ‘Karl Marx is credited now with saying that, in the United States, and in Great Britain, and perhaps in France, a reform of labor will occur without bloody revolution, but that blood must be shed in Germany, and in Russia, and in Italy, and in Austria.’”
“No socialist,” remarked the Doctor, smiling, “need predict that there will be a bloody revolution in Russia, Germany, Austria, and possibly Italy if the Italians keep on in the policy they are now pursuing. The deeds of the French Revolution may be enacted again in those countries. That is apparent to any political student. But those revolutions will be made by the majority. No revolution can be made by a party, but By a Nation”.
“The reverend gentleman alluded to,” I remarked, “gave an extract from a letter which he said you addressed to the Communists of Paris in 1871. Here it is:
‘We are as yet but 3,000,000 at most. In twenty years we shall be 50,000,000 – 100,000,000 perhaps. Then the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York – in short, the whole world. And before this new insurrection, such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a hideous nightmare; for the popular conflagration, kindled at a hundred points at once, will destroy even its memory!’
Now, Doctor, I suppose you admit the authorship of that extract?”
“I never wrote a word of it. I never write Such Melodramatic Nonsense.
I am very careful what I do write. That was put in Le Figaro, over my signature, about that time. There were hundreds of the same kind of letters flying about them. I wrote to the London Times and declared they were forgeries; but if I denied everything that has been said and written of me, I would require a score of secretaries.”
“But you have written in sympathy with the Paris Communists?”
“Certainly I have, in consideration of what was written of them in leading articles; but the correspondence from Paris in English papers is quite sufficient to refute the blunders propagated in editorials. The Commune killed only about sixty people; Marshal MacMahon and his slaughtering army killed over 60,000. There has never been a movement so slandered as that of the Commune.”
“Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?”
“No great movement,” Karl answered, “has ever been inaugurated Without Bloodshed.
“The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country gives proof of this, and as for assassination,” he went on to say, “it is not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; kings have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted before socialism was born. Every attempt, however, now made upon a royal or state individual is attributed to socialism. The socialists would regret very much the death of the German Emperor at the present time. He is very useful where he is; and Bismarck has done more for the cause than any other statesman, by driving things to extremes.”
I asked Dr. Marx What He Thought of Bismarck.
He replied that “Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by building up a despotism under the plea of unification. his course has been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup d’etat; but it will fail. The socialists of Germany, as of France, protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued manifestoes foretelling the German people, if they allowed the pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the ruthless oppression of the productive masses. The Social-Democratic party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders imprisoned. Still their deputies alone dared to protest, and very vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible annexation of French provinces. However, Bismarck carried his policy by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was fought, and when he could make no conquests, he was called upon for original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the state needs it. Under a sham constitution he has taxed the people for his military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now he seeks to do it with no constitution at all. For the purpose of levying as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of socialism,[32] and has done everything in his power To Create an Emeute.”
“You have continual advice from Berlin?”
“Yes,” he said; “my friends keep me well advised. It is in a perfectly quiet state, and Bismarck is disappointed. He has expelled forty-eight prominent men – among them Deputies Hasselman and Fritsche and Rackow, Bauman, and Adler, of the Freie Presse.[33] These men kept the workmen of Berlin quiet. Bismarck knew this. He also knew that there were 75,000 workmen in that city upon the verge of starvation. Once those leaders were gone, he was confident that the mob would rise, and that would be the cue for a carnival of slaughter. The screws would then be put upon the whole German Empire; his petty theory of blood and iron would then have full sway, and taxation could be levied to any extent. So far no emeute has occurred, and he stands today confounded at the situation and the ridicule of all statesmen.”
H.[34]
Transcribed in 1996 by Zodiac
Html Markup in 1999 by Brian Baggins.
Notes and Introduction added by Ellen Schwartz
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