Sunday, September 29, 2013

President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now !




Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

This person is not a spy. Private Manning (now, at her request, to be called Chelsea and the heroic soldier Wikileaks whistle-blower formerly known as Bradley) is not a criminal. Private Manning is a brave whistleblower who has exposed war crimes, government misdeeds, and corruption. Private Manning embarrassed the government, but her disclosures did not cause a single documented death. Private Manning released the following documents to WikiLeaks, now faces years up to 35 years in prison (minus the three plus years of pre-trial confinement already served and any "good time" to be accrued), and must be pardoned by President Obama.

*The Collateral Murder Video, which showed U.S. troops firing and killing unarmed
civilians, including a Reuters photographer, and firing on children in a van.

http://www.collateralmurder.com

*U.S. attempts to block investigations into CIA rendition of prisoners.

http://is.gd/poVGfc

*U.S. ignoring torture of Iraqi prisoners.

http://is.gd/2ftWlt

Documentation of many more civilian deaths than had been reported previously.

Documents exposing the corruption of the Tunisian government, which led to rebellion in Tunisia, and the Arab Spring.

http://is.gd/YBlxpS

A cable that proved that U.S. troops executed at least 10 civilians, including a woman
in her 70s and a 5 month old baby, in Ishaqi in 2006, and then called in an air strike to
cover it up. Soldiers involved did not serve a day in jail! This led to the Iraqi government refusing to allow U.S. troops to remain after 2011.

http://is.gd/cmzrtc

*Many more war crimes and revelations, including spying on diplomats at the U.N.

Contact the White House at 202-456-1414 and demand that Pres. Obama pardon Manning. Or
go to http://www.whitehouse.gov and leave your comments.

To send letters of solidarity and support the new address for sending letters to Manning; these must still be addressed to "Bradley" to be delivered:


Bradley E. Manning
89289
1300 N. Warehouse Road

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

66027-2304

Thanks to everybody who signed the Amnesty International/Private Manning SupportNetwork on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts. Thanks also to those who supported our weekly efforts most recently at Central Square, Cambridge on behalf of Private Manning as we close down that phase of our campaign efforts. We are now working out our future plans to keep the Manning case before the public.

Call General Buchanan And Request Clemency For Private Manning!

Call (202) 685-2900-The military is pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we can to secure Private Manning's freedom as well as protection for future whistleblowers.

Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Private Maning's court- martial proceedings , which means that he has the authority to decrease Private Manning's sentence, no matter what the judge handed down (35 years). On August 28th hundreds of activists joined supporters in DC to demonstrate at Maj. Gen. Buchanan’s base, Ft. McNair. We are asking you to join support our action demanding he do the right thing by calling, faxing, and e-mailing his Public Affairs Office.


Let’s Remind Maj. General Buchanan:

  • that Private Manning was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement, which the UN torture chief called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”
  • that President Obama has unlawfully influenced the trial with his declaration of Private Manning’s guilt.
  • that the media has been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
  • that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.
  • that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
  • that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when he revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

Remind General Buchanan that Private Manning’s rights have been trampled – Enough is enough!


Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil

Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!



Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.


Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

Thanks to everybody who signed the Amnesty International/Private Manning SupportNetwork on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts. Thanks also to those who supported our weekly efforts most recently at Central Square, Cambridge on behalf of Private Manning as we close down that phase of our campaign efforts. We are now working out our future plans to keep the Manning case before the public.
Petition: President Barack Obama Pardon Private Manning
The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

In federal cases, and military court-martials such as Private Manning’s are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial. Now that Private Manning has been found guilty of 20 charges and has been sentenced to 35 years in prison at Fort Leavenworth this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. The person who spoke truth to power about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the perfidious depths of American foreign policy should spend not one more day in the hands of the American government. Free Our Sister! Free Chelsea Manning! Free the heroic Wikileaks whistleblower!


You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Private Manning.

Name E-Mail Address _______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Begin a petition campaign to Pardon Manning with a form like this


Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.


Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning

To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me.

Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.

Some of the reasons for my request include:
*that Private Manning was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, which the UN raconteur in his findings has called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”

*that the media had been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.

*that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable and unconstitutional to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.


*that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.


*that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when she revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.


I urge you to use your authority under the Constitution to right the wrongs done to Private Manning – Enough is enough!

Signature ___________________________________________________________

Print Name __________________________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________________

City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________

Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.


We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind-President Obama Pardon Private Chelsea Manning Now!

 
Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.



From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

The headlines of the summer are now still. The verdict, the legal verdict if not the verdict of history, in the case of the United States vs. Private First Class Bradley Manning has been proclaimed, guilty on 20 of 22 counts. The draconian 35 year sentence has been imposed by the cruel pro-government military judge, Colonel Lind. The media pundits and commentators too have had their say, mainly that stern justice had been served by the conviction, a conviction in keeping with their own desire to keep things secret from us and not let some lowly enlisted soldier expose their house of cards. Some, like the ostrich-like New York Times, balked a little at the excessive sentence and then moved on. Others had a momentary titter when Bradley turned into Chelsea to express her real gender and then they too moved on. All is now quiet, the case is yesterday’s news now long outside the 24/7 cycle interest. In their eyes Private Manning has had her fifteen minutes of fame and now she is reduced to just another military prisoner confined to the maximum security barracks out in the prairies of Kansas at Fort Leavenworth to face an uncertain future.
Chelsea Manning now also faces the hard fate that occurs in almost all political prisoner cases, doing the hard time while waiting for the slow cumbersome appeals process to work its way through the military and civilian courts of appeal. Waits in the near term for a possible reduction in sentence by the convening officer of Private Manning’s court-martial who has the authority to do so, General Buchanan. And waits too, with fading hopes, for some short way home presidential pardon from a President who wrongfully interjected himself into the case with his comments early on. That pardon campaign took a serious turn for the worst when a recent Amnesty International/ Private Manning Support Network White House on-line petition failed, falling seriously short of getting the required 100,000 signatures that would have forced the Obama Administration to address the question posed by the petition.
She must also face the very real falloff that has already occurred in the positive public support and activity around her case now that the verdict and sentence are in and the media interest has shut down around the case. Also there will fewer periodic public rallies around the world from Afghanistan to the States on her behalf, reflecting a diffusion of focus now that supporters are not riveted to the public presence at trial. The long list of those celebrities and average citizens who have contributed their names, their time, their money and their energies have and will fall off on behalf of our heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower as well. Even strong and committed supporters who have led the Manning efforts here in the Boston, including members of an organization I support, Veterans for Peace, and who have publicized the case for the past three years have decided to curtail their weekly stand-out that had been running over the past two years. They have decided to pursue other less public strategies to gain Chelsea’s freedom. To fight that battle for her freedom on other fronts from fund-raising events to contacting any governmental officials who will “grease the way” to the President to give us a hearing on the pardon application.
And that last point is really the crux of this commentary. The struggle continues, continues until Chelsea is free. That is where mentioning the support of Veterans for Peace comes in, people who have served in the military, who have gotten “religion” on the right side of the angels on the questions of war and peace and who have stood in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Manning since almost the beginning of her incarceration. All of us, whether we served in wars or in “peace-time,”went through the rigors and madness of basic training where hoary old drill sergeants beat us over the head with the notion that you had to take care of your buddy, that your survival and by this they meant in the heat of battle depended on buying into that concept. Any veteran can tell you many stories about how in the end their involvement with the military came down to just that embedded idea when the deal went done and the dust settled. Not letting down their buddies. Not leaving your buddies behind. Whether most drilled-in military concepts are worth anything is hard to judge, fear and recklessness may in fact play a larger role. Nevertheless we can take that not leaving your buddy behind concept and apply it here. However we may end up supporting Chelsea Manning it is with the understanding that she is our buddy. We will not leave our sister behind. Remember that. Remember this as well- President Obama Pardon Private Chelsea Manning Now!

 

President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Campaign’s October 2013 newsletter PDF available

Dear friend of heroic whistle-blower Private Manning,
The outcome of last month’s court martial—while better than the 60 years prosecutors demanded—is an outrage to the idea of justice. Manning’s unjust 35 year sentence was condemned by tens of thousands, including Amnesty International, Cornel West, and Ron Paul.
[A] legal system that doesn’t distinguish between leaks to the press in the public interest and treason against the nation will not only produce unjust results, but will deprive the public of critical information that is necessary for democratic accountability.
-Ben Wizner, Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project Director, American Civil Liberties Union
The next phase in our campaign will ensure that Pvt. Manning does not languish in prison for anywhere near 35 years. With your continued support we’ll be pursuing multiple legal avenues of action that should result in Pvt. Manning’s release sooner than later. The difference between failure and success on each of these efforts rests in part on public support and understanding of the issues involved. It won’t happen overnight, but with democracy, transparency, and the rights of future whistle-blowers on the line, we can’t afford to fail.
THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY
1. Donate to the legal efforts and the campaign – Donate today!
Since July 2010, we have funded Pvt. Manning’s selected legal team, lead by attorney David Coombs. With your help, we’ve covered 100% of those expenses—over $350,000. Since the verdict, we have already submitted the Presidential Pardon packet on Pvt. Manning’s behalf. Next year, we’ll need to hire a new attorney to argue the case before the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, and later, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
2. Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online or print and share PDF petition
Please sign the petition on the reverse side of this letter, “President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning,” and make copies to share with friends and family!
3. Write a letter to Convening Authority Maj. Gen. Buchanan
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Convening Authorities are granted the power to reduce or eliminate any sentence. In Pvt. Manning’s case, this person is Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, Commanding General of the Military District of Washington. Review the guidelines here for help with drafting your letter to be included in the formal clemency application (deadline: November 1st).
4) Submit your “Pardon Pvt. Manning” photo online
Public support is crucial. Please submit your photo with a personal message online at pardon.privatemanning.org
5) Write Pvt. Manning
Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning is looking forward to hearing from you. For info about her new chosen name and gender preference, please see the back page of our enclosed newsletter. Please address the outside of the envelope to:
Pvt. Bradley E Manning / 89289 / 1300 N Warehouse Rd / Ft Leavenworth KS 66027
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson, Campaign director
Emma Cape, Lead campaign organizer

Free Chelsea Manning Now!

Update 9/23/13: Greenwald on Snowden and Manning

Glen Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Defending the NSA leaks
Glenn Greenwald to Haaretz: Why whistle-blower Snowden came to me
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.547506
About half way through this extensive interview with Greenwald regarding his work with Edward Showden, they discuss Pvt. Manning’s contributions as well.
“On August 21, the former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning ‏(born Bradley Manning‏) was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking 700,000 documents during her service in Iraq, including more than a quarter of a million diplomatic exchanges, to WikiLeaks. Like Snowden, Manning was an intelligent young person who was motivated by moral and ideological considerations…”
“Snowden admired Manning,” Greenwald says. “He was influenced by him and by Daniel Ellsberg [who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971].
President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning

Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.

We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.

 

We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

 

As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.

 

Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.

 

“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the

[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”

 

Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”

 

Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:

 

Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

 

Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

 

Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

 

Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

 

For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.

 

Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.

 

Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but  the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.

 

Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.

 

She has been:

 

Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.

• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.

 

Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.

 

• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.

 

Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.

 

We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.

 

FIRST & LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________

STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________

CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________

EMAIL & PHONE _____________________________________________________________

 

Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org

 

Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

 


 
***Out In The Classic Screw-Ball Comedy Night-Barbara Stanwyck’s-The Lady Eve 


 

 
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, directed by Preston Sturges, 1941

Okay, moment of truth, moment of classic screwball truth anyway, women have been laying traps to ensnare men since, well, since Eve, and maybe before. And that premise drives this film entitled, ah, as if to put paid to that point, The Lady Eve, directed by the king of classic Hollywood screwball comedy (Sullivan’s Travels, among others). Of course if one went with the original story, that old Adam and Eve ensnarement story we would have a very short film, very short indeed and so Brother Sturges has flesh the piece out a bit.

He does that stretching by having Barbara Stanwyck (last heard from in this space leading Fred MacMurray down another garden path as a femme fatale in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity) put on her sophisticated comedic best as a professional card-shark, a roper for her shark father, travelling the Atlantic sea-lanes in search of, well, in search of the big chance haul. And to show that those wearisome trans-Atlantic rides on some old tub were well worth the effort she took dead aim at the scattered-brained scion of a brewing fortune, a role played by Henry Fonda who was heading home from a year down in the Amazon looking, well, let’s keep with the metaphor, snakes. Yeah, easy picking for a world- weary traveler like our Barbara.

Here is the hitch though while trying to fleece Henry she, well, she falls in love with the goof and so all bets are off, literally. The problem is that other protective forces put Henry wise to her gang of ship-board hustlers and so all marriage bets are off. But one should be very, very careful with a woman scorned because all hell is likely to break loose. And it does as Barbara seeks to ensnare Henry one more time this time by doing an impersonation as the well-born Lady Eve (Sidley if you are asking) in his hometown. Needless to say our goof falls, falls hard, and marries our Lady Eve. Only to find out on their honeymoon once Barbara told him that she was basically a tramp in furtherance of her revenge. So the goof leaves her again. Seeing that revenge wasn’t so sweet after all Barbara has something else up her sleeve. Watch the film to find out what that stratagem is. In the meantime remember this-women have been trying lay traps to ensnare men ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before. Got it.        

 

From The Marxist Archives -In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International-


TROTSKY

LENIN

Honor the Memory of Leon Trotsky!

(Quote of the Week)

This August 20 marks the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the October 1917 proletarian Russian Revolution. We reprint below excerpts from a speech by James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism, at a memorial meeting held in New York City eight days after Trotsky was murdered by a Stalinist agent in Mexico.

Comrade Trotsky’s entire conscious life, from the time he entered the workers’ movement in the provincial Russian town of Nikolayev at the age of eighteen up till the moment of his death in Mexico City forty-two years later, was completely dedicated to work and struggle for one central idea. He stood for the emancipation of the workers and all the oppressed people of the world, and the transformation of society from capitalism to socialism by means of a social revolution. In his conception, this liberating social revolution requires for success the leadership of a revolutionary political party of the workers’ vanguard….

Trotsky himself believed that ideas are the greatest power in the world. Their authors may be killed, but ideas, once promulgated, live their own life. If they are correct ideas, they make their way through all obstacles. This was the central, dominating concept of Comrade Trotsky’s philosophy. He explained it to us many, many times. He once wrote: “It is not the party that makes the program [the idea]; it is the program that makes the party.” In a personal letter to me, he once wrote: “We work with the most correct and powerful ideas in the world, with inadequate numerical forces and material means. But correct ideas, in the long run, always conquer and make available for themselves the necessary material means and forces.”

Trotsky, a disciple of Marx, believed with Marx that “an idea, when it permeates the mass, becomes a material force.” Believing that, Comrade Trotsky never doubted that his work would live after him. Believing that, he could proclaim on his deathbed his confidence in the future victory of the Fourth International which embodies his ideas. Those who doubt it do not know Trotsky.

Trotsky himself believed that his greatest significance, his greatest value, consisted not in his physical life, not in his epic deeds, which overshadow those of all heroic figures in history in their sweep and their grandeur—but in what he would leave behind him after the assassins had done their work. He knew that his doom was sealed, and he worked against time in order to leave everything possible to us, and through us to mankind. Throughout the eleven years of his last exile he chained himself to his desk like a galley slave and labored, as none of us knows how to labor, with such energy, such persistence and self-discipline, as only men of genius can labor. He worked against time to pour out through his pen the whole rich content of his mighty brain and preserve it in permanent written form for us, and for those who will come after us….

He was also a great man of action, to be sure. His deeds are incorporated in the greatest revolution in the history of mankind. But, unlike the opportunists and leaders of a day, his deeds were inspired by great ideas, and these ideas still live. He not only made a revolution; he wrote its history and explained the basic laws which govern all revolutions. In his History of the Russian Revolution, which he considered his masterpiece, he gave us a guide for the making of new revolutions, or rather, for extending throughout the world the revolution that began in October 1917.

—“To the Memory of the Old Man,” Socialist Appeal, 7 September 1940

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

James P. Cannon

The Socialist Appeal

December 7, 1940

Lenin, Trotsky and the First World War


Written: 1940
Source: The Socialist Appeal
Transcription\HTML Markup:Andrew Pollack
Third of three articles in the Socialist Appeal on SWP military policy.
In advancing our military transitional program, we proceed from the point of view that permanent war and universal militarism have become the dominant characteristics of our epoch, and we visualize the social revolution as the immediate outcome of the imperialist war. We begin, as did Lenin, with a declaration of irreconcilable class opposition to the imperialists and their war. It is only by means of this principled standpoint of class opposition that the cadres of modem Bolshevism are formed and clearly delimited from all other parties, groups, and tendencies, which to one degree or another, tend toward conci1iation or collaboration with their national ruling class in the war.
But the situation which confronts us today is not an exact duplication of that which confronted the revolutionary Marxists at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. For one thing, the capitalist order has reached a far more advanced stage of decay and is more susceptible to revolutionary overthrow. In addition, we have the benefit of twenty-six years of the richest historical experiences which have been generalized by the great Marxist Trotsky. These circumstances enable us to go farther, with more concretely worked out slogans of agitation to advance the class struggle under conditions of war and militarism, than was possible for the revolutionary Marxist at the beginning of the First World War.
Trotsky, the author of our program, contributed extremely important thoughts to the workers’ vanguard facing the Second World War: the immediacy of the revolutionary perspective in connection with the present war, and the necessity for transitional slogans which can serve to mobilize the masses for independent class action leading up to it. It is precisely this immediacy of the revolutionary perspective that makes the transitional program a burning necessity. “Our policy,” Trotsky wrote, “the policy of the revolutionary proletariat toward the second imperialist war, is a continuation of the policy elaborated during the last imperialist war, primarily under Lenin’s leadership. But a continuation does not signify a repetition. In this case too, continuation signifies a development, a deepening and a sharpening.” (Fourth International, October 1940.) He reminded us, and we repeated after him, that not even Lenin had visualized the victory of the proletarian revolution as the immediate outcome of the First World War.
At this point Lenin suddenly acquired an advocate in a c amp which hitherto has not been distinguished by its fidelity to Leninism. Shachtman, comrade-in-arms of the avowed anti-Bolshevik Burnham, and the present leader of the “Workers Party” (the Burnham group minus Burnham), comes to the defense of Lenin against us. The “floating kidney,” as Trotsky denominated Shachtman, bobs up in the most unexpected places!
However, we have committed no assault on Lenin, and he is in no way in need of the dubious “defense” of this attorney. It is necessary to take a little time out to prove this, because the authority of Lenin is one of the greatest treasures of the revolutionary movement. His name is written beside that of Trotsky on the banner of the Russian Revolution. We proclaim the extension of this revolution throughout the world in the name of Lenin-Trotsky. We must not permit the slightest confusion as to how we regard Lenin; and it is a matter of simple respect to his memory to protect him from the hypocritical support of an advocate who is known among Leninists only as a betrayer of Leninism.
It will take a little time and space, but this can’t be helped. It is a simple task—mainly work with a shovel. His own confusion and instinct to sow confusion—two qualities always happily married in Shachtman’s factional “polemics”—plus his unfailing twisting, falsifying, and misrepresenting the words of others and the events of the past are all piled together here also. It is simply necessary to dig this stuff away, and then to unwind the quotations and replace the historical incidents in their true position. Then nothing will be left of the dirty mess that Shachtman has made of our alleged attack on Lenin and Shachtman’s “brief” as attorney for the defense.
The defense of Lenin is the second “point” in Shachtman’s indictment of our military policy. The occasion for it was the publication of my speech to our Chicago conference which adopted our resolution. Shachtman made a big “case” out of what I said about Lenin, or rather, what I didn’t say. Here are the sentences which Shachtman quoted from my speech: “We said and those before us said that capitalism had outlived its usefulness. World economy is ready for socialism. But when the world war started in 1914 none of the parties had the idea that on the agenda stood the struggle for power. The stand of the best of them was essentially a protest against the war. It did not occur even to the best Marxists that the time had come when the power must be seized by the workers in order to save civilization from degeneration. Even Lenin did not visualize the victory of the proletarian revolution as the immediate outcome of the war.”
Shachtman characterized this as a “monstrous falsehood,” and as a “complete misrepresentation of the views and traditions of the Bolsheviks in the last war.” He offers a number of “quotations” to prove that Lenin and the Bolsheviks advocated revolution during the war, he implies that Lenin expected revolution as the war’s immediate outcome, and finally asks: “And above all, what in heaven’s name was the meaning of Lenin’s slogan, repeated a thousand times during the last war, ’Turn the imperialist war into a civil war’?”
Our quoter undoubtedly establishes the fact that Lenin was in favor of revolution, that he had a program of revolution. And he tries to make it appear that I denied it, or didn’t know it. Shachtman’s whole case rests upon this false construction. Lenin advocated the “program of revolution” not only during the world war but before it, before 1905, from the very beginning of his activity as a revolutionary Marxist. Shachtman’s entire argument is directed against a contention which I did not make.
He makes his argument appear superficially plausible by the use of two well-known devices of literary charlatans. First, he mutilated the quotation from my speech, breaking it off short and eliminating immediately following sentences in the same paragraph which made my meaning more clear and precise. I wrote: “Even Lenin did not visualize the victory of the proletarian revolution as the immediate outcome of the war.” Shachtman twisted it and distorted it into a denial that Lenin had “a program of revolution” during the war. But I think it is thoroughly clear to a disinterested reader that I was speaking of something else, namely, Lenin’s expectations as to the immediate outcome of the war, and not at all of what he wanted and what he advocated.
My meaning was made more precise by the sentence which immediately followed: “Just a short time before the outbreak of the February revolution in Russia, Lenin wrote in Switzerland that his generation would most probably not see the socialist revolution. Even Lenin had postponed the revolution to the future, to a later decade.” The context of my published speech, from which the sentences were extracted, makes it even clearer that the references to Lenin were concerned not at all with differences of program, but only with the immediate perspectives of the revolutionary Marxists in this war and in the First World War. I don’t see how anyone can seriously dispute our contentions on this point because the words of Lenin himself constitute the basis for the reference. The October Fourth International cites two exact quotations on the point to which I referred without directly quoting.
“It is possible, however, that five, ten, and even more years will pass before the beginning of the socialist revolution.” (From an article written in March 1916, Lenin’s Collected Works, vol. XIX, p. 45, third Russian edition.)“We, the older men, will perhaps not live long enough to see the decisive battles of the impending revolution.” (Report on 1905 Revolution delivered to Swiss students, January 1917, idem, p. 357.)
That is not all. The main quotation from Lenin which Shachtman cites in his polemic against us—a quotation which he also mutilates to twist the meaning—shows that Lenin was not speaking of the revolution as an immediate perspective; that is, the quotation will show it when we restore the words which Shachtman cut off in the middle of a sentence. He quotes from the article of October 11, 1915, which appears on page 347 of the English edition of Lenin’s works, volume XVIII: “. . . It is our bounden duty to explain to the masses the necessity of a revolution, to appeal for it, to create the fitting organizations, to speak fearlessly and in the most concrete manner of the various methods of forceful struggle and of its ’technique’. . .” There Shachtman ended the quotation, breaking Lenin’s sentence off at a comma.
Here are the immediately following words which he left out: “This bounden duty of ours being independent of whether the revolution will be strong enough and whether it will come in connection with the first or second imperialist war, etc.” Lenin obviously was not arguing about the immediacy of the revolution as we visualize it in connection with the present war, but about the necessity of advocating it and preparing for it.
If any further proof is needed one only has to read the rest of Lenin’s article! In the very same article, on page 349 of the same volume, Lenin continued: “As to the untimeliness of preaching revolution, this objection rests on a confusion of terms customary with the Romance Socialists: They confuse the beginning of a revolution with its open and direct propaganda. In Russia, nobody places the beginning of the 1905 Revolution before January 22, 1905, whereas the revolutionary propaganda, in the narrow sense of the word, the propaganda and the preparation of mass action, demonstrations, strikes, barricades, had been conducted for years before that. The old Iskra, for instance, preached this from the end of 1900, as did Marx from 1847 when there could have been no thought as yet about the beginning of a revolution in Europe.”
Shachtman took my remarks about the immediate perspectives of Lenin during the First World War, lifted them out of their context, mutilated the paragraph from which they were extracted, twisted them into an attack on the program and traditions of the Bolsheviks which was not intended or implied in any way by me, and then Shachtman attempted to bolster his thesis by quotations from Lenin which in reality prove the opposite—when they are honestly quoted without breaking off sentences in the middle, (and without suppressing other sentences in the same article which make Lenin’s real meaning even clearer.
To top off his exercise in literary skullduggery Shachtman refers to the “outlived” Lenin, using quotation marks to convey the impression that he is quoting me. That is an outright literary forgery. I never used such an expression and could not do so; it is not my opinion.
All this literary fakery and forgery in “defense” of Lenin has a fundamental aim which is not frankly avowed, but only thinly disguised. Against whom is Shachtman really defending Lenin? To be sure, he mentions only “Cannon,” but it is perfectly obvious that Cannon in this case is only serving Shachtman as a pseudonym for the real target of his attack. My remarks about Lenin’s perspective during the First World War were no more and no less than a simple repetition of what Trotsky said on the subject. It was he who called our attention to the relevant quotations and explained their precise significance.
In the October number of our magazine Fourth International which Shachtman had at hand when he wrote his article in Labor Action of November 4—he refers to the Goldman-Trotsky correspondence contained therein—Trotsky wrote: “Prior to the February revolution and even afterwards, the revolutionary elements felt themselves to be not contenders for power, but the extreme left opposition. Even Lenin relegated the socialist revolution to a more or less distant future. . . . If that is how Lenin viewed the situation, then there is hardly any need of talking about the others.”
Here is the real nub of the matter. Shachtman’s attack on “Cannon” in behalf of Lenin is in reality aimed against Trotsky in a cowardly and indirect manner. He wants to set Lenin against Trotsky, to make a division in the minds of the radical workers between Lenin and Trotsky, to set himself up as a “Leninist” with the sly intimation that Leninism is not the same thing as Trotskyism. There is a monstrous criminality in this procedure. The names of Lenin and Trotsky are inseparably united in the Russian Revolution, its achievements, its doctrines and traditions, and in the great struggle for Bolshevism waged by Trotsky since the death of Lenin. “Lenin-Trotsky”—those two immortal names are one. Nobody yet has tried to separate them; that is, nobody but scoundrels and traitors.
Shachtman’s article in Labor Action serves the same aim as the special “Trotsky Memorial Issue” of their magazine which was published only to defame the memory of Trotsky, to belittle him, to justify themselves against him, and at the same time—like any shopkeeper looking for a little extra profit—to claim his “heritage.”
Trotsky, as if anticipating such attempts, gave this answer in advance. Here is what he wrote in the Socialist Appeal: “Only the other day Shachtman referred to himself in the press as a ’Trotskyist.’ If this be Trotskyism then I at least am no Trotskyist. With the present ideas of Shachtman, not to mention Burnham, I have nothing in common. . . . Towards their new magazine my attitude can only be the same as toward all other petty-bourgeois counterfeits of Marxism. As for their ’organizational methods’ and political ’morality,’ these evoke in me nothing but contempt.”
The literary manners and morals of petty-bourgeois dabblers in politics are no better than their theses. With such people, as Trotsky once remarked, it is not sufficient to check their theses; it is necessary to watch their fingers too! If we keep this salutary warning in mind the “theses” of Shachtman directed against our military transitional program can be disposed of without difficulty. As I said before, it is mainly work with a shovel.