From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

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

Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.

Here is another way to deal with both the question of the death penalty and of political prisoners from an old time socialist perspective taken from a book review of  James P. Cannon's Notebooks Of An Agitator:

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

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

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!
 

Foodie’s Delight-Jon Favreau’s Chef

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Chef, starring Jon Favreau, Soffa Vergara, Emjay Anthony, directed and written by Jon Favreau, 2014    

Iron Chef, Chopped Chef, Sou Chef, Zen Master Chef, Chef de Cuisine, hell, salad chef and even dishwashers have grabbed a new found respect in the world of the professions ever since the food craze, fine food mainly, of the last decade or so had swept America (elsewhere too but we will stick to America on this one). Hell, there is even a new awkward and rather obtuse word added to the vernacular over the trend, foodie (ugh! okay). So it was kind of inevitable that a movie audience tired of watching lawyers, doctors, politicians and super-heroes, real or imagined, would be treated a film based on this new trend, the film under simply titled Chef.

Ordinarily the professional chef is well hidden in the back of the house along with his or her staff and the other auxiliary components that make up a restaurant, especially a fine dining restaurant. In this film we find those previously vague figures who work long and odd hours, devote themselves to serving the best meals possible, and trying to keep their weight down and their drinking habits in check have lives and dreams outside of the sweaty hectic kitchen and that is what drives this film.

Our chef du jour is one Carl Caspar (played by the person who wrote and directed the film, Jon Favreau) who is like lots of chefs concerned with providing good food and also being the master of his or her domain, the kitchen. Naturally like any organization there is a certain power structure when the chef works for somebody else while waiting on that dream of owning his or her own restaurant. So that provides one tension (especially when the owner is played by over the top Dustan Hoffman one of many known stars  in a film with many cameo performances by big stars who must sense this food thing will illuminate their careers). But the big dust-up is between Chef Carl and the local blogger and food critic out in Los Angeles who has panned Chef Carl’s latest efforts. Panned him mercilessly when all Chef Carl wanted to do was showcase his own work and that controversy between boss, critic and chef lead to Chef Carl leaving his cushy job.

Of course the trials and tribulations of any professional are thin gruel for a film of a couple of hours so there is another story-line to draw you in, or rather two parts of a story-line. One is all about owning your own shop and Chef Carl by hook or by crook goes about that task with a vengeance when after he left that cushy fine dining job his options got significantly reduced and he wound up making a go of the latest craze in fast food dining-the food truck. Not just any haphazard food but specializing in cubanos and other culinary delights reflecting his Miami birth and his ex-wife’s Cuban-American heritage (played by Soffa Vergara) who helped set him up with the truck (via an ex-husband of hers). Chef Carl would turn out so successful in that enterprise that even the bastard food blogger who had previously panned him wanted to back him into his very own restaurant.

The other part of the story-line is his renewed relationship with his young son (played by Emjay Anthony) who has chaffed under the strain of his parents’ divorce and his overworked father’s lack of attention to him. That food truck and a cross-country trip from Miami (Little Havana, naturally) to the West Coast is something of a coming of age for both of them. And drives his parents back together. Check this one out.                  

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Writers’ Corner  

In say 1912, 1913, hell, even the beginning of 1914, the first few months anyway, before the war clouds got a full head of steam in the summer they all profusely professed their unmitigated horror at the thought of war, thought of the old way of doing business in the world. Yes the artists of every school but the Cubist/Fauvists/Futurists and  Surrealists or those who would come to speak for those movements, those who saw the disjointedness of modern industrial society and put the pieces to paint, sculptors who put twisted pieces of metal juxtaposed to each other saw that building a mighty machine from which you had to run created many problems; writers of serious history books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress,  humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument of policy and the diplomats and high and mighty would put the brakes on in time, not realizing that they were all squabbling cousins; writers of serious and not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden gabezo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that man and woman had too much to do, too much sex to harness to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s cry and by having half-virgin, neat trick, maidens strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets; musicians whose muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos, not the stress and strife of the tattoos of war marches with their tinny conceits; and poets, ah, those constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack of seven sealed bibles, that they would go to the hells before touching the hair of another man. They all professed loudly (and those few who did not profess, could not profess because they were happily getting their blood rising, kept their own consul until the summer), that come the war drums they would resist the siren call, would stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist worlds and blast the war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels. They would stay the course.  

And then the war drums intensified, the people, their clients, patrons and buyers, cried out their lusts and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, poets, artists, sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went to the trenches to die deathless deaths in their thousands for, well, for humankind, of course, their always fate  ….            

Disenchantment For some, whose emotional pain was often excruciating, such accounts were superficial flimflam. For these survivors, whether soldiers or civilians, the war had transcended previous notions of reality and thus undermined all official explanation, indeed all external truth. Only personal experience remained. The upshot, projected by the title of C E Montague’s war memoir of 1922, was Disenchantment, a profound and festering disillusionment with the world that had produced and waged the war. In this mindset, against the backdrop of the machine massacres of Flanders, Verdun, and the Somme, humour turned absurd, art increasingly provocative, and music decidedly experimental. In literature, too, old forms no longer sufficed. Even language was called into question. T S Eliot doubted its ability to capture essence; Franz Kafka termed it a lie; e e cummings, the American poet who had been an ambulance driver with the French, regarded all standard rules of writing, from grammar to punctuation to the capitalisation of his own name, as fatuous restrictions, and Ernest Hemingway said famously in A Farewell to Arms (1929) that ‘abstract words such as glory, honour, courage or hallow were obscene’: only place names now possessed dignity. All the old slogans and values had been shattered as if hit by a monstrous artillery shell. Images ‘Diary of a Dead Officer’: diary and poems by Arthur Graeme West, who enlisted in 1915 and was killed in 1917. The diary is one of the first published realistic accounts of life in the trenches. ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen, as published in ‘Poems’ (1920). ‘Poems’, by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1915). Chesterton considered himself first and foremost a journalist. However, he was a prolific writer contributing to most literary genres. Photograph of Isaac Rosenberg from ‘Poems’ (1922). Rosenberg was killed in action on 1 April 1918. The fourth verse of Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’, written in the early weeks of the war. From ‘For the Fallen, and Other Poems’ (1914). - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/literary-memories-of-world-war-one#sthash.y5nWPlxZ.dpuf

View this message in your browser.

Sarah, One of the presistent fallacies about the US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, is that it was a “mistake” of the Bush Regime, a misguided attempt to “keep America safe.” You hear this from Democrat apologists, who for the last six full years, have been in position to close it. But listen to those who control Congress now, and those who passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006. That orgy of the complete abrogation of rights for people the US identified as enemies in the so-called “global war on terror” was vengeance against any group of people who challenged American supremacy. Their goal was to have a place where they could openly defy international norms. They crow about it, still, and do not intend to give it up. “I'd do it again in a minute,” Dick Cheney said on “Meet the Press” December 14. Cheney's repeating his basic message that the US has to be ready to go to the “dark side” using, “basically, any means necessary to achieve our objectives.” Senator Lindsey Graham, who has never met a piece of repressive legislation he couldn't get behind, said “We have a lot going for us that our enemy doesn’t. We’re actually good people, and they’re bastards,” as an explanation of why he supports everything that was done post-9/11. So this is what the “good” people did: “The CIA torturers took sadistic and ghoulish delight in inflicting sexually degrading torture on captives. Detainees were frequently stripped naked and forced to urinate and defecate on themselves. The report describes ‘rectal feeding’—forcing material up the rectums of detainees, a form of rape. Detainees were subjected to constant and viciously realistic death threats. They were placed in tubs of ice for extended times. One detainee was chained partially nude to a concrete floor and died of hypothermia. Prisoners were subjected to sleep deprivation for up to a week, driven to ‘hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.’” We also learned from the Senate's report on torture last month that, though publicly and privately there is intense struggle over letting out the truth about Guantanamo, the black sites, rendition, and torture under Bush, the Democatic leadership in Congress was fully briefed at the time, and kept quiet. Those in authority who people expected to act to stop these outrages have not done so. Does that mean we leave it alone? NO, it does not. Protest over the next week should bring out people who are determined to stop these depraved crimes. The torture report — redacted as it was — has inspired renewed focus on the crimes of the Bush Regime. Democracy Now! reported last month: “The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has accused former Bush administration officials, including CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of war crimes, and called for an immediate investigation by a German prosecutor. The move follows the release of a Senate report on CIA torture which includes the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who was captured by CIA agents in 2004 due to mistaken identity and tortured at a secret prison in Afghanistan.” Torture lawyer John Yoo, defender of almost every single reactionary US position, was given an endowed chair at UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School in 2014. Right now, there are renewed discussions on how to get him disbarred and investigated. Martin Garbus, the distinguished First Amendment attorney, wrote that the memos written by Yoo and Jay Bybee in 2002 providing legal justifcation for torture were “not used to interpret the law — they were intentionally written to disregard the law.” Garbus said that if the government does not file a complaint to disbar Yoo and Bybee, he will. Cheers for that! January 2015 Events: CLOSE Guantanamo NOW Actions, Talks, Panels, Films On January 11, the US torture camp at Guantanamo will have been open 13 years. More than 100 men are still held, the majority of whom were cleared for release years ago. They suffer not knowing if they will be released, held indefinitely. Some are still on protest hunger strike, and being force-fed by the U.S. military. Join World Can't Wait in protesting this shameful anniversary with a series of events around the country. If you know of other events, email us quickly. Witness Against Torture's Annual Fast, Rally, and Direct Action to Close Guantánamo and End Torture is happening January 5-13 Washington DC, or you can join the fast from anywhere. Thursday January 8: New York City Stand with Shaker Aamer, Fahd Ghazy & all the Prisoners Unjustly Held Featuring British journalist Andy Worthington; Ramzi Kassem of CUNY Law School & attorney for Shaker Aamer; Omar Farah of the Center for Constitutional Rights & attorney for Fahd Ghazy; and Debra Sweet. 6:30 pm Rutgers Presbyterian Church 236 West 73rd Street @ Broadway, NYC Facebook Event Saturday January 10: Langley, VA Protest of US drone war, targeted killing, and indefinite detention Outside the homes of Dick Cheney & John Brennan, CIA director Herndon 8:00 am -11:30 am at and near CIA Headquarters Facebook Event Saturday January 10: Washington, DC From Ferguson to Guantánamo: Institutionalized Brutality & Torture A panel discussion with activists and attorneys involved in the struggles against police violence, racial profiling, and US detention policies 8:00 pm First Trinity Lutheran Church 4th & E Street NW Washington DC Facebook Event Sunday, January 11: Washington DC Vigil & Rally to Close Guantanamo 1:00 pm: Interfaith Prayer Vigil (Sponsored by NRCAT and Interfaith Action for Human Rights) 1:30 pm Rally to close Guantánamo at the White House followed by a march to the Department of Justice. In front of the White House Facebook Event Sunday, January 11: Miami, FL Protest to Shut Down Guantanamo at US Southern Command 2:00 pm NW 36th St & NW 87th Ave Doral,  FL Facebook Event Sunday, January 11: Los Angeles, CA Protests to Close Guantanamo 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm Vigil & Rally at Santa Monica Pallisades Park Ocean & Pico 3 - 6 pm Vigil outside Golden Globes Ceremony TBA Sunday, January 11: London, UK Protest at US Embassy 24 Grosvenor Square Mayfair, London Facebook Event Monday, January 12: Washington, DC Witness Against Torture’s Nonviolent Direct Action Morning — TBD Monday, January 12: Washington, DC Leaving the Dark Side? Empyting Guantanamo and the CIA Torture Report with Andy Worthington, Tom Wilmer, Col Morris Davis & Peter Bergen.  12:15 pm - 1:45 pm New America Foundation, 1889 L Street NW Washington, DC Monday, January 12: Boston, MAClosing Guantanamo and Seeking Accountability for Torture with Andy Worthington 6:30 pm Old South Church 645 Boyston Street Boston Tuesday, January 13: UC Berkeley, CA Protests at the opening day of UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School, where torture lawyer John Yoo teaches. Tuesday, January 13: Harvard Cambridge MAClosing Guantanamo and Seeking Accountability for Torture with Andy Worthington 12:30-1:30 pm Harvard Law School * 1563 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge   * location : WCC 1015       WCC = large complex at corner of                 Everett St & Mass. Ave. [WCC= Wasserstein Hall/Caspersen Student        Ctr/ Clinical Wing Will try to get better info re location of # 1015 Wednesday, January 14: Springfield, MA Closing Guantánamo and Seeking Accountability for Torture, with Andy Worthington 12:00 pm The Commons, Western New England University School of Law, 1215 Wilbraham Road Wednesday January 14: Northampton, MA Closing Guantanamo and Seeking Accountability for Torture, with Andy Worthington & Debra Sweet 7:00 pm Friends Meeting House, 43 Center Street, 2nd floor Thursday January 15: Chicago, IL Rally to Protest 14th Year of Guantanamo, Torture & Indefinite Detention 4:30 - 6:00 pm In front of the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Facebook Event Thursday January 15: Chicago, IL Guantanamo 13 Years Later: Not One More Year of Torture and Indefinite Detention! Evening Discussion with Andy Worthington, Guantanamo attorney Candace Gorman, and Debra Sweet. 7:00 pm Grace Place, 637 South Dearborn. Facebook Event Share this message: Thank you! A strong thanks to all who have donated to World Can't Wait's year-end fund drive.  We more than surpassed the $5,000 matching-funds challenge from 7 generous donors! But we have not reached the goal of $35,000 yet — a goal we set based on the real cost of organizing all the protests you hear about on a regular basis via these emails. The remaining $8,000 will be used to pay for delivery of these e-newsletters, a cost that has just risen 50%. We send about 75 per year to people around the world; and many more to local areas announcing events. There are many ways to support World Can't Wait. Donating is a key way to be part of this movement, and help stop the crimes of our government. From a recent donor: “I made a contribution last week because of the very things you outline in this email. How much World Can't Wait has been in front of the genuine moral and political issues of our time. No one does it with the same fierceness as WCW and that is indeed a good thing.”  H. N. Above: scenes from actions over the past 13 years to shut Guantánamo. Now more than ever we can't quit!   Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

If you were forwarded this message and would like to subscribe directly, sign up here. World Can't Wait | (866) 973-4463 | 305 West Broadway #185 NY, NY 10013 Make a donation online | Make a tax-deductible donation online Send checks or money orders, payable to "World Can't Wait": World Can't Wait 305 W. Broadway #185 New York, NY 10013 To make a tax-deductible donation of $100 or more in support of World Can't Wait's educational activities, please make checks out to "World Can't Wait/Alliance for Global Justice," a 501(3)(c) organization. You are receiving this email because mrochemahd@aol.com is subscribed to this email announcement list. If you would like to unsubscribe click here.

--

From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

Logo Of The Communist Youth International

Markin comment on this series:

One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.

More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few.  That is beside the question of numbers in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing in between generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help; differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s night of the long knives through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since); differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s  computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).

There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available on-line at the press of  a button today. When I developed political consciousness very early on in my youth, albeit a liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.

As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

**********

Third Congress of the Communist International

The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement

---

Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

---

12 July 1921

1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.

In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.

2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).

In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.

4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.

The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.

The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.

Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.

The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.

5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.

It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.

The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.

If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.

Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.

6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.

At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.

7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses.

In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.

8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).

---

Free Chelsea Manning-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Now! 

 

In The Time Of The Mad Monk Scientist-Edward G. Robinson’s The Amazing Doctor Clitterhouse

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Amazing Doctor Clitterhouse, starring Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, 1938

 

No question, no question at all that Doctor Chitterhouse liked to play god, or rather play a god, for he willingly used his finely bourgeois discretion to leave the big chores, the rough-hewn stuff concerning the human clay that he had created to the big “G” God. And the good doctor would merely dabble on the side, a specialist, a guy trying to figure out a few of the human kinks. With a brilliant scientific mind, and some time on his hands, always a suspect combination for the world-beaters of this sorry old planet, the good doctor took a pretty good run at the title, at the godhead, for a mortal made of that same human clay.   Took a good run at peeking inside the human psyche until, fatal flaw if not to him then to somebody, he got caught up in his own hubris just like those gods of old, those Greek and Roman gods who raised hell on the planet and did not look back, and took the tumble back to cheap street, back down to the human muck. And the film under review, The Amazing Doctor Clitterhouse, details every step of how the good doctor ran off the rails, got caught up in his own undoing.

Doctor Clitterhouse, played somewhat mystifyingly by Edward G. Robinson who during this period was creating his own legend a badass screen gangster who had no time to worry about gods, or hubris. The mystifying part enhanced by the inability of this reviewer to credit Robinson with high society bourgeois sensibilities, like a lot of smart society guys got fed up with wearing tuxes and tossing down champagne for kicks, got fed up doing high-priced surgery on those New York City Mayfair swells and decided to take a walk on the wild side, see how the lesser mortals lived. And so just to prove that he could do it he staged a series of daring robberies of his pals and consorts, those self-same Mayfair swells, who squealed like crazy when they got taken for their jewelry, and demanded that a stop be put to those expensive  escapades. That the times, the Great Depression which passed them by fortunately called for a ruthless purge of those undesirables who would upset their gala seasons. So naturally they called in the cops, after all they paid good money in taxes to insure that their property is left intact except in these films the cops are either stupid or only half-wise otherwise there is not much of a plot-line for either a master criminal to outsmart them as here, or the usual case, for some stealthy private investigator to wrap up the case with a ribbon while they are scratching their heads. So the good doctor gets away with his exploits, for a while.

Of course half the fun of robberies for the good doctor, jewel thefts, is seeing how much cash you can get, and for that you need somebody to fence the stuff since you aren’t going to be able to show it in public. So working the fence angle got him in deeper. Not only that as he went along he got even more intrigued by the criminal mind. But finding out about the criminal mind by a lone lumpen-bourgeois, doctor or not, is not going to impress too many people in high society or the academy  so he also wanted to get a wider sample, get down and dirty with the mob, or a mob. And he does just that meeting the “fence” Jo, and her right hand man, Rocks (played pretty boy gangster tough by Humphrey Bogart). So the good doctor posed as “The Professor” and as such led Jo and Rock’s confederates on a series of high profile robberies. All the while grabbing physical data about how the lawless life affected a guy’s personality, checking pulse rates and heartbeats that kind of stuff. After a while though our good doctor has enough data and calls it quits.     

Or I should say tried to call it quits. What Doctor Critterhouse did not recognize was first that the “rush” that he got from criminal activity affected his own judgment beyond the science experiment he was supposedly conducting, and secondly that while he was happy to call it quits one hard-boiled career criminal, Rocks, wanted him to continue to plan the grand escapades. And since Rocks was a lot tougher than our good doctor he was caught between a rock and a hard place (no pun intended). But here is where that getting caught up in the criminal mindset played him false. He got so caught up in his own hubris, his own search for godliness that he decided that he had to murder Rocks to keep himself in the clear. And so he did, assisted by Jo who has taken a slight romantic interest in him, him a guy a lot different from the low-rent guys she had to put up with.

So our doctor hero necessarily had to take a fall, has to get caught by a friendly police officer. He thereafter was put on trial, put on trial for his life since even taken the life of a low-life guy like Rocks qualified you for the big step-off, qualified you to be hung high someplace. And since the good doctor had no interest in the big step-off he created an image of himself before the jury that called into question his sanity, seriously calls it into question. Just by running his mouth off about what he was doing with his experiments and in offing a bad guy like Rocks. What was that they said about guys who trifled with the gods? Enough said.       

You Can’t Go Home Again, Can You? - Dennis Lehane’s Moonlight Mile    

Book Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Moonlight Mile, Dennis Lehane, published by William Morrow, 2010   

Although I am usually mired in old time hard-boiled literary and black and white film detectives (or private investigators which is what most of them call themselves) like Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Philip Marlowe and the like I occasionally, usually on the recommendation of some avid crime novel aficionados of which there are many, including an unexpectedly large number of women, will take a tip and give more modern PIs a run through. Such efforts are made easier like  in the book under review, Moonlight Mile, when the locale of the action, or most of the action are streets and sites in the Greater Boston area which I have walked or have some historic connection to and therefore have a sense of connection with what is going on.

So it was with some interest that I read this crime novel, connected with the locales around Boston including the Latin School over on Louis Pasteur Avenue where one of the main characters, Amanda, had been a crackerjack student ready to move on to greater things with the cache that a Latin School education brings with it, and has for the past three hundred plus years. I also vividly remember the Irish Dorchester triple-decker streets all huddled together providing little or no space to breathe, for Amada to breathe, to think one’s own thoughts in the squalor that he mother’s life bequeathed to her. Also the hard-boiled Irish Southie streets of un-blessed memory with their heavy-handed corner boys and their insularity, ready to pounce on every stranger who threatened that status. And from a later period I remember the old Brighton student ghetto now shared with Little Kiev, elements who like the Irish and Italians before them are as savage to make their mark as any earlier immigrant tide. So, yes, I know those mean streets, know them well if now somewhat memory faded.

As I mentioned I picked up this Moonlight Mile on a tip which as I found out initially from reading the book jacket is part of, or was part of, like many such crime novels an on-going series starring PIs, Pat and Angie, and as usual with such series many of the characters from previous books. I confess that although I have seen the film adaptations of Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter’s Island this is the first novel of Mr. Lehane’s that I have read.  As it turned out this book is actually a sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone taking place some years later when the kidnapped child of that story, Amanda, is in high school and ready to face a bright new world, except she has gone missing again. Mr. Lehane had provided enough background information though a couple of the characters involved with the kidnapping so that if one has not read the earlier book or seen the film you can still get a pretty good idea what happened back then, and get and inkling as to why Amanda has vanished from sight.                     

The earlier scenes as I said involved the kidnapping of Amanda by relatives who thought her mother was unfit to raise her. Pat and Angie had been brought on board to find her after the police dropped the ball on the case. They had found her living happily but wound up bringing her back to her mother even though they know that she was unfit. That unsavory ending caused a split between Pat and Angie for a time. Now the pair get a chance to make things right if they can find her. Of course Amanda is not only bright but has somehow gotten herself involved with a crowd of over the edge Ukrainian gangsters that nobody in their right minds would want to tangle with. See among their other criminal activities this gang is working the baby-snatching racket. And Amanda whom is eventually found by Pat and Angie out in rural Western Massachusetts has one of the babies slated for adoption, slated to be adopted by the ruthless king hell king of the gang. No good can come of this between Amanda super-intelligence, the gang’s ruthlessness and Pat and Angie’s perseverance and grittiness. Read on to find out why.           

From The Pen Of American Communist Party Founder And Trotskyist Leader James P. Cannon

Click below to link to the “James P. Cannon Internet Archives.”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/index.htm

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

Markin comment on founding member James P. Cannon and the early American Communist Party taken from a book review, James P. Cannon and the Early American Communist Party, on the “American Left History” blog:

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past mistakes of our history and want to know some of the problems that confronted the early American Communist Party and some of the key personalities, including James Cannon, who formed that party this book is for you.

At the beginning of the 21st century after the demise of the Soviet Union and the apparent ‘death of communism’ it may seem fantastic and utopian to today’s militants that early in the 20th century many anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and other working class militants of this country coalesced to form an American Communist Party. For the most part, these militants honestly did so in order to organize an American socialist revolution patterned on and influenced by the Russian October Revolution of 1917. James P. Cannon represents one of the important individuals and faction leaders in that effort and was in the thick of the battle as a central leader of the Party in this period. Whatever his political mistakes at the time, or later, one could certainly use such a militant leader today. His mistakes were the mistakes of a man looking for a revolutionary path.

For those not familiar with this period a helpful introduction by the editors gives an analysis of the important fights which occurred inside the party. That overview highlights some of the now more obscure personalities (a helpful biographical glossary is provided), where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party.

These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third- party bourgeois candidates;trade union policy; class-war prisoner defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party. This makes it somewhat easier for those not well-versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull it in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the ‘dog days’ of the party. Unfortunately, that rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal disputes in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? I would argue that the period under study represented Cannon’s apprenticeship. Although the hothouse politics of the early party clarified some of the issues of revolutionary strategy for him I believe that it was not until he linked up with Trotsky in the late 1920’s that he became the kind of leader who could lead a revolution. Of course, since Cannon never got a serious opportunity to lead revolutionary struggles in America this is mainly reduced to speculation on my part. Later books written by him make the case better. One thing is sure- in his prime he had the instincts to want to lead a revolution.

As an addition to the historical record of this period this book is a very good companion to the two-volume set by Theodore Draper - The Roots of American Communism and Soviet Russia and American Communism- the definitive study on the early history of the American Communist Party. It is also a useful companion to Cannon’s own The First Ten Years of American Communism. I would add that this is something of a labor of love on the part of the editors. This book was published at a time when the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was in full swing and anything related to Communist studies was deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America. Now is the time to study this history.

*********

BOOK REVIEW

NOTEBOOK OF AN AGITATOR- JAMES P. CANNON, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that was published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation, especially after his long collaboration working with Trotsky. The period under discussion- from the 1920’s when he was a leader of the American Communist Party to the red-baiting years after World War II- started with his leadership of the fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and then later against those who no longer wanted to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution despite the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution. Cannon won his spurs in those fights and in his struggle to orient those organizations toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

I also suggest a close look at Cannon’s articles in the early 1950’s. Some of them are solely of historical interest around the effects of the red purges on the organized labor movement at the start of the Cold War. Others, however, around health insurance, labor standards, the role of the media and the separation of church and state read as if they were written in 2014 That’s a sorry statement to have to make any way one looks at it.