[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-German]: Burkhardt on Wackerfuss, 'Stormtrooper Families: Homosexuality and Community in the Early Nazi Movement'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message --
From: H-Net Staff 
Date: Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:02 AM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-German]: Burkhardt on Wackerfuss, 'Stormtrooper
Families: Homosexuality and Community in the Early Nazi Movement'
To: h-rev...@h-net.msu.edu


Andrew Wackerfuss.  Stormtrooper Families: Homosexuality and
Community in the Early Nazi Movement.  New York  Harrington Park
Press, 2015.  352 pp.  $35.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-939594-05-1; $90.00
(cloth), ISBN 978-1-939594-04-4.

Reviewed by Alex Burkhardt (University of St Andrews)
Published on H-German (October, 2016)
Commissioned by Nathan N. Orgill

Soup Kitchens and Street Fighting: The Brownshirts in Hamburg

There is a long tradition of scholarly inquiry into the Nazi
_Sturmabteilung_ (SA), the brown-shirted paramilitary wing of the
National Socialist movement that was in no small part responsible for
the mayhem that descended upon the streets of Weimar Germany in its
last fraught years. Pioneering work in the 1980s by historians, such
as Conan Fischer (_Stormtroopers: A Social, Economic, and Ideological
Analysis, 1929-35_ [1983], Richard Bessel (_Political Violence and
the Rise of Nazism: The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany, 1925-1934_
[1984]), and Peter Longerich (_Die Braunen Bataillone: Geschichte Der
SA_ [1989]), furnished a strong empirical base on the social
background, ideological leanings, and propagandistic provenance of
the Stormtroopers. More recent studies by the likes of Sven Reichardt
(_Faschistische Kampfbünde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im
italienischen Squadrismus und in der deutschen SA_ [2002]), Daniel
Siemens (_Horst Wessel: Tod und Verklärung Eines
Nationalsozialisten_ [2009]), and Dirk Schumann (_Political Violence
in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933: Fight for the Streets and Fear of
Civil War_ [2009]) have brought the tools of cultural history to bear
on Nazi paramilitarism, offering further insights into the value
systems and "organisational cultures" that underpinned it. In
_Stormtrooper Families_, Andrew Wackerfuss, a historian with the
United States Air Force, makes a further contribution to this already
extensive body of literature with a local study of the Hamburg branch
of the SA.

_Stormtrooper Families_ is structured into nine chapters that proceed
chronologically, and it might be possible to discreetly divide the
book into three sections, which deal in turn with the background,
course, and aftermath of the crucial period from 1929 to 1933, when
the Hamburg SA was in its heyday. The first three chapters explore
the organization's prewar origins and its difficult fledgling years
in the 1920s. Wackerfuss first provides a brief history of Hamburg,
focusing particularly on the years before the First World War, which,
he argues, were critical to the later psychological and political
development of the SA. In chapters 2 and 3, he shows that the city's
first Brownshirts were mainly ex-soldiers disenchanted with the
Weimar Republic, but also that, before 1929, the Hamburg SA remained
a vocal but numerically quite negligible factor in local politics.

In the elections of September 1930, however, the Nazi share of the
vote skyrocketed, and Adolf Hitler's party became a major player in
national politics, signaling the beginning of the end of Germany's
interwar experiment with democracy. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 focus on
these last volatile years of the Weimar Republic, when the SA was at
its zenith and was key to the Nazi campaign to seize power. The
Hamburg SA expanded propitiously during this period, waging constant
and bloody war on the streets against its political opponents, mainly
the Communists. This enormous propensity for political violence is
the focal point in chapters 4 and 6, which concentrate not only on
the chronic, low-level conflict that was a constant feature of the
SA's (and Hamburg's) makeup but also on two set pieces, the Battle of
Sternschanze and the Altona Bloody Sunday, when the SA, along with
the police and Communists, managed to bring virtual civil war
conditions to parts of the city. Chapter 5, meanwhile, focuses more
on what Wackerfuss calls "the caring side" of the SA (p. xv)--the
vast social support network of soup kitchens, health-insurance
schemes, and barrack-style "SA Homes" that the paramilitary
organization established in the city and used to both attract and
integrate members.

The final three chapters focus on the decline of the Stormtroopers
after Hitler became chancellor in January 1933. Though the Hamburg SA
was initially in a triumphant mood and unleashed a wave of violence
against its enemies in the months after the Nazi "seizure of 

[Marxism] Gerald Horne in depth about his work

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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Gerald Horne is the author of numerous books, including *Confronting Black
Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the
Dominican Republic*, *Race to Revolution: The United States and Cuba During
Slavery and Jim Crow*, *The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance
and the Origins of the United States of America*, *Black Revolutionary:
William Patterson and the Globalization of the African-American Freedom
Struggle*, *Negro Comrades of the Crown: African-Americans and the British
Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation*, *Fighting in Paradise: Labor
Unions, Racism and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii*, and *W.E.B.
Du Bois: A Biography*, among others.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?415064-1/depth-gerald-horne

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart
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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Alliance leader Tony Iltis's toxic propaganda

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://louisproyect.org/2016/10/21/the-numbers-game-in-east-aleppo/#comment-324138

On 10/21/16 11:13 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote:

link?



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[Marxism] question re mail etiquette

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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in gmail there's an icon with three dots saying "show trimmed text." If you
don't click it, does that mean the recipients don't get whatever is hidden?
Asking obviously because of our space issues.
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[Marxism] [UCE] Re: Socialist Alliance leader Tony Iltis's toxic propaganda

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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link?
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[Marxism] Socialist Alliance leader Tony Iltis's toxic propaganda

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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While pediatric hospitals are being bombed in East Aleppo, this 
shameless political shyster links to an article of Kurd leader Salih 
Muslim on my blog that includes this:


Saleh Muslim: “The humanitarian pause in Aleppo has been extended for 24 
hours, as announced by Russia, that is true. Russia wants to separate 
civilians from Al Nusra and other terrorist organizations. But like they 
do the same with terrorist organizations, they are also using the 
civilians as a shield. But it is not easy to get the terrorists out of 
Aleppo. In fact, they even don’t let the civilians out”.


This is the same shit you hear from the IDF spokesmen about Hamas and 
Gaza. It is enough to make you puke.

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[Marxism] Fwd: Ron Suny and the Marxist Commune: a Note

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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By Peter Linebaugh

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ron-suny-and-the-marxist-commune-a-note/
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[Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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In the latter part of his comment on my piece Socialist Action on Libya and 
Syria, Joseph Green says this:
To return to Hiebert's critique of the 2011 article by Socialist Action, he 
asked how long it would take to build a revolutionary party in Libya, and 
said it might be decades. 

Here's the paragraph he is citing.
This advice is not very timely. Supporters of Socialist Action know through 
their own experience that it takes years, even decades, to build a 
revolutionary party. In any case, this will not be done separate and apart from 
participation in the struggles of today. If there are people in Libya who wish 
to follow the advice of SA, how should they be relating to the struggle today? 
Should they be putting forward a course of action for Libyan working people? 
What should that be? http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2301



Of course he is free to read what I wrote and arrive at his own understanding.  
But his understanding and mine are different.  The point I was making was a 
very different one.
Responding to a current struggle with the timeless advice that we need a 
revolutionary party is not useful unless we tie it to a program of struggle in 
the present day.  The task of building a revolutionary party is never 
counterposed to participating in the struggles of the present day, however 
limited those struggles may be.

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[Marxism] Fwd: The numbers game in East Aleppo | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Last night I attended a panel discussion on the siege of East Aleppo 
that left me depressed and angry, especially as its participants spelled 
out the terrible beating that hospitals are taking. The event started 
with a video narrated by Dr. Hatem who is the Director of the 
Independent Doctor’s Association’s Children’s Hospital. It is not easy 
to look at the footage of wounded children whose only offense was being 
forced to live in a city that Assad deemed filled with terrorists. It 
gave me the same sinking feeling I used to get when I worked at the 
Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital in the 1980s. When you see a 
3-year old kid walking around with a medication bag attached to his or 
her arm, you wonder how anybody can believe in god. After watching this 
video about Russian and Baathist atrocities, you can easily end up 
believing in the devil.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/10/21/the-numbers-game-in-east-aleppo/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Ai Weiwei Melds Art and Activism in Shows About Displacement - The New York Times

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Best to go to NY Times online to see the art.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/arts/design/ai-weiwei-melds-art-and-activism-in-shows-about-displacement.html
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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[DW via Marxism]

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Andy is correct at least with regards to permanent revolution. The
characterization by Green of Permanent Revolution is like a middle-school
text book definition.

The *program* of Permanent Revolution to the degree as it's advocated and
not just, as many Trotskyists project, simply an analytical took to
prognosticate the course of a future revolution, is closer to Andy's
interpretation. All these revolutions *start as democratic ones* (struggles
for actual democracy against dictatorship, land reform, national
liberation,etc). All Permanent Revolution says/advocates/predicts is that
in order to actually *achieve* those democratic *tasks* it will take the
complete overthrow of he existing capitalist regime and the installation by
the working class of Workers Government. That's it. There are none, ZERO,
preconditions about who or whom to support in achieving this except that to
go "all the way", again to achieve the reason people were rebelling in the
first place, means to break with the capitalists *politically* who may be
part of the initial phases of the revolution and keep the working class
independent. But that latter point is on us, not the masses themselves.

Problems of Permanent Revolution: it was poorly written. It was overly
prognostic in it's structure (not unlike Lenin's writings as well in some
cases). It has zero to really say about *how* to conduct a struggle for
national liberation other than emphasis on the building the Communist
Party. There is not enough or very little about the national liberation
stage of the revolution and the tactics and strategy to be used in leading
such a fight. And Trotsky did talk about 'stages'. Trotsky rejected,
however, the *mechanical application of stages* implied in Lenin's writings
(such as in Two Tactics for Social Democracy) but rather emphasized there
is no "iron wall between stages" and one 'stage' dynamically flows into the
other as dictated by the course of the revolution. It takes a revolutionary
party that understands this dynamic to insure the completion of the
democratic revolution by way of a working class victory.

Also not talked about is the issue of Imperialist intervention because it
assumes that all such struggles are anti-Imperialist and the lines are
clearly drawn which, of course, is not always the case.

David Walters
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[Marxism] Permanent revolution

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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There are important and unresolved theoretical issues in the exchange 
between Andrew Pollack and Joseph Green. Specifically, there are 
differences within Marxism, and in particular within its Trotskyist or 
semi-Trotskyist wing, over how to theorize the "bourgeois revolution". 
For the Brennerites, there is no such thing. For Neil Davidson, and 
those that agree with him like me, there is. But if there is, what are 
its dynamics in the epoch of imperialism? Did Mustafa Kemal carry out a 
bourgeois revolution? Was the Arab Spring a kind of bourgeois 
revolution? I should add that Davidson rejects the term 
bourgeois-democratic revolution that was used consistently by Lenin.


Even more problematic is the term democratic revolution. When the Arab 
Spring was likened to the 1848 uprisings in Europe, was there a failure 
to come to terms with exactly what had happened during Marx and Engels's 
time? It was clear that the democratic struggles were aimed at removing 
the remnants of feudal forms but did that relate to the revolutionary 
uprisings against someone like Mubarak who was the chief executive of 
Egypt's military-industrial complex?


Furthermore, if we conceptualize the bourgeois revolution as a struggle 
against feudal remnants, how do we reconcile that with a struggle whose 
front-line fighters support to some degree or another a religious state? 
Is the demand for Sharia law simply a reactionary longing for the 
distant past?


The Middle East and North Africa has a way of defying formulas that 
developed in European Marxism. For example, Omar Mukhtar led a heroic 
struggle in Libya against Italian imperialism as a leader of the Senussi 
movement. Its goal was to preserve Sufi values and its social base was 
Bedouins. Not exactly the same thing as Garibaldi.

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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Sigh... I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole.
Here we are again with Joe Green
misrepresenting/misunderstanding/maliciously lying about/displaying his
ignorance of (you all tell me which one) permanent revolution.
The point of permanent revolution is to grasp the INTERTWINING of the
democratic and socialist revolutions, which MEANS at EVERY STAGE supporting
EVERY democratic demand, and NEVER abstaining from a democratic struggle no
matter how long it takes to reveal its dialectical connection to the class
struggle.
And in practice EVERY MENA Trotskyist group in the revolutionary socialist
tradition has done exactly that. ALL the groups which have issued joint
statements, contributed to al-Manshour and Permanent Revolution journal
etc., have theorized and acted in a way that bears NO relationship to
Green's malicious caricature.

Keep on trying to derail the class struggle, Joe, it won't work.
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[Marxism] Fwd: “YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: American Artists and the Communist Party” Exhibition

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2016/24FB
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[Marxism] Fwd: “13th”

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Great documentary on the prison-industrial system by the director of 
"Selma" now available on Netflix.


http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/13th/
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[Marxism] Pennsylvania Professors Dig In for a Long Fight

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Chronicle of Higher Education
Pennsylvania Professors Dig In for a Long Fight
By Peter Schmidt OCTOBER 21, 2016

MILLERSVILLE, PA.

As a faculty strike at Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned colleges entered 
its second day on Thursday, some professors and students were voicing 
concerns about the possible consequences of a prolonged walkout. Above, 
faculty members from Millersville U. picketed in nearby Lancaster, Pa., 
on Wednesday.


At noon Thursday, on the second day of a statewide strike by the faculty 
of Pennsylvania’s state college system, the mood among roughly 80 
instructors and students near Millersville University’s library turns 
from festive to reverent. At the urging of a professor with a bullhorn, 
they begin singing "The Star Spangled Banner" while facing a nearby 
monument to former students claimed by the Civil War, on fields such as 
those of Gettysburg.


Like many of those that the monument honors, those picketing here have 
rallied behind what they portray as a noble cause — in their case, 
preserving the quality of higher education in their state. Underlying 
the celebratory mood, however, is a fear that they, too, might be in for 
a much longer struggle, with much more sacrifice, than initially hoped. 
With more than 460 faculty members here having refused to show up to 
teach classes on Thursday, it has become clear that most Millersville 
students will not be able to take classes, and most instructors won’t be 
collecting pay or benefits, for some time to come.


“It is a huge, huge risk for me. I have four kids.” The 14-campus 
Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education had faced, and avoided, 
potential strikes by its faculty union five times in its 33 years of 
existence. Many here had hoped that their system would follow the lead 
of two of public higher education’s other giant employers, the 
California State University and City University of New York systems, 
which recently struck bargains with faculty unions whose members had 
authorized strikes. Instead, with contract talks having reached an 
impasse late Tuesday night, the 5,500-member Association of Pennsylvania 
State Colleges and Universities called a strike early Wednesday and, a 
day later, did not appear to be poised to go back to work any time soon.


"You always assume the past is going to predict the present, which is a 
bad assumption to make," Kirsten Madden, an associate professor of 
economics, had said soon after the strike was called.


"We did not want this," chimed in Debra Vredenberg, also an associate 
professor of psychology.


The strike had begun Wednesday on a celebratory note, with hundreds of 
students marching through the campus and drivers honking their approval 
at the picketers. Many of those faculty members maintained a similarly 
upbeat tone on Thursday, but the reality of what might lie ahead seemed 
to be sinking in.


"It is a huge, huge risk for me. I have four kids," said Aaron M. 
Haines, an assistant professor of biology.


"It just feels like it is more real today," said an art professor who 
asked not to be quoted by name because she did not want her colleagues 
to see her as negative. The earlier enthusiasm, she said, feels "a 
little diminished."


The state higher-education system says it has offered the faculty union 
all it can, especially considering that the state remains on the heels 
of a recession and the college system has lost about 12 percent of its 
enrollment over the past five years.
"From our perspective, what’s made this round of negotiations much more 
difficult is the financial situation many of our universities are 
facing," Kenn Marshall, a spokesman for the university system, said in 
an interview Wednesday.


Focus on Quality

The statewide union and many of its members, however, accuse Frank T. 
Brogan, the system’s chancellor, of pushing an agenda that values cost 
savings over the good of their institutions, as evidenced by the 
system’s contract proposals calling for the state colleges to rely more 
heavily on online courses. Citing the fluid and, at times, secretive 
nature of the contract negotiations, they voice doubt in the system’s 
assertions that it has taken off the table proposals to have colleges 
rely more on instructors who lack doctorates or are off the tenure track.


Almost without exception, the picketers interviewed here insisted that 
they went on strike to protect educational quality, and not in response 
to bread-and-butter concerns.


“Many of the changes that they have proposed erode the quality of the 
education we are offering.”  "Many of the changes that they have 
proposed erode the quality of the education we 

[Marxism] [UCE] A Theory of Despair? The Frankfurt School Gets a Biography

[Ron Jacobs via Marxism]

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http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-theory-of-despair.html
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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

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Ken Hiebert noted that Socialist Action hadn't always opposed the anti-Assad 
struggle in Syria, but had originally been favorable to it. In regard to 
this, he gave a link to an interesting criticism he had of their stand on 
Libya. He wrote:
> 
> In September of 2011 I was taken aback by the SA statement on Libya and I
> wrote this comment.
> http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2301
> 

The last two paragraphs of Hiebert's comment in International Viewpoint were

"The statement of September 2nd has only one course of action to propose. 
'The liberation struggle in these countries also rests in the development of 
mass revolutionary socialist parties there,...'

"This advice is not very timely. Supporters of Socialist Action know through 
their own experience that it takes years, even decades, to build a 
revolutionary party. In any case, this will not be done separate and apart 
from participation in the struggles of today. If there are people in Libya 
who wish to follow the advice of SA, how should they be relating to the 
struggle today? Should they be putting forward a course of action for Libyan 
working people? What should that be?"

Now, how could Socialist Action make this sort of mistake? Well, it follows 
from their political program. As expressed "in a nutshell" (see 
https://socialistaction.org/program/ ), the following describes the only type 
of uprising they will support:

"Permanent Revolution:  This famous theory by Leon Trotsky holds that 
revolution in modern times, even in under-developed countries, has to be led 
by the working class and has to be a fully fledged socialist revolution - 
revolution cannot go through stages and cannot be made in alliance with any 
wing of the capitalist class. To be ultimately successful it also needs to be 
an international revolution. We believe that a successful socialist 
revolution will result in a workers´ government that is based on elected 
workers´ councils."

At the beginning of the struggle in Syria, Socialist Action could convince 
themselves that the struggle was an anti-capitalist one, and hence presumably 
it would develop according to the precepts of "permanent revolution". But as 
the situation developed, this would become impossible for anyone who hadn't 
been binge drinking on dogma to the point of unconsciousness. This left four 
alternatives for those who maintained a Trotskyist standpoint. 

One could renege on support for the Syria struggle; this would give rise to 
changes in position such as that by "Socialist Action". It wasn't simply an 
accident that "Socialist Action" fell backwards.

A second possibility is diehard unconsciousness, as show by the Communist 
Workers' Group of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is convinced that the  Syrian 
struggle will continue along the path of permanent revolution. Its website 
"redrave" declared recently that  the local committes are "institutions... of 
workers' democracy. They are the result of proto workers communes that if 
joined up would be the basis for an embryonic workers' state. ...  That is why 
our program in Syria is ... armed workers soviets everywhere!" 

A third possibility is to repudiate permanent revolution, but try to keep 
most of Trotskyism, as put forth in the important article by Assad an-Nar, 
"Socialism and the Democratic Wager" (see the book "Khiyana: Dasesh, the Left 
& the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution").

But a fourth possibility, almost universal among Trotskyist supporters of the 
Syrian struggle, is to fall silent on the relationship of permanent 
revolution to the anti-Assad struggle or the Arab Spring altogether. This 
allowed some activists to produce a lot of good material in support of the 
Syrian democratic struggle, but at the price of avoiding a  very important 
theoretical issue and thus leaving open the possibility of future errors in 
judging democratic struggle. This position might be supplemented by shouting 
"Menshevik" at the top of one's voice against any non-Trotskyist who pointed 
out the incompatibility of "permanent revolution" with support for the Syrian 
democratic struggle. 

To return to Hiebert's critique of the 2011 article by Socialist Action, he 
asked how long it would take to build a revolutionary party in Libya, and 
said it might be decades. Now, from the point of view of "permanent 
revolution", the only thing lacking anywhere is "revolutionary leadership".  
But once emancipated from this standpoint, one can examine social, political, 
and economic factors that underlie why it might take decades to finally have 
the envisioned revolutionary party and its firm backing by the masses. And