Re: [Marxism] (99+) (PDF) Academic Corruption, the Israel Lobby, and 9/11, or, Why I have resigned from my emeritus status at the University of Sussex | Kees Van der Pijl - Academia.edu

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I must confess that I've never heard of Kees Van der Pijl, so when I read at 
the start of the Prof's lengthy paper that 'in reply to a Twitter message 
summing up a series of crimes ascribed to "Saudis", beginning with their 
alleged responsibility for bringing down the Twin Towers, I posted, "Not 
Saudis, Israelis brought down the Twin Towers with help from Zionists in US 
Govt!"', I thought that he was perhaps being sarcastic, taking the mickey out 
of conspiracy theories. Then I read through the paper only to find out that he 
really believes this nonsense, that the World Trade Center buildings were 
demolished by controlled explosions, and so on and so forth. I'm rather glad I 
studied History at UCL rather than International Relations at Sussex.

Paul F

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Re: [Marxism] Holodomor, Genocide & Russia: the great Ukrainian challenge

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One problem I have with the idea of the Ukrainian Holodomor is that it tends to 
obscure the fact that the famine went far beyond Ukraine, and badly affected 
Southern Russia and the North Caucasus as well. Also, whilst the Nazis' 
Holocaust was a deliberate attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews and Roma, 
likewise with the Turkish genocide of the Armenians; contrary to what some 
Ukrainian historians insist, it is not at all established whether Stalin's 
regime was intent on a genocidal policy towards Ukrainians -- which I highly 
doubt -- or intended its agricultural policies to lead to mass starvation 
either in Ukraine or in the other affected areas. That Stalin continued with 
these agricultural policies after their deadly impact became apparent is true, 
but that does not mean that such results were desired or intended.

Paul F
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[Marxism] ISO Dissolution -- A Quick Thought

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Comparing the dissolution of Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party back in 
1985 and the ISO's dissolution today, I am wondering whether this is the first 
historical repetition in which the farce has preceded the tragedy.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] When the NY Times backed Communists

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Similar examples can be found as far back as the late 1930s. From my book, The 
New Civilisation?

‘The far left’s stance on this issue [that is, Communist Party policy -- PF] 
was echoed to some degree by commentators of quite different outlooks. This was 
particularly so in respect of France, where the Communist Party, although not 
at first participating in the Popular Front government under Léon Blum, 
suddenly became very patriotic, played an important role in demobilising two 
mammoth strike waves in 1936 and 1938, and was seen as being in danger of being 
outflanked by Trotskyists and other leftists. In March 1938, the Economist went 
so far as to suggest that the maintenance of social order was best served by 
having the Communist Party in government (‘France’, Economist, 26 March 1938).’

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[Marxism] My Article on Deutscher's Trotsky Trilogy

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List members might well be interested in an article that I've recently written 
on Isaac Deutscher's Trotsky trilogy. Here's the abstract:

'This paper investigates Isaac Deutscher’s Trotsky trilogy, concentrating upon 
the examples of Trotsky’s ideas and actions in which Trotsky was centrally 
involved of which Deutscher presented a critical assessment and for which he 
provided differing perspectives. These are i) Trotsky’s ideas concerning 
substitutionism; ii) his theory of Permanent Revolution; iii) the assumption by 
the Bolsheviks of a political monopoly after the October Revolution; iv) the 
substitution by the Bolsheviks of the rule of their party for the rule of the 
working class; and v) the chances of success for the Left Opposition, what 
remained of the October Revolution under Stalinism, and the possibility of 
political change within Stalinist society. This paper considers that although 
Deutscher’s perspective of the democratic self-regeneration of Soviet society 
was wildly optimistic and caused him, if reluctantly, to accept the victory of 
Stalinism, it also permitted him to show the problematic features of Bolshevism 
in power in greater detail than Trotsky was willing to do. The paper concludes 
by showing that Deutscher’s final thoughts on the nature of Soviet society 
implicitly undermined his perspective of the democratic self-regeneration of 
Soviet society and suggested a more critical stance on his part towards the 
Soviet élite.'

If you'd like a copy, please contact me off-list by e-mail.

Paul F

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Re: [Marxism] Sussex Uni professor tweets ?Israelis blew up Twin Towers?

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Dear oh dear. It just goes to prove what I wrote 30 years back, that academic 
qualifications do not prevent men from being charlatans or fools, or both. 

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] Norman G Finkelstein on the accusations of anti-semitism against Corbyn's Labour Party.

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Finkelstein's article has raised some hackles over here. I wrote the following 
comment on a Facebook thread.

Paul F



Finkelstein is crossing an unwelcome line with this piece. There are a couple 
of tell-tale phrases: 'Jews are incomparably organized as they have created a 
plethora of interlocking, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing communal and 
defense organizations that operate in both the domestic and international 
arenas', and, 'The wonder would be if these raw data [on the proportion of Jews 
in prominent positions] didn’t translate into outsized Jewish political power.' 

What he writes about US politicians, with the implication that some sort of 
Jewish force is influencing if not governing US high politics, is quite at odds 
with what he wrote (quite accurately) a short while ago where he stated that 
pro-Israel policies are voted through because they are in the interests of US 
foreign policy, and that were this to be no longer to be the case, the 
pro-Israel lobby would wither on the vine. Now the tail -- and, moreover, a 
Jewish one rather than a pro-Zionist one -- seems to be wagging the dog.

Here's another very worrying bit, on matters close to home: 'Were it not for 
the outsized power of British Jews, it’s hard to conceive that British society 
would be interminably chasing after a hobgoblin. True, although fighting 
anti-Semitism is the rallying cry, a broad array of powerful entrenched social 
forces, acting on not-so-hidden agendas of their own, have coalesced around 
this putative cause. It cannot be gainsaid, however, that Jewish organizations 
form the poisoned tip of this spear.'

I feel that the matter of allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has 
pretty much accidentally become the axis around which the anti-Corbyn campaign 
revolves. I don't believe that anyone or any organisation decided: 'Let's whack 
Corbyn on anti-Semitism, that'll do the job nicely.' It's just emerged that 
way, it's the form which the campaign has taken. There is a very broad range of 
opposition to Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party and potential Prime 
Minister, and this opposition covers a very wide range of topics, far beyond 
anti-Jewish prejudice and Israel/Palestine. That's the content of the campaign, 
let's not confuse form with content.

It's true that the broad campaign against Corbyn has 'coalesced around this 
putative cause', and of course that will bring in various Jewish groups that 
don't like Corbyn, but to view these groups as the main force behind the 
campaign, rather than to view their formal prominence as the result of the form 
that the campaign has taken, and -- worse -- to see that as the result of 'the 
outsized power of British Jews' is getting things seriously back to front and 
putting the author amongst some very dubious company.

Up till now, what I've read of Finkelstein's writings have carefully eschewed 
this sort of thing, even when he has been typically provocative in his writing 
style. What he has written here is quite unacceptable, and shows a decided 
shift in his analysis into the murky world of anti-Jewish conspiracies.

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Rutherford on Moorhouse, 'The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact With Stalin, 1939-41'

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I did a fair bit of reading about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and especially 
how it was seen in Britain, when researching my PhD. The pact really took 
people by surprise, yet if one read Stalin's speech to the CPSU's Eighteenth 
Congress, there were hints that something was already afoot, as Stalin heavily 
implied that Germany was not a threat to the Soviet Union, and that the world's 
bourgeois democracies powers could no longer rely upon Moscow's good favours 
were they to find themselves at war with Germany.

One Trotskyist group in Britain, the Workers International League, considered 
that Stalin's speech showed that Soviet foreign policy was shifting, and saw 
this as a consequence of the uncertainties that had arisen after the Munich 
debacle and the collapse of Czechoslovakia. Its journal concluded: 'Stalin's 
speech of last month further emphasises the uncertainty of Soviet foreign 
policy and his readiness to strike a bargain with Hitler.' This, however, was 
rather the exception. The Communist Party was especially caught on the hop. It 
had reproduced Stalin's speech in its weekly paper without critical comment, 
and a fortnight before the pact was signed, one party leader, Johnny Campbell, 
insisted that there could 'be no rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the 
Fascist states' (Daily Worker, 9 August 1939).

Rather amusingly, after the pact was signed, the Communist Party called for 
another pact, between Britain and the Soviet Union, even though this was 
implicitly prohibited by the clause in the M-R Pact stating that neither of the 
contracting parties would 'participate in any grouping of powers' which was 
'either directly or indirectly aimed against the other contracting party'. The 
party also declared that it would support a war against the fascist powers, 
although Berlin was now allied to Moscow, and it did support Britain's war 
against Germany when it broke out in September. This anomaly was subsequently 
ironed out when in October Moscow ordered the communist parties to oppose the 
war, not without some bother within the British party's Central Committee.

My book, which covers this episode, is still available < 
https://secure.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10_id=50 >.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] The Gay Architects of Classic Rock

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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This article has some resemblance as this one by Alexis Petridis a few years
back < https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/feb/28/how-pop-lost-gay-edge >. I
grew up in Britain through the 1960s, and it was well known that the Beatles'
manager Brian Epstein was gay (not that that term was used then), and there
would be snide comments from older people about the 'effeminate' pop stars of
the day, with their long hair and, later on, flamboyant clothing. Rumours about
Larry Parnes' predatory predilections for handsome young men seeped out, along
with the more common stories about his appalling rip-off managerial style; he
was popularly known as 'Parnes, Shillings and Pence'. If these tales were true,
he really would have been a Der Stürmer stereotype; I can't vouch for their
veracity.

But the rest of the gay managers were unknown to us. Lambert, Napier-Bell... the
average music fan had never heard of them, let alone knew that they were gay.
I'd heard of Stigwood, but only recently learnt (via Ginger Baker's
autobiography) that he was gay. These guys, along with their sexuality, were
behind the scenes.

As for the article's conclusion -- 'in an era when gay sexual expression was
brutally suppressed, the men were able to express themselves through the most
influential sex symbols of the day, creating a kind of erotic ventriloquism' --
that's not how it appeared at the time. Nobody of my generation thought that
Mick Jagger was gay, whatever our parents' generation might have thought, or
that his image was conjured up by some gay managerial svengali. If anything, we
young lads were envious of the way he could get crowds of girls around him; the
same went for the other popular music stars of the time. Likewise, I can't
recall any openly gay person in the popular music scene at that time. The only
man I can think of was Long John Baldry, and he wasn't publicly gay at the time;
I don't think he either admitted it or was obliged to deny it publicly, although
I suspect that it was known within the business. I can't recall when rumours
started being heard that Dusty Springfield was gay, but I don't think it was in
the 1960s, when she was first in the public eye. The whole scene appeared to be
very straight. It wasn't until the early 1970s with David Bowie did real hints
towards being gay, or at least a strong sense of ambiguity, become visible in
the popular music world.

It was different in the world of the theatre, including musical theatre, and to
a lesser degree cinema, where gay men, often with little attempt at disguising
their gayness, were fairly common. It's a paradoxical thing that drag acts and
camp comedians were popular for decades in working-class entertainment at a time
when there was no apparent evidence of anyone being gay in working-class
circles. But that was an entirely different scene, nothing to do with the
popular music scene, even though their songs would sometimes jostle for position
in the 'hit parade' with songs by performers of our generation.

Paul F

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[Marxism] Moshé Machover Expelled From UK Labour Party for 'Anti-Semitism'

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The Labour Party's Thought Police -- sorry, Compliance Unit -- has really done
it this time in its campaign against party members who are left-wingers and
critics of Zionism. It has expelled Professor Moshé Machover, a founder of the
Israeli socialist group Matzpen, on the grounds of anti-Semitism, for an
historical study that he wrote for the Labour Party Marxists. This is truly the
theatre of the absurd... or the 'big lie' of Goebbels... or the jurisprudence of
Vyshinsky. 

Moshé's article can be found here <
http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/anti-zionism-does-not-equal-anti-semitism-2/
>.

Moshé's comments  <
http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/in-defence-of-history-reinhard-heydrich-zionism-and-saying-the-unsayable/
>.

More at Tony Greenstein's site <
http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/professor-moshe-machover-israeli-anti.html
>.

Paul F

* * * 
Below is the Jewish Socialist Group's statement on this farce <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/jewish-socialists-group-statement-in-support-of-moshe-machover
>.

Dr Moshe Machover – a lifelong Israeli socialist, anti-racist and
anti-imperialist, who has lived in Britain since 1968 – has been expelled from
the Labour Party accused of writing “an apparently antisemitic article” and
accused of “involvement and support for” two organisations, the Labour Party
Marxists and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The accusation regarding the “antisemitic” article references the controversial,
flawed definition of antisemitism, which the JSG and many others on the left
have challenged <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/fight-antisemitism-and-defend-free-speech
>.

Moshe Machover has been a friend of the Jewish Socialists’ Group for more than
30 years. He has spoken at JSG meetings, written for Jewish Socialist magazine,
and participated in campaigns for social justice with us. We know him as an
outstanding and sophisticated thinker and analyst, a fighter for human rights
and social justice, and a consistent opponent of all reactionary ideologies and
actions.

The JSG is not affiliated to the Labour Party but we have strongly criticised
the right wing-led campaign to smear left wing activists as antisemites <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-labours-problem-with-antisemitism-from-the-jewish-socialists-g
>.

The Labour Party has a duty to take action against genuine examples of
antisemitism and other forms of racism and bigotry. In line with the Chakrabarti
Inquiry, however, we:
* favour education rather than heavy-handed disciplinary measures
* expect transparent, fair and just process with regard to complaints against
members
* support Shami Chakrabarti’s desire to encourage respectful free speech within
the Party.

The JSG chooses to support individuals suspended or expelled from the party on a
case by case basis.In this case we fully support Moshe Machover and call for his
expulsion to be rescinded and for his immediate reinstatement as a member of the
Labour Party.

The JSG recognises the article by Moshe Machover, that has been cited,as a
critique of the political ideology of Zionism, not of Jews. Indeed the article
exposes antisemitic ideas.

The JSG rejects any McCarthyite-style attempt to expel members for alleged
“involvement and support for” other left groups on the basis of writing articles
and attending and participating in meetings. It is common practice for Labour
members of all levels to speak and participate in events of other groups, and
have articles published, representing their individual viewpoints, in a range of
publications.

Solidarity with Moshe Machover!

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Beall on Richie, 'Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising'

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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The text of the Polish socialist Zygmunt Zaremba's pamphlet The Warsaw Commune:
Betrayed by Stalin, Massacred by Hitler, originally published in 1947, first
English translation 1997, can be found on the Marxist Internet Archive <
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/zaremba/warsaw-commune/index.htm
>.

The progressive nature of the programme of the Warsaw fighters can be seen from
the demands that Zaremba listed:

1: A constitution ensuring that governments conform to the will of the people.
2: A democratic electoral law faithfully reflecting public opinion at the time
of the general and municipal elections.
3: An agrarian reform sharing out all agricultural land in excess of 50 hectares
along with German landed property, as determined by prior decree; the excess of
population being directed into industry and manufacture.
4: The socialisation of key industries.
5: The participation of the workers in the management of enterprises and
workers’ control of industrial production.
6: All citizens have the right to work and to a decent standard of living.
7: A proper distribution of social revenue.
8: All citizens have the right to education and culture.

Paul F

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[Marxism] Fwd: George Orwell was a reactionary snitch who made a blacklist of leftists for the British government

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Here's my take on the business (minus footnotes). The full article from which
this is taken is at <
https://www.academia.edu/1457/_I_Know_How_But_I_Don_t_Know_Why_George_Orwell_s_Conception_of_Totalitarianism
>.

Paul F

Appendix: Orwell and the Spooks

The right-wing press had a field day with the discovery in 1996 of
correspondence in the Public Record Office between Orwell and Celia Kirwan, who
was a friend of Orwell’s, the sister-in-law of Arthur Koestler, and an employee
of the Foreign Office’s clandestine propaganda wing, the Information Research
Department.  The correspondence revealed that Orwell was asked in 1949 by the
Foreign Office if he would help in the writing of material which could be used
in its war of words against the Soviet Union. Orwell, terminally ill, turned
down the invitation, but did provide the IRD with the names of 35
fellow-travellers, taken from a notebook containing 86 names. The papers
repeated their celebrations two years later when the names in the notebook — or
most of them — were finally revealed in one of the 20 volumes of the
newly-released Orwell Collected Works.  Once again, the right wing could claim
Orwell as one of their own.

Why was Orwell willing to collaborate with the murkier parts of the British
state, the same sort of bodies which he had long denounced? Orwell was always a
supporter of the lesser evil, and without ever renouncing his calls for the
socialist transformation of Britain, he adopted a defencist stand during both
the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War, as he saw parliamentary democracy
as a lesser evil than either a Hitlerite or Stalinist dictatorship. By the late
1940s, with Stalinist rule extending across Eastern Europe, Orwell, by now a
sick and pessimistic man, was willing to take whatever steps he felt were
necessary to defend democratic rights in Britain. Furthermore, despite his
suspicion of state institutions, he had no conception of the necessity for
socialists to maintain their political independence from the state. This is why
he was willing to make common cause with institutions that were bitter enemies
of socialism, rather than propose a politically independent course.

In the covering letter to his list, Orwell stated that he wanted to help ensure
that ‘unreliable’ people would not be ‘worming their way into important
propaganda jobs’.  Orwell admitted to Kirwan that her ‘friends’, as he put it,
probably knew all about those named by him, although he added that it was
probably a good idea to have such ‘unreliable’ people listed. He gave the
example of Peter Smollett, an important official at the wartime Ministry of
Information, who could well have advised against the publication of Animal Farm,
and has since been revealed as a Soviet agent.

The list itself is a strange collection. Some of the names are of well-known
Americans — Walter Duranty, Edgar Snow, Anna Strong, Paul Robeson, Upton
Sinclair — whose fame (or notoriety) did not require Orwell to point them out.
Some British Stalinists — DN Pritt, Lester Hutchinson, WP and Zelda Coates, JD
Bernal, Hewlett Johnson — were so well known that the very idea of their being
used to write British official publications during the Cold War is laughable.
Some were well-known sympathisers of Stalinism, such as Sean O’Casey and George
Bernard Shaw; some, like Kingsley Martin, had been soft on Stalinism; and
others, including Michael Redgrave and JB Priestley, were politically naive
individuals. Whether they were Stalinists without a party card, or credulous
believers in a happy land, far far away, the whole thing with most
fellow-travellers was that they were publicly sympathetic to the Soviet Union.
Secret Soviet sympathisers like Smollett are very few and far between in
Orwell’s list.  Stephen Spender is strange inclusion, as he had long dropped out
of the Communist Party, and was shortly to get star billing in that
anti-communist credo The God that Failed. The listing of Orson Welles and
Charlie Chaplin is even more baffling. To be honest, a glance through the
contents pages of Labour Monthly and other Stalinist publications could well
have provided a better list of fellow-travellers, and there can be no doubt that
Kirwan’s ‘friends’ regularly scanned them.

The rise of Stalinism posed a real problem for the left. Here was a state and a
world-wide movement, emerging from a workers’ revolution and using the
liberatory language of Marxism, which was extremely repressive, particularly
towards its left-wing opponents and the working class. How could the
non-Stalinist left respond to it? When an article by Trotsky on the Moscow
Trials appeared without his approval 

[Marxism] New Book: Paul Flewers and John McIlroy (editors), 1956: John Saville, EP Thompson and The Reasoner

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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List members may be interested in a new book which I have co-edited.

Paul Flewers and John McIlroy (editors), 1956: John Saville, EP Thompson and The
Reasoner (Merlin Press, pp 450, £20)

When Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in his ‘Secret Speech’ in 1956 the
leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain attempted to deal with an
unprecedented and unwelcome situation by carrying on as best as normal. Many
party members were not satisfied with their prevarications, and one result was
The Reasoner, a substantial duplicated magazine produced by party historians
John Saville and EP Thompson. The three issues of The Reasoner gave an outlet to
critical party members’ feelings; for the leadership this was mutinous
behaviour. Dismayed by the party leaders’ endorsement of the Soviet invasion of
Hungary, Saville and Thompson, along with thousands of others, resigned their
party membership.

Although The Reasoner has been mentioned in many historical studies, its text
has never been republished until now. This book reproduces all three issues,
together with key CPGB statements on the issues that the magazine raised. John
McIlroy has provided an extensive introduction that investigates the history of
intellectuals within the CPGB and an essay that analyses the political evolution
of John Saville, and Paul Flewers has provided an essay that assesses EP
Thompson’s views on Stalinism and the Soviet experience.

Contents

1.  Preface
2.  Chronology
3.  John McIlroy, Communist Intellectuals and 1956: John Saville, Edward
Thompson and The Reasoner
4.  Documents I — Harry Pollitt, Rajani Palme Dutt, George Matthews, John
Saville, EP Thompson, Derek Kartun, CPGB Political Committee
5.  The Reasoner, No 1
6.  The Reasoner, No 2
7.  Documents II — CPGB Political and Executive Committee on The Reasoner
8.  The Reasoner, No 3
9.  Ronald Meek, The Marxist-Leninist’s Song
10.  John McIlroy, John Saville and Stalinism: An Exploration
11.  Paul Flewers, E P Thompson and the Soviet Experience
12.  Index

Paul Flewers is the author of The New Civilisation? Understanding Stalin’s
Soviet Union 1929-1941 and an editor of Revolutionary History.

John McIlroy is a Professor of Employment Relations at Middlesex University
Business School.

Order your copy here < http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/acatalog/1956.html >.

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[Marxism] Haaretz: 'Why Jewish Conservatives Fear Donald Trump'

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I received the article below via Moshé Machover, it's behind the Haaretz
pay-wall. An exchange between Moshé and I follows on from it.

Paul F

* * *

Peter Beinart, 'Why Jewish Conservatives Fear Donald Trump: Because he
represents a brand of nationalism that doesn’t really include them'

George Will once wrote that Barry Goldwater actually won the 1964 presidential
election. It just “took 16 years” — until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980
— “to count the votes.” It’s time to update that line. Pat Buchanan actually won
the Republican nomination in 1996. It just took 20 years — until the nomination
of Donald Trump — to count the votes.

Although it’s been largely forgotten, the early 1990s were a period of
intellectual crisis inside the GOP. For much of the 20th century, conservatives
had urged “the West” to resist Soviet communism. But when Soviet communism
collapsed, two different groups of conservatives realized that they meant two
different things by “the West.” The party’s “neoconservative” intellectuals —
many of them Jews — defined the West ideologically: as the bastion of democratic
capitalism. Buchanan, by contrast, along with many rank and file conservatives,
defined the West ethnically: as the bastion of white Christianity.

These two different interpretations led to radically different foreign policies.
The “neocons” wanted take advantage of the USSR’s collapse to spread democracy
and free markets, if necessary by force. The Buchananites, quoting John Quincy
Adams, wondered why Americans should go overseas “in search of monsters to
destroy.” And they wondered whether global capitalism really benefitted ordinary
Americans anyway. The neocons defended the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA); the Buchananites denounced it. Neocons like William Kristol and Robert
Kagan urged the United States to take up arms to defend Bosnia and Kosovo
against Serbian aggression. The Buchananites asked why, exactly, the United
States should wage war for Muslims fighting Christians.

The divide culminated in 1996, when Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary. GOP
elites, he gleefully declared, “are in a terminal panic. They hear the shouts of
the peasants from over the hill. All the knights and barons will be riding into
the castle pulling up the drawbridge in a minute. All the peasants are coming
with pitchforks.” The knights and barons counterattacked, and managed to
nominate Bob Dole. Then, in the years that followed, Republicans papered over
their differences. They united in an attempt to impeach Bill Clinton. They
united in vengeance after the September 11 attacks. They united to oppose Barack
Obama.  

But below the surface, the balance inside the party shifted. After 2000, wages
stagnated, which led more Republicans to doubt the benefits of global trade. The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan became quagmires, which led more Republicans to
doubt the benefits of foreign war. And Barack Obama’s election induced a panic
about America’s changing demographic character. All these factors strengthened
the Buchananites, even as Buchanan himself faded into obscurity.

Which brings us to Trump and the Jews. Name the conservative movement’s most
passionate Trump opponents, and you’ll notice that Jews — Bill Kristol, David
Brooks, David Frum, Robert Kagan, Jonah Goldberg, Max Boot, Bret Stephens, Dan
Senor, Jennifer Rubin — are heavily overrepresented. The primary reason is that
most Jewish conservatives find Trump’s brand of nationalism alarming. Trump
doesn’t see the “West” as worth defending on ideological grounds. Like Buchanan,
he thinks America’s key allies rip us off. He can’t see any reason why America
should spend money and risk lives defending the Baltic States — just because
they’re democracies — against Russia. For Trump, like Buchanan, the West matters
only as a religious and racial entity. Muslim immigration, Trump claims, is
“destroying Europe” and “I’m not going to let that happen to the United States.”
Jewish conservatives want to expand the West’s frontiers in the name of
prosperity, security and freedom. Trump, by contrast, wants the West to close
its doors to keep the Muslim hordes out. 

Jewish conservatives don’t only find this frightening because they fear what may
happen overseas if the U.S. withdraws. They also fear what may happen at home.
For many American Jews, the isolationism of the 1930s connotes anti-Semitism. It
evokes figures like Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Father Coughlin,
all of whom used Jew-hatred to justify appeasing Hitler. Trump, by resurrecting
the slogan of Lindbergh’s America First Committee, which opposed U.S. entry into
World War II, plays 

[Marxism] Article on US Right-Wing Intellectuals

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This article on US right-wing intellectuals appeared in the Guardian this week <
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/16/secret-history-trumpism-donald-trump
>.

Below are some lines I wrote to a pal in New York when she asked me about the
possibilities for this political trend:

'I think that conservatism, not least of this brand, could make a revival. We
are seeing a reaction against neo-liberalism in the form of the reassertion of
the nation-state: calls for immigration controls, import substitution through
the defence of indigenous industry, etc. That's what's behind Trumpery and the
various right-wing nationalist forces across Europe. It was to a large degree
the push behind the anti-EU vote here. These forces have no answer, there is no
national solution to the crisis, but that will not prevent them from making a
lot of noise and winning elections. Trump probably won't get elected, but Mrs Le
Pen might in France. And even if they don't, they still represent large numbers
of angry people looking for a way out.

'Is there a future for right-wing conservative intellectuals? Almost certainly:
we've seen right through the last decades more than traces of calls for
traditional mores, etc, and opposition to 'cosmopolitan', 'politically correct'
liberalism. That liberalism is in part the ideological reflection of neo-liberal
economic policies; nationalist economic policies will necessarily be reflected
ideologically in patriotism and all the rest. How far all the old right-wing
prejudices will bubble up -- that I don't know, but I'm afraid that it will to
some degree or another.

'What I do feel is that the rise of Trumpery and similar things in Europe will
encourage old-style conservatism to come increasingly into the open. These guys
will never form a mass movement, but they will gain confidence with the rise of
Trumpery, they will form some sort of symbiotic relationship with it. I don't
think that Trumpery is a flash in the pan, even if Trump is: there is a real
basis for angry nationalism as neo-liberalism continues to bite hard on many
people. The German right-wing conservative thinkers did not have an easy
relationship with the Nazis; they did not like the rowdy, uncultured,
lower-class aspects of the Nazis. But in the run-up to 1933 they fed off each
other. So I think there will be a relationship, symbiotic but uneasy, between
Trumpery and conservatism; the latter giving theoretical shape to the former,
the former giving confidence to the latter, encouraging it to be more bold in
opposing liberal norms.'
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Re: [Marxism] Israel - world's most racist state?

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Re ARG's comments. In what way does Tony Greenstein's criticisms of Zionism and
the state of Israel constitute an 'ethnocentric perspective'? 

Kindly explain yourself.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] Thompson on Morris

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I've just finished a fairly hefty article on EP Thompson and the Soviet
experience, looking at his writings on the topics of Bolshevism, the Russian
revolution, Stalinism and Trotskyism, and this takes in some of the points that
Andrew makes in his posting. Thompson's post-CPGB line on the nature of the
Soviet Union was rather close to that of Isaac Deutscher, although his
historical account of Bolshevism and Stalinism was nothing as clear as
Deutscher's, and was often tentative and contradictory. 

Thompson's book on William Morris was first published in 1955, and I cite a
passage that soon became somewhat embarrassing for the author. This was missing
from the revised edition that was published well after he left the CPGB in 1956.

My article should be in a book containing all three issues of The Reasoner,
which Thompson and John Saville published whilst still CPGB members in 1956, a
selection of related CPGB documents, and an introduction by John McIlroy,
hopefully to be published later this year.

Here's an extract from my article, starting with Perry Anderson's critique of
Thompson.

Paul F

**

And where, asked Anderson, was Thompson prior to 1956? Where was he during, say,
Stalin’s infamous Doctors’ Plot of 1952, or the Slánský trial a year before?  

In 1955, Thompson completed his massive study of William Morris, and one senses
that its general feel ran a bit askew to the hidebound ethos of his party.
However, as Palmer noted, Thompson ‘could not break out of the Stalinist
straitjacket’, as this would have been ‘an act of apostatical default too
disturbing to contemplate’.  And so the book concluded with this masterpiece of
bathos:

'Twenty years ago even among Socialists and Communists, many must have regarded
Morris’ picture of ‘A Factory As It Might Be’ as an unpractical poet’s dream:
today visitors return from the Soviet Union with stories of the poet’s dream
already fulfilled. Yesterday in the Soviet Union, the Communists were struggling
against every difficulty to build up their industry to the level of the leading
capitalist powers: today they have before them Stalin’s blueprint of the advance
to Communism… Thus have the ‘claims’ of William Morris, the ‘unpractical’ poet,
been promised fulfilment!' 

This was incongruous enough in 1955 — Efstathiou was quite wrong when he wrote
that ‘Thompson’s pro-Stalin stance was not unusual for the time’: attitudes had
changed rather a lot over the preceding decade  — and within a twelve-month
would be downright embarrassing in the light of Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’. 

The events of 1956 put dissident members of the official Communist parties in an
especially awkward position now that the record of their movement had been
exposed — and exposed ex cathedra at that  — as deeply flawed, and they found
themselves pulled in opposite directions as their rivals on the left took
gleeful pleasure in their discomfort. Hence in the first issue of The Reasoner,
Thompson declared that he was proud of the work of the CPGB in support of the
working class in Britain and in opposing colonialism abroad, but he was ‘not
proud’ of the CPGB’s ‘servile attitude to the leadership of the Soviet Union’
and the ‘silence’ which he and others had maintained on this and other matters.
 A year later, however, the defensiveness had gone, and Thompson was a lot less
forgiving towards his critics:

'I am not going to spend years crippled by remorse because I was duped by the
Rajk and Kostov trials, because I was a casuist here and perhaps an accomplice
there. We were Communists because we had faith in the fundamental humanist
content of Communism, and during the darkest years of the Cold War it was our
duty to speak for this. I do not regret this, although I wish we had spoken more
wisely and therefore to more effect.' 

Anderson had not been asking an unreasonable question, for what Khrushchev
exposed in his ‘Secret Speech’ had long been common knowledge outwith the
official Communist movement. Thompson’s peevish outburst may well have been the
result of his being asked this question once too often.



> Message: 13
> Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2016 13:36:19 -0400
> From: Andrew Pollack 
> To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
>  
> Subject: [Marxism] Thompson on Morris
> Message-ID:
>  
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> New at MIA:
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/thompson-ep/1951/william-morris.htm
> Thanks to Paul Flewers for transcribing this.
> I'd be interested to hear from him and others with more knowledge of 

[Marxism] Famous Isaac Deutscher Essay Now On-Line

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Isaac Deutscher's famous review of Isaiah Berlin's essay Historical
Inevitability is now available on-line at <
https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1955/determinists-all.htm >. This
rather sharp review, published in The Observer on 16 January 1955, was largely
responsible for sparking Berlin's furious hostility for Deutscher, which
culminated in his sabotage of Deutscher's chances of obtaining a university
teaching post, a sorry tale described in David Caute's recent book Isaac and
Isaiah.

Paul F
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[Marxism] New Book on the City of London as a Financial Centre

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List members may well be interested in this new book by Tony Norfield <
http://www.versobooks.com/books/2103-the-city >. Tony Norfield also writes at <
http://economicsofimperialism.blogspot.co.uk/ >.

Paul F

* * * * * * *

Tony Norfield, The City: London and the Global Power of Finance

A radical insider’s account of how the city of London really works

The City, as London's financial centre is known, is the world's biggest
international banking and foreign exchange market, shaping the development of
global capital. It is also, as this groundbreaking book reveals, a crucial part
of the mechanism of power in the world economy.

Based on the author's twenty years' experience of City dealing rooms, The City
is an in-depth look at world markets and revenues that exposes how this
mechanism works. All big international companies -- not just the banks --
utilise this system, and The City shows how the operations of the City of London
are critical both for British capitalism and for world finance.

Tony Norfield details, with shocking and insightful research, the role of the US
dollar in global trading, the network of British-linked tax havens, the flows of
finance around the world and the system of power built upon financial
securities. Why do just fifty companies now have control of a large share of
world economic production? The City explains how this situation came about,
examining the history of the world economy from the postwar period to the
present day.

If you imagine you don't like 'finance' but have no problem with the capitalist
market system, think again: it turns out the two cannot be separated.

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Re: [Marxism] has Jacobin seen the light?

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I agree with David W's comments about the bombing of Germany in the Second World
War: it took a massive ground war from east and west to overcome Nazi Germany.
Aerial bombing played some part, but it was not decisive. It also played into
the hands of the Nazi regime, who could present it as an attack upon all Germans
and especially urban Germans, as the cities were the main target. The German
bombing raids on Britain earlier in the war did not undermine the British
government.

To move on from this, it's pretty clear that the big powers today recognise that
a ground war will be necessary to defeat ISIS's quasi-state. Yet, unlike the
defeat of Germany by largely ground forces, which led to the collapse not only
of the Nazi regime but of the credibility of its ideas, the defeat through
invasion of ISIS-held territory will not destroy ISIS as a current, even if ISIS
suffers fairly hefty losses in the process.

The defeat of Germany in 1945 totally discredited Nazism as an ideology in that
country. Based upon a hypertrophied variant of German imperialism, everything it
stood for was massively undermined by its defeat: the supposedly 'plutocratic'
USA, the supposedly effete Britain, the supposed 'untermenschen' of the
'Judeo-Bolshevik' Soviet Union had proved victorious; the 'Thousand-Year Reich'
and its core in the German state lay in pieces. Based intrinsically upon the
power of the German state, it could not survive the utter defeat of that state
and its powerlessness at the hands of the victor states.

The quasi-state that ISIS has created on the Syria-Iraq border does not equate
to the Third Reich, or to other less ideologically hypertrophied nation-states
that have been defeated in war. Whilst the ISIS quasi-state is useful in
attracting support from like-minded Islamist people around the world in a way
that al Qaeda, lacking a national base for much of the time, didn't manage to,
such a territorial base is not an essential factor in this brand of violent
jihadism. The ISIS ideology can withstand the defeat of the ISIS state. Rather
than stand in ISIS-land and wait to be over-run in an invasion, ISIS will almost
certainly send the bulk of its cadres away to other countries -- it's probably
doing this to some degree now -- in order to carry out guerrilla-type activities
in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Another factor is that the invasion and defeat of ISIS-land -- assuming that the
fraught question of amassing sufficient forces to do it can be solved, which is
a question we might discuss elsewhere -- won't deal with the factors underlying
the rise of such movements as al Qaeda and ISIS. So long as the Ba'athist regime
remains in power in Damascus, then this will be a permanent destabilising factor
on the basis that it has lost all legitimacy amongst substantial sections of the
population and it's hard to see how this could be regained; if it falls, then is
there the real possibility of the type of statal collapse we've seen in Libya.
The level of instability that would ensue from either of these results, along
with the general conditions in the region, would almost guarantee that some form
of violent Islamist movement, either a revived ISIS or some new variant, would
emerge.

Paul F
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[Marxism] New Issue of Revolutionary History: Clara Zetkin: Letters and Writings

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New Issue of Revolutionary History: Clara Zetkin: Letters and Writings

Clara Zetkin played a prominent role within the left wing of the German
Social-Democratic Party and subsequently within the Communist Party of Germany
and the Communist International, with a strong interest in the rights of
working-class women. The latest edition of Revolutionary History, edited by Mike
Jones and Ben Lewis, brings together articles and letters by Zetkin on such
subjects as revisionism within the SPD, women's rights and feminism, the fight
against fascism, and the bureaucratisation of the Communist International,
together with scholarly articles focusing upon specific aspects of Zetkin's
political life. This edition of Revolutionary History will bring the life and
work of Clara Zetkin to the notice of today’s left-wing activists and
historians, and help to restore her name to its rightful position within the
pantheon of twentieth-century revolutionary Marxists.

Articles by Clara Zetkin

* The Servant Girls' Movement
* Against the Theory and Tactics of Social Democracy
* Guidelines for the Communist Women's Movement
* Letters to Lenin
* The Struggle Against Fascism
* The Bourgeois Women’s Movement
* Letter to the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU
* Speech to the ECCI
* Letters to Fanny Jezierska
* Letter to Wilhelm Pieck
* Opening Speech of the Reichstag as its Oldest Member, 30 August 1932

Articles about Clara Zetkin

* Gisela Notz, Clara Zetkin and the International Socialist Women's Movement
* Ottokar Luban, Clara Zetkin's Influence on the Spartacus Group, 1918-1919
* Günter Wernicke, Clara Zetkin's Opposition to Sidelining of Comrades in the
Comintern and KPD in the Mid-1920s
* Horst Helas, Clara Zetkin's 'Filthy Letter'

Plus a big book review section

Order at < www.revolutionaryhistory.co.uk >

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Re: [Marxism] CPUSA 'Jewish Life' Magazine -- Help Needed

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Kevin Lindemann wrote 'the article was reprinted in Jewish Radicals: A
Documentary Reader, edited by Tony Michels (New York: New York University Press,
2012), and it looks like Google Books has the full text online'.

Many thanks for the reference, I have found the article in the book on-line and
have corrected the text as it appeared in The Reasoner; it was a simple
typographical error which left the text quite garbled.

Paul F
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[Marxism] Right-Wing Anglo-Greek Commentator Openly Praises Golden Dawn

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'Taki', a longstanding Anglo-Greek reactionary, right-wing columnist, has
come out openly -- in a fairly big-circulation weekly, the Spectator -- in
favour of Golden Dawn, and sees them as fine upstanding Greeks defending
their kith, kin and country against all these foreigners 
http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/high-life/9601182/golden-dawn-is-the-only-thing-standing-between-poor-athenian-neighbourhoods-and-outright-anarchy/
. He still sees the need to deny that GD are actually fascists, but this
nasty bloke a year or two...

Has anyone here seen any other examples of open championing of GD by
right-wing columnists?

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] The Russian Roots of Nazism

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I read Kellogg's book some time back, when it first came out, and felt that
the author rather overestimated the impact of the right-wing Baltic
Germans. I think that they played a catalytic role in the rise of fascism
in Germany, but I don't think that Nazism would have been qualitatively
less genocidal, or that the drive to the East for living space would have
been less fervent, had their influence been less.

Many of the ideas that the Nazis promoted during the Weimar years were
versions, amplified to varying degrees, of ideas already floating around on
the German right prior to the influx of Baltic Germans. The quest for
Eastern territories was quite a common demand on the nationalist right; the
Nazi eugenics policies were not at all uncommon not only on the German
right, but in only slightly less harsh forms in many countries amongst
people of many political standpoints. The anti-Bolshevism of the Baltic
German right-wingers added to the anti-communist sentiment on the German
right, but there was plenty of that around before they arrived.

Anti-Semitism had been on the rise in Germany even prior to the First World
War, and it developed strongly towards and after the end of the war, with
the idea of Germany's defeat being the fault of 'the stab in the back' (by
you-know-who).

I can't recall what Kellogg wrote about the arrival of the Protocols of the
Elder of Zion into Germany, but the connection with the Baltic German right
seems to be coincidental rather than direct. According to Norman Cohn's
Warrant for Genocide, the standard account of the history of the Protocols,
this document was first introduced into Europe from Russia by White-Guard
Russians. It came to Germany with the German troops retreating from the
East. The Protocols keyed in with the rising tide of anti-Semitism in
Germany (and elsewhere), and proved very popular with right-wingers.

I think, altogether, that Kellogg rather overstated his case. If one bears
that in mind, the book is nonetheless useful in bringing to light
information that is not broadly known.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] The politics of language

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There was a concerted effort by the English authorities to extirpate the
Welsh language in the latter nineteenth century, and the language as a
living concern became more or less limited to the North of Wales with
occasional pockets elsewhere, such as in some South Wales valleys. There's
evidence of this even today in some of the mutilation of South Wales
place-names: not all of the Anglicised names have been converted back to
the Welsh. More recently there have been moves to revive the Welsh
language, and to make it a necessity in some public-sector jobs even in
areas where Welsh is barely spoken. Because this has often been to the
benefit of middle-class English incomers who have learnt Welsh rather than
Welsh people who don't know it, it has led to resentment.

What I have noticed over the three decades I have had holidays in North
Wales is the rise, especially over the last few years, of the use of
English in everyday conversation of children and teenagers in the
Welsh-speaking heartlands. Twenty or even 10 years back, when I walked
through the towns, everyone would be speaking Welsh. Over the last few
years, I've noticed that youngsters, when speaking amongst themselves,
continually switch from Welsh to English and back again, or speak more in
English than Welsh (I think that all Welsh people speak English these
days). This, I was told, is a growing trend in the Welsh-speaking areas,
and goes against the official trend of trying to revive the language.

There are differences between the question of Welsh in Wales and Ukrainian
in Ukraine, chiefly in that there is effectively no commonality between
Welsh, a Celtic language, and English, whereas there is a fair bit of
commonality between Russian and Ukrainian. In the parts of Ukraine where
both languages are spoken, a new language has appeared, Syrzhik, drawing
upon both. It is disproved of by both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists,
as one might expect. This I think would be impossible in Wales because of
the almost total lack of commonality between English and Welsh. I mentioned
my observations to an English resident in North Wales who has learnt Welsh,
and he felt that the easy availability of English-language media (internet,
telly) is encouraging youngsters to converse increasingly in English, and
that Welsh might die out within a generation or two should this trend
continue, which he felt was likely to be the case.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] The Devils? Alliance: Hitler?s Pact with Stalin, 1939?1941

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was of relevance to the question of Ukraine,
not least because the carving up of Poland saw Ukrainian territory transfer
from Polish to Soviet control. This is something I wrote on the topic that
might be of interest 
https://www.academia.edu/11046513/Western_Ukraine_and_the_Molotov_Ribbentrop_Pact
.

Paul F
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[Marxism] My Letter on Greece Published in the Guardian

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I had a letter published in the Guardian about the EU, Greece and Syriza's
turn towards Russia 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/05/failed-eu-policy-turns-greece-to-russia-ukraine
. The author of the original piece, Natalie Nougayrède, is a French
journalist and a strong advocate of the 'European Project' and the new cold
war against Russia.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] Prominent Putin critic Boris Nemtsov shot dead near Kremlin

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Lou P wrote that the idea to annex the Crimea 'goes back for more than a
decade' 
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/observers-say-russia-had-crimea-plan-for-years/496936.html
 .

It's occurred to me that if the Crimea fell into Russian hands, then it
would be rather awkward for Ukraine to join NATO if a sizeable chunk of the
country's territory, and one that contains a major naval base, fell under
the control of another country, and a none-too-friendly one at that. So on
that basis, taking over the Crimea was an insurance policy against
Ukraine's joining NATO. I wouldn't be surprised if this was long on the
Russian state agenda.

As for Eastern Ukraine, I doubt if Putin had any plan actually to annex
Donestk, Lugansk or any other part. What Putin wants is to be able to
influence to his advantage Ukrainian politics. Having already with taking
over the Crimea removed from Ukraine a hefty number of people who
consistently voted in large numbers for pro-Russian candidates, it doesn't
make much sense to remove several million more people, of whom half (and
probably more) also consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates.

I suspect that the pro-Russian elements in Eastern Ukraine have gone a lot
further than Putin would have liked. He would have liked some kind of
autonomy that nonetheless allowed the population to vote in Ukrainian
elections. What is emerging in Eastern Ukraine is similar to what has
happened in Moldavia with the Transdniestrian set-up: a de facto
independent state. This situation is not in Russia's interest in Ukraine.
The pro-Russian elements have forced Putin's hand; if he abandons them they
will collapse and he'll lose everything, in supporting them he is obliged
to permit them to call the agenda. If we get an independent Eastern
Ukrainian state, or if the area is incorporated into Russia as with the
Crimea, then Putin's chances of influencing politics in Ukraine will be
vastly reduced and for a very long time.

What does this mean for politics in Ukraine? I feel that it will ensure
that right-wing Ukrainian parties will have a big audience for their
revanchist ideas. Despite the romantic views of some people on the left,
the pro-Russian regions will not be run by some left-wing regime but by
Russian nationalists with all which that implies. There will be a refugee
problem as those unwilling to live in this region will move out or may be
expelled. Politics in Ukraine as a whole will move rightwards as
nationalist trends of both a Ukrainian and Russian brand will take root in
the seeming absence of political currents that can transcend nationalist
agendas.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist | News | The Guardian

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Varoufakis also wrote: 'I moved to England to attend university in
September 1978, six months or so before Margaret Thatcher’s victory changed
Britain forever. Watching the Labour government disintegrate, under the
weight of its degenerate social democratic programme, led me to a serious
error: to the thought that Thatcher’s victory could be a good thing,
delivering to Britain’s working and middle classes the short, sharp shock
necessary to reinvigorate progressive politics; to give the left a chance
to create a fresh, radical agenda for a new type of effective, progressive
politics.'

If he'd have come up with anything like that at a left-wing meeting in
Britain at that time, he would have been met with brays of ill-mannered
laughter.

As for his 'quote' from Lenin to the effect that the worse things get the
better things are for the left, that really is bizarre. I've seen it used
here, although not as a 'quote' from Lenin, by right-wing hacks who think
that's how we think, but not by any left group. I wonder if Varoufakis has
some background in a weird left group in Greece that actually believed
that.

Paul F
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[Marxism] Obituary of Bill Fishman, Historian of London's Jewish East End

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Dave Rosenberg has written a fine obituary of William Fishman, author of
the wonderful book about the Jewish left-wingers and labour activists of
East London, East-End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914, and other historical
works, who died recently at the age of 93 
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/26/william-fishman-historian-obituary-east-end-jewish-radicals
.

Bill Fishman's book, a pioneering study about a now long-lost world, has
been republished by Five Leaves Publishing, and is available via here 
http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/jewish.html , as is Dave Rosenberg's own book
on anti-fascist struggles in East London during the 1930s.

Paul F
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Re: [Marxism] Spanish Civil War and British artists

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I've been informed that the Chichester exhibition is indeed a very good
display. A friend of mine has a couple of pictures exhibited there, and he
was invited to the opening ceremony. The organiser, noting the remarkable
array of people at the show, from lowly left-wingers to the richer echelons
of society, started his address with the immortal words: 'My lords, ladies
and comrades...'

Paul F
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[Marxism] Moshé Machover's Recent Writings on Palestine/Israel

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Moshé Machover's recent writings on Palestine/Israel.

Paul F

1. Zionist myths – Hebrew versus Jewish identity, 17 May 2013 
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-05-17/moshe-machover-zionist-myths-hebrew-versus-jewish-identity/
.

2. Israel-Palestine – déjà vu all over again, 26 July 2013 
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-07-26/moshe-machover-israel-palestine-deja-vu-all-over-again/
.

3. De-Zionization – strategic considerations, 8 October 2013 
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-10-08/moshe-machover-dezionization-strategic-considerations/
.

4. Belling the cat (expanded version of 3), 13 December 2013 
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-12-13/moshe-machover-belling-the-cat/
.

5. Israel’s quest for legitimacy, 18 September 2014 
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2014-09-18/moshe-machover-israels-quest-for-legitimacy/
.
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Re: [Marxism] Putin Disses Lenin -- The New Yorker

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Re Lou P's posting -- what Putin is saying is very similar to the
latter-period Solzhenitsyn, who also considered that Lenin was a traitor to
Russia because of his defeatist line during the First World War. Lenin and
Bolshevism have always posed a problem for Russian nationalists within or
emerging from the Soviet apparatus.

Back in the 1970s, the Young Guard elements within the Soviet youth
movement were becoming very nationalistic in their viewpoint and ended up
evolving a line that implicitly meant that, in their eyes, Lenin and the
Bolsheviks had a treasonous attitude towards Russia during the First World
War. The party big-wigs realised the dangerous position into which a
section of the party youth was going, and waved the big stick at them.

Putin, although a product of the Soviet state and despite carrying on with
various Stalinist practices, can, as a result of the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, be more free in promoting this view. But because the Russia
of today is so obviously a product of the Soviet era, rejecting Lenin and
branding him a traitor could alienate him from those who still base their
Russian nationalism at least partly upon the Soviet experience.

Paul F

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Re: [Marxism] Ukrainian responsibility for the mass murder

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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It's true that the Ukrainian authorities should have declared the whole of
the eastern region of the country as dangerous, and putting a 32 000 foot
minimum safe limit was a bit daft considering that they must have known, or
at least strongly suspected, that pro-Russians in the east had
anti-aircraft missiles that could reach twice that height (airliners
usually cruise at between 30 000 and 40 000 feet). It's also wrong that
airlines, in order to save a few bob on fuel, would insist on flying over a
region in which aeroplanes are being shot down up to heights not that far
short of the safe limit.

On the other hand, if one does have possession of such weapons, then it
would be best to have personnel in charge of them who know the dangers
involved in using them. According to the reports of various military
experts, the missiles' guidance systems and ancillary equipment are
insufficient to obtain a detailed identification of the target. This has to
be obtained by other means, usually via communication with the country's
air traffic control, to ensure that one's target is the plane which you
wish to hit.

If this incident was the work of pro-Russian elements, I suspect that they
were aiming at a Ukrainian transport plane and locked the missile on to the
Malaysian airliner by mistake, or that they misidentified the Malaysian
plane as a Ukrainian one. Either way, they were unable properly to identify
it until it was far too late, after it had crashed. Were the missiles of
this type supplied from Russia, taking into account the potentially
disastrous -- and foreseeable -- consequences of a heavy-duty anti-aircraft
missile in amateur hands, it's unlikely that they would have been just
handed over and not accompanied with operators who knew how to handle them
and hopefully avoid disasters (such as this one) occurring. If this did
happen, then this was irresponsible in the extreme.

The Ukrainian authorities were amiss in not declaring the region to be
dangerous and prohibiting all over-flying; the airlines should have avoided
the area once planes started to be shot down (some airlines did do this).
True enough. But responsibility must firstly be placed upon those who
launched the missile and who in so doing failed to establish beforehand the
actual identity of the plane at which they aimed it.

Paul F

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[Marxism] The Occupy Protests and the Far-Right

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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I don't know if this has been referred to before, but here's a substantial
piece on the Occupy protests and the far-right 
http://libcom.org/library/right-hand-occupy-wall-street-libertarians-nazis-fact-fiction-right-wing-involvement-spe
.

Paul F

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[Marxism] Loren Goldner's Review of Kevin Coogan's Biography of Francis Yockey

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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With the growing infatuation of most of Europe's hard-right with Russian
nationalism and the rise of interest in Eurasian theories, the name of the
US fascist Francis Yockey has not unsurprisingly arisen in one or two of
the discussions on the internet.

Here is a link to Loren Goldner's review of Kevin Coogan's big book on
Yockey, The Dreamer of the Day 
http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/yockey.html  that list members may
find interesting, not least as Yockey prefigured quite a lot of the ideas
of today's far-right thinkers.

Paul F

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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist dupes, then and now

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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Further to Andy P's reference to my book, The New Civilisation?, and his
comment 'Is there anything akin to this focused specifically on US dupes?,
there is Frank Warren's Liberals and Communism: The 'Red Decade' Revisited
(Columbia Uni Press), originally published in 1966, which looks at some
length at The Nation and The New Republic and other magazines in the 1930s.
I found it an informative work. The former fellow-traveller Eugene Lyons
published in 1941 The Red Decade: The Stalinist Penetration of America,
which, as suggested by the title, is an agitational anti-communist work,
but it does contain quite a bit of useful information. David Caute's The
Fellow Travellers and Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims look, from a left
and right-wing perspective respectively at pro-Soviet individuals,
including many US ones.

One thing I noticed when reading through the many descriptions of the
Soviet Union that were published here which has resonated in the light of
the rival descriptions of what's happening in Ukraine today is that reading
anti-Soviet and pro-Soviet material I had the distinct impression that the
authors were describing two entirely different countries, so different were
their descriptions. Reading the many rival reports on the Maidan protests
and the separatist movements and various other aspects of Ukraine today, I
feel that we are getting descriptions of two entirely different places,
almost like parallel dimensions.

To return to my book, where I feel that it is also useful is that I managed
to go beyond the usual view of the 1930s attitudes towards the Soviet Union
of consisting solely of diametrically-opposed pro-Soviet and anti-communist
viewpoints, and -- as Geoff Foote pointed out in his review -- described
what I call the 'centre ground', that is, a broad swathe of opinion, from
moderate Tories through to right-wing and centre social democrats, who,
whilst strongly rejecting Marxism and workers' revolution (and the
Stalinist interpretations of them), looked to Soviet state economic and
social welfare policies as something from which Western governments could
learn. This was, of course, in the context of the vivid contrast between
Western economic slump and the massive growth under the initial Five-Year
Plans.

Various authors have looked in passing at how the Soviet economic and
welfare measures were looked at in Britain, and others have looked, at some
length, at the rise of the idea of state intervention in Britain between
the world wars, but none, as far as I know, has systematically brought the
two factors into a single framework of analysis. I imagine that attitudes
towards the New Deal and related state interventionist policies have been
thoroughly investigated in the USA, although whether researchers have done
for the USA what I have done in respect of Britain, I'm unable to say. I
imagine that the situation in the USA was similar to that in Britain, and
that it went beyond the clash of uncritical pro-Soviet and totally
rejectionist anti-Soviet viewpoints.

I researched and wrote my book, of course, many decades after the event and
in the light of subsequent knowledge, and it was thus much easier to
ascertain what were worthwhile reports and assessments and which were
tendentious or wishful thinking, and to discover that the usual perception
of the 1930s debate as a mere clash of anti-Soviet and pro-Soviet views is
inaccurate. Although it was not impossible at the time to ascertain to a
fair degree what was happening in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and to
ascertain the complexity of the impact of the Soviet experience in Britain,
it needed quite a bit of discretion, a lot of studying of the material, and
the putting aside of preconceptions. That might be a good idea today when
considering events in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Anyone interested in my book can order it via here 
http://www.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10products_id=50 .

Paul F

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