Re: [Marxism] The right to bear arms

[sobuadhaigh]

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Louis wrote (in response top my query on the Marxist
position on the right to bear arms):

>I doubt that the success of a future socialist 
>revolution in the USA rests on the right of a 
>worker to own a hunting rifle. My guess is that 
>revolutionary soldiers and sailors will make the 
>difference just as they did in 1917. There is a 
>serious problem with out-of-control automatic 
>weapons and we have to take cognizance of this 
>even if we stick to our hoary traditions.

This raises several interesting issues 
If I understand Louis right, the tradition 
among American Marxists groups is to 
support the right of workers and 
oppressed nationalities to arm themselves. 
This would be in sharp contradistinction to 
the predominate view among urban liberals 
and Democratic politicians that favor much 
stricter gun laws and the outlawing of 
certain categories of firearms - pistols 
and semi-automatic military style rifles. 
If the problem with the legal ownership 
of these weapons is "out of control," does 
it follow that on this issue the liberal 
wing of the Democratic Party be supported and 
organizing work done with, or in, the various 
groups that want to outlaw pistols and those
semi-auto assault rifles? As Lou puts it 
there is a "hoary tradition" in favor of 
private ownership of firearms 
that is contradicted by present 
realities. 

Here is a fairly current reality that 
I have been studying lately. It involves 
investigative reporting from both the Times-
Picayune and most recently the New York 
Times of what really happened in New Orleans 
when the levees broke. I encourage comrades 
here to read:

"Rumor to Fact in Tales of Post-Katrina Violence"
August 26, 2010.

Contrary to all the early media reports of a  
city terrorized by rampaging black gangs, 
what has emerged now is a story of
"...white vigilante violence, police killings, 
official cover-ups and a suffering population 
far more brutalized than many were willing 
to believe." The Times quoted one member
of it characterized as  "White Militia" 
saying that his group patrolled a 
neighborhood and anything "darker than a 
paper bag" got shot. In that case, the 
right of oppressed people to own guns 
had nothing to do with the revolutionary 
upsurge that seizes state power.

The racial ideology and murderous fantsies
of the patriot/militia movement are well 
known. Since the election of Obama their open 
display of weapons at rallies is meant to 
bully, intimidate and frighten and it 
has worked. It has emboldened them,
and recruited many more members to their 
ranks. Their strident demagoguery
and open allusions to armed resistance
plays to their base where weaponry is 
not a metaphor for future struggle. 
They have, in large and growing 
numers, already picked up the gun.

Is the best response to this problem 
of psychopaths who murder to 
support the reprehensible party of 
"big capital" and murderous imperialism
in stripping the right to own weapons?
Were, by some miracle, new federal gun 
control legislation to emerge 
down the road, can you imagine what 
it would look like? I am sure it would 
resemble the health care "compromise" 
which in this case would leave corporate 
mercenaries and every member of an NRA 
gun "club" or right wing paramilitary 
association in full possession of 
their arsenal. 

Perhaps, comrades, the traditional
Marxist position on the right to bear
arms is not so "hoary" after all.
 



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Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Arizona

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Louis wrote:

>Let's be clear about something. This shooting is being 
>used to promote the kind of "civility" that the Obama 
>administration seeks, one in which the differences between 
>the Republicans and Democrats would be papered over in the 
>"national interest". It is just a variant on the "scary Tea 
>Party" rhetoric that is used to stampede people into voting 
>for Democrats.

I understand the position of Louis and others here 
on the dread influence of the DP on progressives and 
even leftists in the United States. In their laudable 
desire to see a truly left electoral alternative, I am 
afraid many comrades continue to down play the qualitative 
change in right wing politics and the emergance of an 
armed "New Constitutionalist" movement energized by 
blatant racism and anti-socialist phobia. Could it be 
that all the anguished reflection playing out in the 
media now is a reflection of a genuine fear that the 
deepening political polarization will lead to politically 
motoivated violence?  Will some use that as an argument 
to convince people to vote for Obama again? Of course 
they will but that does not change the fundamental 
shifts in American society caused by economic decline 
and the potential for future conflict regardless of 
Looghner's mental condition.

Nothing has emerged showing this kid was in any way 
connected to the Tea Party or Patriot movement. 
Had that been the case it would have followed that

A - There would have been a lot less
public meetings by Democratic members of 
Congress

and

B. - some of the people still attending those
public events would have started showing up
carrying weapons themselves, as the right wingers 
have since Obama was elected. 

In can also be safely assumed that the full weight 
of law enforcement would not have descended on the
baggers who are too well connceted at every level 
of government.

The immediate assumption that a Democratic member
of Congress was taken out by a right wing militant
is the logical conclusion to decades of armed assaults
on abortion providers, a national network of militia 
groups, racist mobs screaming and spitting on black 
members of congress, the vandalism of congressional 
offices,death threats because of the health care bill, 
etc., etc.

It isn't the Tea Party that is scary. What is 
frightening what will happen in this country, and 
the world, in an era of capitalist decay and self 
destruction. There is more than a bourgeoisie shell 
game going on here as bourgeoisie consensus starts to 
crumble. I believe it was this recognition that lead 
Matt Bai in the NY Times Times to lament over 
"...the rhetorical recklessness that 
permeates our political moment. The question is 
whether Saturday’s shooting marks the logical end 
point of such a moment — or rather the beginning of 
a terrifying new one."

Marxists should not be frightened, or blinded, or 
in denial because they should have to ability to 
see both the cause of the crises and to offer 
some substantive alternatives. Whether they do 
or not is another matter.








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Re: [Marxism] Arizona congresswoman assassinated

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Jay wrote:

"The assassin seems to be a Tea-Party lunatic type."

I don't now what this guys connection to right
wing politics is but I have noted You tube is 
lousy with not so veiled threats. For example


Tribute to the Patriot Weapon of Choice

has a soft rock soundtrack with images 
of the latest tricked out Armalites. 
Here are some of the lyrics:

“Who stood before me was my enemy
He’s come to take my liberties
I’d rather die than be a slave to thee
Don’t treat me this way
I’d rather die than be your slave
I will survive can you feel my rage
It’s not a question of being brave
It didn’t matter who shot first that day…
We hit them hard we made them pay that day
We hung the traitors from the highest tree
No mercy from me…this is the price we pay for 
Liberty.”

The use of the term traitor is common these
videos and I wrote to couple of the creators
and asked them just who were the traitors.
Several of them responded with the names
of prominent Democrats - Nancy Pelosi and Harry
Reid were the most often mentioned. For anyone
who cares to wade through the "Turner Diaries,"
the right wing revolt sparked by the bombing 
of a Federal Building is marked by the public
hanging of liberal legislators.

This isn't the Weimar Republic, but this
is a country in economic decline with an
increasingly hostile polarization of politics.
Among the legions of wack job tea baggers, 
there are some moving beyond simply "howling 
at the moon."

They are, of course, not the only ones
with their weapons of choice.



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[Marxism] Brzezenski quoting Stalin

[sobuadhaigh]

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I noted with interest that Zbigniew Brzezenski, former
National Security Adviser to Carter, is cautioning the 
Chinese via the NY Times op-ed page today, with a 
salutary quote form Stalin 
. 
The Times thoughtfully embedded the link to the original 
document, "Dizzy With Success:Concerning Questions of 
the Collective-Farm Movement"


One wonders if any surviving Neocons will strike 
back with a passage from Trotsky, or perhaps even 
Ted Grant. Someone should caution the Times
that archaic historical references really belong 
in a different forum.



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[Marxism] Another year

[sobuadhaigh]

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A Red Salute to all here, and to all those 
in revolutionary struggle living on the 
knife edge of hope and fear. 

"réabhlóid intinne agus réabhlóid anama, réabhlóid 
i gcúrsaí maoine, seilbhe agus maireachtála" 



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Re: [Marxism] Obama caves and the CP follows

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Mark wrote:

>All of this goes to argue that simple models 
>of "Stalinism" just don't work in the American 
>setting

Which means that Stalinism is as equally ineffectual 
as Trotskyism, syndicalism, Maoism, and the Greeen 
party? Perhaps it is even more ineffectual although I
don't think that the few remaining Stalinists in the
CP would accept that characterization of the party. 

>They are to the right of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy 
>because they envy whatchannels to power they think 
>the AFL-CIO bureaucracy has had.

Gus Hall certainly bragged of is connection to
Walter Mondale although he got nothing for it. 
The desperate pleading of Hall in corresspondance 
to Moscow asking for more money to help elect 
Mondale as president is both bizarre and pathetic.
The CP has ssuccessfuly cultivated official 
connections to AFL-CIO councils in New York and 
Michigan and all of this in service to their 
slogan "real politics for real people."

I would argue that the CP's embrace of the 
Democratic Party has as much to do with their
own abject failure to obtain any electoral base
as anything that came out of the Comintern. 
My analysis of the Michigan vote for the CP in 
the 1930's shows that they were receiving almost 
exactly the same number of votes (in presidential 
elections) as their claimed membership. Party 
publications beginning in the mid twenties wrestled 
with the inability of the party to achieve any
of the success that the far less well organized SP 
had accomplished earlier. Combine this with the 
vicious repression beginning in the 1940's and
the attempt to align with liberalism can be seen as
a survival mechanism.

In the aftermath of "Obama raids" on the FRSO
and others in the Midwest, I noted that the CP
delayed its response by almost a month. When 
they did publish something they cautiously 
criticized the action while noting the feds 
have a duty to guard the public against terrorism.
The CP has indeed survived but sometimes I wonder 
just what they have survived as.



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Re: [Marxism] How important is Wikileaks

[sobuadhaigh]

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With the latest ruling class hysteria that some of
the material from Wikileaks is directly benefiting
Al Qaeda, one wonders wether Assange is now marked 
to dissapear into a secret prison somewhere. The 
larger issues that this case brings up was put very 
well on another discussion site: 

The class dictatorship character of the bourgeois 
democratic state stands revealed before the world 
in a way that is new and huge. The resort to naked 
censorship, intimidation and calls for the extra-judicial 
execution of Assange are stark. So too is the contradiction 
between the promise of the internet as an electronic 
commons and the reality of corporate power (as reflected 
in the actions of Amazon and PayPal). 

For whatever the "common knowledge" about the sordid 
nature of US diplomacy, the revelation of this "fault 
line "within the digital world itself is important
and will have an effect way beyond the boundaries
of online socialists. As to effectively using
some of this material for agitation, I just received 
this today from the Campaign against the Israeli Occupation:

WikiLeaks Exposes U.S. Militarization of Middle East
The cables released so far by WikiLeaks shed light on 
behind-the-scenes struggles between Israel's quest for 
complete military dominance in the Middle East versus 
the U.S. desire to saturate the entire region with a 
flood of high-tech weapons. Read more about these 
revelations here:

WikiLeaks: Israel's Security Concerns Often Clash With 
U.S. Interests, by Josh Ruebner, our National Advocacy 
Director

WikiLeaks: War, Diplomacy & Ban ki-Moon's Toothbrush, 
by Phyllis Bennis, a member of our steering committee

Top 10 Wikileaks Palestine Nuggets, by Yousef Munayyer of 
the Jerusalem Fund, one of our member organizations

WikiLeaks has done a great service, exposing in detail 
how U.S. diplomacy is geared toward flooding the Middle 
East with weapons, fueling a never-ending arms race, 
abetting Israel's crimes against innocent Palestinian 
and Lebanese civilians, maintaining U.S. wars 
that have cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
 

 



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Re: [Marxism] The Maccabees were the predecessors of the IDF

[sobuadhaigh]

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I have always thought that the Maccabees were the predecessors of 
the Taliban as well.



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Re: [Marxism] Near North Korea

[sobuadhaigh]

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Tom wrote (about Paul's weird email concerning 
Marxmail/China/North Korea/Russia/CIA moles):

>Based on running this guy's email on Google, 
>it turns out he is a foreign
>business person living in China who is 
>principal of the entity linked below.
>Whether he has any good faith belief in 
>marxism is another matter.

Very interesting. There has been rampant speculation
about the PRC preparing to abandon the DPRK in support 
of a unified Korea under Seoul's control in which Chinese
companies would get mining concessions in the North.
Perhaps Paul has some information indicating a 
PRC/Russian alliance supposedly in favor of military 
defense of the North instead. Then again, perhaps 
he just spends to much time online. 
much time online. 



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Re: [Marxism] Atacks on Wikileaks

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Mark wrote:
>
>I seriously like the idea of a counteroffensive over 
this issue.

Rare indeed is the day I agree with Comrade Lause but 
he is absolutely right. The gathering storm around
Assange and the increasing attacks on Wikileaks as 
"terrorists" or terrorist supporters deserves more than 
quiet sympathy. It would seem some mobilizing would be 
in order as well as other sites/organizations willing to 
continue posting these materials if Wikileaks is 
silenced. Exposing the heavy hand of US imperial 
policy is more than just announcing what everybody
supposedly already knows. Defending those under attack 
for political crimes should be a high priority and the best 
defense would be a good "counteroffensive" right now.



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Re: [Marxism] Near North Korea

[sobuadhaigh]

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Paul wrote:

>The report is here filed, for on this list there 
>is a mixture of CIA moles, true Trots and juveniles. 

Does this mean that Marxmail is so influential that 
it has attracted the attention of FBI agents but also 
CIA moles? As to the "true Trots", I am afraid the last
one of those died tragically near Mexico City some 
time ago. You should also check the age demographics 
of this list before accusing anyone of being underage.



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Re: [Marxism] Who cares about elections

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Mark wrote:

>The argument I made was that it is the dynamic of struggle 
>that affects the consciousness of large numbers of people...
>and that we need is to struggle alongside people who challenge 
>the imperatives of capitalism and not be picky about the level 
>of that struggle or whether it uses the proper terminology 
>of socialism...

This is consistent with your previous arguments about
rejecting "overt Marxism" which I take to mean the lame, 
symbolic campaigns of the SWP, WWP, SP etc. I am also aware
of your concern for weakening/destroying the two party
system. As far as the "dynamic of struggle that affects the
consciousness of large numbers of people" where is that 
taking place now? Is there any connection between
any of the liberal alternatives to the DP and 
these struggles? If it where I could see a more 
pervasive argument for Marxist participation
in reform capitalist alternatives to the Democratic 
party.





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[Marxism] The system that protects capitalism

[sobuadhaigh]

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For those of you who did not see Rand Paul's 
victory speech you missed the generic tea bagger 
rhetoric combined with the ideal of America as
"the system that protects capitalism."

The anguished liberals on MSNBC are speculating
that if Paul is true to his crazed principles then 
it is within his power to filibuster raising the 
federal debt ceiling triggering the default of the 
US debt and an international financial meltdown.
Whether this ideological doomsday scenario unfolds
sooner (rather than later) the ranks of the 
overt racist, birther, vile cretins in power
is growing by the hour. 



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Re: [Marxism] Who cares about elections

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Mark wrote:

>The SLP has been overtly socialist and insistent on the primary 
>importance of differentiating itself from the rest of the left 
>by its explicit and overt insistence on overt Marxism and all 
>that that entails. As of this year, the SLP has been pursuing 
>this course vigorously since its reorganization along these lines
>...a mere 120 years ago.

>The results of these efforts, we see around us today.

Are you saying that somehow that  Daniel DeLeon and
"DeLeonism" is the casue of the patethetic state 
of the American revolutionary left? I believe you
categorized the collective weight of that movement
as roughly equivalent to "warm spit" but do not 
understand how one thing has lead, or caused, the 
other.

Please show us.



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Re: [Marxism] David Rovics gig in Christchurch

[sobuadhaigh]

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Comrade,
Thank you for posting the report on Palestinian solidarity work. May
 I ask about your reference to  "anti-terrorism raids two years 
ago?"
 Now that the US is experiencing a wave of raids by the FBI against 
international solidarity activists I would like to know more about 
what happened in NZ.

I also noted on the web page of the Workers Party a reference to the
Facebook action suspending the PFLP supporter group. This occurred 
in late June, the same time the Ricardo Palmera group was also axed.
 Given that Palmera is a member of the FARC in Columbia it struck 
me that
Facebook suddenly, and inexplicably, shuts down these two groups and
then three months later supporters of the PFLP and the FARC are 
being 
targeted by the FBI for prosecution.

An amazing coincidence. Imagine the odds of Facebook management 
being filled with neo-liberal remorse about those groups just as 
the 
operational planning was being done to conduct simultaneous raids 
in four states designed to criminalize political speech.

simply amazing.



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[Marxism] FBI- Corruption and Oppression

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FBI harassment of anti-war and international solidarity activists 
continues
 in Minneapolis and as the feds seek to criminalize political 
speech in the
 guise of fighting "terrorism." The best summation and analysis I 
have read 
so far has ben this article posted on the "Desert Peace" blog site.



The heart of the article discusses the widening net that federal 
law enforcement 
agencies has spread over the American people since 9-11 and the 
corrupt way 
the FBI in particular operates. I have pasted an excerpt below and 
comrades can
read the entire article at the above website.

Just days before the raids of activists in the Midwest and North 
Carolina, 
the Department of Justice released a report finding that between 
2001 and 
2006, the FBI kept tabs on activists affiliated with Greenpeace, 
People for the 
Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), Catholic Workers and Quakers. 
According 
to the report, the agency improperly placed these individuals on 
terrorist watch 
lists, and gave inaccurate and misleading information to Congress 
and the public 
about its activities. “The Bureau’s standard for undercover 
activities is known 
neither by the public nor Congress,” Buttar wrote in an op-ed in 
Truthout earlier 
this year. “Intelligence agencies may justifiably pursue 
clandestine activities, but 
should not operate according to secret rules – at least not in 
countries that claim 
to lead the free world.”

The FBI disclosed part of its policy following a Freedom of 
Information Act request
 made by Buttar, but the section on undercover infiltration has 
remained secret.
A two-year Washington Post investigation, “Top Secret America,” 
detailed the extent 
of domestic spying and found that the web it wove was so widespread 
it had become 
entirely unwieldy: “The top-secret world the government created in 
response to the 
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so 
unwieldy and so secretive 
that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it 
employs, how many 
programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same 
work.”
James R. Clapper, then undersecretary of defense for intelligence 
and now director 
of national intelligence, told the investigators in June 2010, 
“There’s only one entity 
in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs [Special 
Access Programs] –
 that’s God.”

Colleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and whistleblower, told Truthout 
it was
 “breathtaking to recognize the irony” of the raids on individuals 
involved in 
left-leaning, domestic, advocacy groups only days after the flurry 
of criticism 
against the agency’s mode of operation. Rowley, who left the FBI in 
2004 after 
24 years with the agency, said the blunders were part of a wider 
change in FBI 
rules and the ways it evaluates success. Quantitative rather than 
qualitative 
evaluation now means that individual agents are under increased 
pressure to 
meet targets, Rowley said, which is evidenced by recent reports of 
FBI cheating 
on internal tests. On September 27, 2010, an internal FBI 
investigation found 
widespread cheating on a test related to Bush-era guidelines on 
justification 
needed to target a domestic group. The investigators “found test-
taking conduct 
that constituted cheating and abuse, such as the use of answer 
sheets when taking 
the exam,” which Rowley considers further justification of the 
response: “Oh my gosh, 
how can they be continuing after this!”

The 2001 Patriot Act loosened restrictions on domestic information 
gathering 
by law enforcement agencies, but even these powers have been 
exploited by the
 FBI, notes Buttar – three separate reports in 2007, 2008 and 2010 
document abuse 
of the powers extended by President George W. Bush after the 
attacks on 9/11.
Both Buttar and Rowley said that the erosion of FBI constraints 
reached a new level 
in 2008 – the Mukasey Guidelines, meant to provide consolidated 
standards for 
agents to follow, effectively switched the presumption of one of 
proving guilt to 
proving innocence.
FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to the Senate Judiciary 
Committee that FBI agents 
could not exercise surveillance in the absence of “suspicion,” but 
later amended his 
statement in a note to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). In his note, 
according to The 
Associated Press, Mueller said that the FBI “must have a proper 
purpose before 
conducting surveillance, but suspicion of wrongdoing is not 
required.”









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Re: [Marxism] Rewritting the US Constitution

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Artesian wrote:

>I think we need to take a look at what is happening 
>now with the "suggestion" from the Republican Party 
>that the 14th amendment to the constitution be
>"reconsidered" [i.e. scrapped] in order to deny children 
>born in the US of immigrant parents their citizenship 
>Now if anybody know of a campaign to block the attacks on 
>the 14th amendment, that's a campaign I think we should 
>all be involved in. 

God I hate it when Artesian is all reasonable and logical.
You wind up feeling guilty for agreeing with him. He is 
absolutely right on the money with this one and there are 
both good reasons and a nightmare scenario that could come 
from this campaign by the Republicans. 

If you recall there was a considerable national movement 
about 20 years ago to have state legislatures call for a 
constitutional convention. The point was to require a 
balanced budget and there was some language in the state 
resolutions to the effect that this convention would only 
consider this one issue. Some federal judge somewhere ruled  
that if enough of the states were to call for such a 
convention, then its mandate could not be limited. There 
would be the possibility of a total re-write entrusted to 
whoever was sent by the states as delegates. The movement 
then petered out within 2 or 3 states of getting the required 
number.

The attempt to shred the 14th ammendment should be 
opposed, vigorously. When the Republicans fail at the federal
level and should they try the constitutional convention route, 
there we will be faced with a major dilema. Republican gains this 
Novemebr and the gerrymandering that will then ensue will boost 
Republican control at the state level. If the Republican party 
were to ever call for a new constitutional convention they just 
might have the strength to pull it off. It  might be immigration 
or it might be some other issue but if it comes, it will be bad.

Imagine the idiot state representatives that get elected 
in Republican controlled states descending on DC to do 
this re-write. One wonders if Glen beck could wrangle 
getting sent as a delegate or any of the other leading
lights of the Tea Party. Do radicals then try to fight 
it out by supporting liberal delegates? Do we proclaim 
at the onset that this is a farce controlled by GOP 
gerrymandering and fraud and proclaim that new document 
will be invalid?

Beyond speculating about the future, the most important 
point is to come up with a logical and effective strategy 
for relating to these issues. Are democratic rights in a 
bourgeoisie regime worth defending? Is the whole thing, the 
constitiution and ruling class representative democracy, a
racist sham that should be totally opposed? At what point 
does the political agitation from our side start agitating 
to the effect there are some things that are not acceptable 
and will trigger increasing levels of resistance should 
they start crossing these lines? 

Whether or not the GOP/Tea Party ever decides to try and 
shred the enire US constitution and craft their own plan 
of state power, these larger issues are still there.
As the US continues its political and economic decline
they will be with us in a number of guises.



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Re: [Marxism] A coup against Obama

[sobuadhaigh]

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Dan wrote:

>Such flimsy notions as "seperation of Church and State", 
>"trial by jury", "innocent until proven guilty", "right 
>to free speech", "right of assembly", "right to peaceful protest", 
"right >to join a union", "right to freely choose one's creed or 
philosophical >opinion", which exist in all advanced industrialized 
nations, are to be >preserved and extended to encompass "right to a 
decent standard of >living" and "right to a meaningful say over the 
production and distribution relationships".

The subject of the relationship between to struggle to 
support and extend democratic reforms and the "maximum program"
of revolutionary movements has always been of great interest 
to me. It would be much easier to adopt the DeLeonist approach 
of the single demand, "unconditional surrender of the capitalist 
class" and then never worry about the effects of compromise 
or the taint of reformism. On the other hand, the tiny size of the
revolutionary movement in this country combined with the rapidly 
building social stresses from economic decline means a great deal 
of flexibility will be crucial to the revival of a mass socialist 
movement.

>BTW, such a thing as a coup against Obama could never happen in 
the US
now, could it ?

Of course not. The idea is totally ridiculous. That would entail 
a country in crisis both politically and economically in the 
process of extreme political polarization. You would have to see 
some sizable numbers of extreme right wing fanatics, with leaders 
of national standing, convinced that Obama was not only the most 
radical president in American history and that he was personally 
committed to destroying both capitalism and Christianity. These 
nut jobs would then have to make sizable inroads into elements 
of the military and police with agitation and then pledges from 
cops 
and soldiers not to obey the orders of the president in a crises. 
On top of all that, this same proto-fascist movement would have to 
find support from a major political party as well as stockpile 
a sizable number of weapons and begin training paramilitary 
units. No offense to anyone on this list, but this is not 
Argentina. 
This is (North) America and I simply can not envision troops 
on the streets after a contested election or in the event of a 
national security crises compounded by a botched administration 
response.



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Re: [Marxism] Connolly, revolution and nationalism

[sobuadhaigh]

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>The point was that Connolly never separated
>Ireland's right to self-government from the
>class struggleHe was convinced
>that it could only be established
>through class conscious workers
>taking power.
 
Comrade Artesian is absolutely right as to the
core of Connolly's belief. The brutal historical
reality however is that the crushing of the Easter
rising did more than just silence James Connolly
by way of the firing squad. The Irish Citizen Army that
he created and lead, the organization that Lenin
described as Europe's first red army, was also
destroyed. The ICA would linger on for a while
but its political and military influence in
the Irish freedom struggle died in the Rising.

With the absence of this heroic red current, petty
bourgeoisie nationalism would naturally come to
dominate the war as it entered a new phase of
protracted conflict with the crown.
What does this mean in practical terms then
and now? Was the Irish freedom struggle over?
Do class conscious workers and intellectuals now
denounce those engaged in that struggle? Has the
legacy of Connolly completely vanished because the
movement for a united Ireland does not have
communist leadership?

The history of Eire is full of contradiction
and complexity as it the history of every
other site of working class struggle. Before they
were shoot, the leaders of the rising all made
their peace with the Catholic church, save one
and it was not Connolly. The man who died
free from God as well  as the strangling
embrace of the empire was Tom Clarke of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood. I do not think
less of any of those Irish heroes because they
did not conform to a perfect ideal of
revolution.



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Re: [Marxism] A Coup against Obama.

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>Would we come out under the banner of "Return Obama to Office" 
>"Defend Obama's Right to the Presidency"?  Or would we come 
>out under our own banner, with opposition to the coup and 
opposition 
>to the conditions that created the coup

Comrade Artesian raises a most interesting question. 
Of course in Yeltsin maneuvers to take power in Russia 
he most certainly faced this problem of whether to 
support Gorbachev during the Kremlin coup. He did support 
Gorbachev and raised the principal demand of restoring 
him to the premiership of the Soviet Union. 
Of course when that was done Yeltsin quickly seized 
power for himself, and then destroyed the Soviet Union. 
>From a simple tactical perspective it might well 
be necessary to provide temporary support for someone 
that you woulkd later replace through the power of an 
independent mobilization.

As a practical matter, the nightmarish scenario of a coup 
against a Democratic Party president would no doubt involve 
a right wing mobilization looking for socialist traitors.
In those circunstances the lives of real socialists & 
communists would be at risk and what slogan to put on a 
banner would be the least of our worries.

Artesian once scolded me for saying the American people 
would not tolerate a seizure of power that surpressed
the Constitution. He was right, of course in that it is 
inaccurate to speak of an undofferentiated "people" 
in such a eventuality. In the aftermath of such a coup, 
some people would enthusiastically support such a move 
and have majority support in some regions of the country. 
Besides those cheering "taking America back" some would 
simply go along in frightened silence while others would 
resist by any means necessary including the force of arms.





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Re: [Marxism] Hedges on the Oct. 2nd rally

[sobuadhaigh]

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>The rising proto-fascist movement in America is caused by 
>a hatred and alienation so profound that the crimes of the 
>state, along with the buffoonish antics of those who defend 
>and champion these crimes, do not matter. We will not 
>discredit the right-wing with facts, a demand for a respect 
>of law or rational discussion. Propaganda or counter messages 
>of tolerance are not the issue. The issue is societal collapse. 
>This issue is a corporate state that has carried out a coup 
>d'etat. The issue is the rupture of all mechanisms within 
>the political process to protect citizens from accelerating 
>impoverishment, internal control and corporate abuse. Those 
>who refuse to acknowledge this bleak reality cannot offer 
>solutions.

I think Hedges is absolutely right on this point. The debate 
here on the Tea baggers has revolved around whether this is 
a proto-fascist movement or is it just the Republican party 
pretending to be extreme as a run up to an election. In 
Mark's characterization there is always an element in American 
politics "baying at the moon" and now it is this group. 
I suppose the thrust of this argument is primarily to 
counter the coming emotive appeals to support the Democratic 
party as liberals confront the possibility of huge losses
in November. In that light then, the baggers are 
no big deal and this is all just political theater.

Dealing with said tea party assholes up close early on 
has lead me support Artesian's analysis that there is 
something new in the air and it is indeed ominous. The 
difference now is that there is a crisis in, and steep 
decline of, the American economy. Is this really just 
the same old political kabukai theater of the past? 
These questions are making me want to review Hartz's 
"Lockean consensus" theory of American politics and reflect 
on the ways this model has irrevocably broken down. It's 
too bad Obama isn't a socialist in that he would be better 
able to look beyond this construct as economically driven 
social pressures destroy any notion of a common 
political culture. 

The problem is that the other side has un-limited cash, 
a social base, political traction and they are armed. 
When I get tired of name calling here I usually spend a 
little time on You Tube pursuing searches on subjects 
like "patriot weapon of choice." Some of the more striking 
videos have soft rock sound tracks with lyrics calling for 
"hanging traitors from the nearest tree" while the 
assault rifles blaze away in the background. Between 
heavily armed baggers and FBI raids on the homes of 
those peacefully supporting international solidarity, 
and I would say that things are moving beyond mere
howling at the moon. 

 



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[Marxism] Political police/political resistance

[sobuadhaigh]

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Comrades,

Work and other issues forced a brief hiatus from my 
participation on Marxmail, but the events of late have 
brought me back. The assault by the Feds on the FRSO 
organization is a blatant act of political oppression
courtesy of Eric Holder and the man that appointed him.
Perhaps the beleaguered Obama White House can now 
respond to the baying dogs of the GOP that the president 
couldn't be a communist because look at all the communists 
he is trying to put in prison.

I believe it was two years ago that an African-American 
veteran was convicted of sending emails to an Islamacist 
organization in London while he was on active duty and 
is not serving a 10 year sentence. Holders recent moves 
to broaden the definition to what constitutes "aid" to 
terrorism is now obviously meant to criminalize political 
speech. The lying hypocrisy of these assholes astounds 
even the most jaded.

As the intense discussion here now over whether left 
wing communism really is an infantile disorder winds 
down, I encourage comrades to lend a hand in the fight
to confront America's own Stasi, the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation. Hell, I will even surppress my distaste 
for Marceyites in general and join them if need be
to raise a ruckus about this.

There is a demonstration in Chicago on October 16th 
and I am sure there will be plenty of gatherings at 
local Federal buildings around the country. 

Tom Burke, a militant of the FRSO was one of those 
targeted and his talk to a meeting in Detroit has 
all the details of the case. There are six parts 
and i will list links to the first three:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w37pjUBzCWM&feature=related, 
pt. 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5vc7c7TFwg&feature=related
pt. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9Lj7djJPc&playnext_from=QL&feature=
bf_play&playnext=1
pt. 3

See you in the streets. 







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Re: [Marxism] Intrepid seeker & the "smoking gun"

[sobuadhaigh]

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 Artesian wrote:

 >" ... like all that stuff
 >"proving"... Tukhachevsky planned a military coup with the 
 >aid of German paratroopers 

 To which Grover responded:

 >Yes, that stuff and a lot of other stuff (not paratroopers, 
 >though not that I've seen). It's not a question of "belief" 
 >or "disbelief". It's a question of evidence.

Are you saying that you have the evidence proving
comrade Tukhachevsky was a traitor? This I would like
to see and since this is in the realm of the verboten 
here, please send me the references off list. I am aware 
of  the allegations and the activity of German Intelligence 
via the Czechs but nothing I have seen is credible. 
Marshall Zhukov was not alone in the highest ranks of 
the RKKA (and then the Soviet Army)in believing that 
Tukhachevsky was, always, a loyal soldier of the Soviet Union 
whose skill was sorely missed in confronting the Wehrmacht.

As to a critical re-evaluation of this crucial era, 
there is certainly nothing wrong with that. The Cold War 
construction of "totalitarianism" is a lie told for political 
purposes and I believe scholars such as Robert Thurston
(Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941) are doing a 
very credible job of unraveling this myth. Now if someone 
would inform the tea baggers that our center-right 
president can't be both a communist and a Nazi.



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[Marxism] Unsubbing the moderator

[sobuadhaigh]

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Louis wrote:

>With my deteriorating eyesight and a general sense 
>of a limited time on earth to do all the things I want 
>to do, I sometimes think it would be a good idea to 
>move Marxmail to Yahoo, unsub myself and to let loose 
>the hounds of stupidity.

Work has gotten in the way of mmy participating on 
Marxmail of late, but I have followed the discussions 
as much as possible. While I agree the recent digressions 
on "the party" were a meandering waste of bandwidth, it
would be a great loss if Marxmail were to sink into 
the swamp of Yahoo groups. There is great merit 
for this list as a source of information and (on ocassion) 
as a forum for reasoned and intelligent discussion. 
Given the lack of a credible revolutionary party it 
is essential for comrades to have ways to correspond, 
argue, and learn from each other. I find Marxmail to be 
exasperating at times but it has always been useful. 
May it continue and let one hundred schools of thought 
contend.

Stiofan



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Re: [Marxism] Union and party

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>Russian Revolution?  German Revolution?  Spanish Civil War?  Cuban 
>Revolution?  etc.etc.  Can we even find a revolution that "just 
>came" rather than was built, organized?  

As is said in Gaeilge

"Ní úll í An Réabhlóid a thiteann agus sé aibí. Caithfidh tú 
tabhairt uirthi a thitim."

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. It must 
be picked. (The more literal translation of the second part is "you 
have to make it fall.")



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Re: [Marxism] Facebook

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote:
>These things are tools not "communities."
>The same's true of this email list.

I think of 'this' as the International Marxmail Tendency 
(IMMT) well deserving of its own logo and t-shirt.



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Re: [Marxism] Howard Zinn: The Historian who made history

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark, and then Shawn, wrote:

>In substance, my recollection is that Zinn backed Nader 
>in 2000 but Obama in 2008. He may have supported Kerry 
>in 2004.


>He (and Chomsky) supported the 'Safe State' strategy of 
>David Cobb, as I recall, which amounted to an endorsement 
>of Kerry without affirmatively saying so.
>That sure felt like a kick in the groin.

When this thread started out, it seemed like the title 
was a bit of a stretch, but the more I think about it,
the more it seems absolutely right.  Zinn’s enormous 
reputation gave him a political leadership potential 
that was unique among the left wing professor set. Mark 
writes that ‘A People’s History’ inspired him to enter the 
history profession. I’m sure that Shawn wasn't the only one 
that that felt that swift kick from some of the political 
choices Zinn made.  Perhaps one of the reasons that
Zinn is difficult to categorize is that the devotion his work 
inspired causes different people to want to construct him in 
the shape of their own beliefs.

The issues raised here of anarchism, Marxism, and 
populism, will continue to be discussed and there is 
always the occasional rabid response to look forward to. 
Zinn’s work and life will certainly continues to be a focus 
of study and debate for some time. He was definitely the 
historian who made history.



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Re: [Marxism] Zinn on Anarchism

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote,
>Of course, some people who call themselves "anarchist" 
>also call themselves"Marxist."

Yes they do and I call them confused. How about you? 
As far as actual practice goes these are fairly discrete 
categories in the world of real politics. Was Zinn confused 
in that he claimed to be simultaneously part of both of 
these movements?

>Second, what is a "populist" who's not voting for a third 
party (like >the Populists)?

You meant to say “the Populist Party” but you were so 
anxious to get to the nasty personal stuff you obviously 
forgot. Perhaps in your haste you simply drew a blank on 
the very well known history of left wing populism and its 
influence on radical politics in this country. It is a very 
well known quantity with both tremendous appeal and profound 
limitations. I often loose patience for those who invoke only 
the more well known racist/national chauvinist manifestations 
of populism but of course it is a much more complex movement 
than that (as I am sure you are well aware). I don;t understand 
why you feel that populists are merely those who voted for the 
Populist Party. This like saying that a person isn’t a Marxist 
unless they voted for Larry Holmes. Feel free to discuss this 
fascinating topic with me off line any time you wish.

>And, if you want to be consistent and accept what Zinn 
>calls himself, you'd say he's an "anarchist," but he doesn't 
>call himself a "populist." So, once more, you manage to switch 
>yardsticks before your done with the sentence.

Actually comrade it is you who rushed passed the subject 
(I) and the predicate (don’t know) in my quandary as just 
what Howard Zinn actually was in the way of ideology. 
He self identified as an anarchist but then again through 
all five volumes of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, 
the Great Helmsman identified as a Marxist. Was he, or was 
the Chairman an agrarian reformer, or an unreconstructed 
Stalinist, or a Machiavellian  (as someone here recently 
suggested)? Any number of people self identify as Marxists 
but is that the only criteria for realistically assessing 
them and, in the case of Howard Zinn, his impact on the era 
in which he lived? How about actually testing that self 
identification alongside what they wrote, said, and did 
and then try to determine the mix of ideas and influences 
that informed this body of work. I am quite sure that you 
remember all those sessions in grad school with people 
talking about how cool intellectual history is but that 
it’s impossible to get a job with that specialization. 

>. . . . Personally, babbling about labels while ignoring 
>the substance strikes me as fueling the illusion that 
>we're talking about something real.

I knew we would get to the nasty stuff. ‘Babbaling?’ 
‘illusions?’  Any time you feel like telling me why you 
feel the obvious compulsion for such vitriol aimed at 
me and I would be most interested to hear. Please make 
it offlist again though because, really, there is such a 
thing as wasting those electrons you expressed anxiety 
about earlier.

>If so, it would have still put him one decision to the 
left of the >CPUSA.

You are unfortunately suffering under an illusion that I 
give a rabid raccoon’s ass if Howard Zinn, or anyone else, 
is to the left, the right, or in perfect synchronicity 
with the CPUSA. The stylistic problem with rushing to be 
nasty is that it oft sounds like babbling. 

In solidarity,
 Stiofan



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[Marxism] Murdered by the Indian State

[sobuadhaigh]

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The Revolution in South Asia site is reporting the death of 
Swapan Dasgupta, at the hands of the Indian government 
on 2 February.

The online archive of the English edition of the People's 
March can be found at the Banned Thought website.

http://www.bannedthought.net/india/PeoplesMarch/index.htm

 Red Salute to a fallen comrade


Swapan Dasgupta(19 April 1949—2 February 2010)

Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of Bangla People’s March, published 
from Kolkata, died in jail custody as the first political prisoner 
to die as a UAPA/Unlawful Activities Prevention(Amended) Act of 
2008 prisoner.

He breathed his last on 2 February 2010 in the ITU, Mackenjee 
ward of SSKM hospital, Kolkata as a result of physical and 
mental torture in the police lock-up since his arrest on 6 
October 2009 and utter negligence on the part of the government 
to give him proper medical treatment both inside Presidency 
Jail, Kolkata as also in the SSKM hospital.

Many people and democratic forums described his death as 
murder and sections of urban literati have raised the demand 
for enquiry about the circumstances leading to his death. 
Swapan Dasgupta was the editor of Bangla Peoples’ March 
since its inception in August 2004 and carried on his task 
to the best of his ability with courage, dedication and 
sincerity. Even when the English People’s March was banned 
by the government, he continued to publish the journal 
disseminating revolutionary ideas and news about revolutionary 
struggles in different parts of the country and also beyond, 
braving all odds. Intimidation from the state could hardly 
make any impact on his mind.

Swapan Dasgupta’s case is a case of deliberate brutal 
state-sponsored murder in custody. The following information 
about his life and his days under detention has been collected 
from the members of his family as also his friends who stood 
by his side till he finally closed his eyes at the age of 61 
and was cremated at Keoratala crematorium.

Swapan Dasgupta was born on 19 April 1949 at Timarpur in Delhi 
in a middle-class family. His father was Sisir Kumar Dasgupta 
and mother was Manika Dasgupta. His father was central government 
employee and connected with swadeshi activities and the Anushilan 
Samiti –the revolutionary organization in British India. Swapan 
Dasgupta had three brothers and two sisters, of whom he was the 
middle brother. At the time of his death, he had one younger 
brother and disabled sister, who was totally dependent on him. 
Swapan Dasgupta did not marry.

Swapan Dasgupta studied at the Bengali Boys’ Higher Secondary 
School in Delhi till Class VIII. After that he came to Kolkata 
and settled at Jadavpur Garfa in south Kolkata. There he got 
enrolled in Dhirendra Nath Memorial High School and passed his 
Higher Secondary from in 1967. For getting jobs, he learnt typing, 
shorthand(stenography) and sat for examination. In 1972, he got 
a job in central excise and worked as the PA to the Collector, 
Sambalpur Central Excise in Orissa.

In late 1974, he left his job to work underground as a 
political activist. He was offered reinstatement in the 
job if he agreed to disown his ideology. Remaining true 
to his commitment to the people’s cause, he disdainfully 
turned down that offer.  After his father’s death in 1980, 
he returned to Kolkata. In order to make both ends meet, 
he had to do a number of low-pay jobs such as doing type-
writing in High Court premises, working as steno-typists 
under court lawyers, doing stenography in a Bombay Dyeing 
branch office. As he was involved in office workers’ movements, 
he was dismissed from office by the employers in 1992. After 
that he worked as a stenographer under many advocates in 
the Kolkata High Court.

Political Career: He took part in the anti-price rise 
movement that engulfed large parts of Bengal in 1966 as 
also in the movement for the release of political prisoners. 
As a student, he first joined the CPI and then the CPI(M). 
When the ‘a peal of Spring Thunder crashed over’ Naxalbari 
in north Bengal, he developed close relationship with the 
revolutionary comrades associated with the martyr Ashu 
Mazumdar( A student in the Political Science department 
of Jadavpur University, Ashu Mazumdar was one of the many 
revolutionary youths influenced by Charu Mazumdar’s 
leadership, and was killed in cold blood by the Indian 
army in 1971 in south Kolkata).

Swapan Dasgupta also had links with the MCC, known as 
the Dakshin Desh group(Dakshin Desh was the mouthpiece 
of the MCC, which stood apart from the CPI(M-L) at that 
time and, after many decades, merged with the CPI(M-L) 
People’s War to form the CPI(Maoist)). When the CPI(M-L) 
was formed in 1969, Swapan Dasgupta joined it and got 
associated with youth s

Re: [Marxism] Howard Zinn and the myth of the "People's War"

[sobuadhaigh]

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(Louis wrote on his blog an appreciation for Zinn's 
chapter on WWII and the influence of Charles Beard)

A very interesting piece on the legacy of both Beard 
and Zinn. Perhaps Zinn can be most accurately defined 
as a Beardsian after all. I have always thought that 
while “A People’s History” is certainly both undeniably 
popular and unquestionably significant, it is still a 
work of radical populism tinged with anarchism. That
certianly derives from Zinn's own unique experiences 
beginning with his days as a syndicalist organizer 
in a shipyard in Brooklyn. There are a whole set of 
political problems that flow from this perspective 
but from the greater vantage point of popular history, 
who cares. I'll take left wing populism any day over
what is usually availible at the book store chains.

After reading interviews by Zinn on his war experience, 
I would disagree that it was Dresden and Hiroshima alone
that propelled him into pacifism. Zinn suffered from a 
traumatic personal experience because of a bombing raid 
he participated in at the very end of the war targeting a 
surrounded German garrison. He said it was a horrible 
exercise in barbarism involving the use of napalm.
It was for him a searing memory that would haunt him,
and be brought back again and again during the Vietnam 
war. 



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[Marxism] Why Nepal matters

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Here is the youtube version of the revolutionary
struggle in Nepal,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKnVyUJlqkk

and four reasons why it is important.

Eyes on the Maobadi: 4 Reasons Nepal’s Revolution Matters
By Mike Ely (originally posted by the Kasama Project)

Something remarkable is happening. A whole generation of people 
has never seen a radical, secular, revolutionary movement rise 
with popular support. And yet here it is – in Nepal today.

This movement has overthrown Nepal’s hated King Gyanendra and 
abolished the medieval monarchy. It has created a revolutionary 
army that now squares off with the old King’s army. It has built 
parallel political power in remote rural areas over a decade of 
guerrilla war – undermining feudal traditions like the caste 
system. It has gathered broad popular support and emerged as 
the leading force of an unprecedented Constituent Assembly (CA). 
And it has done all this under the radical banner of Maoist 
communism — advocating a fresh attempt at socialism and a 
classless society around the world.

People in Nepal call these revolutionaries the Maobadi.

Another remarkable thing is the silence surrounding all this. 
There has been very little reporting about the intense moments 
now unfolding in Nepal, or about the Communist Party of Nepal 
(Maoist) that stand at their center. Meanwhile, the nearby 
Tibetan uprisings against abuses by China’s government got 
non-stop coverage.

There are obvious reasons for this silence. The Western media 
isn’t thrilled when people in one of the world’s poorest 
countries throw their support behind one of the world’s most 
radical movements.

But clearly many alternative news sources don’t quite know 
what to make of the Nepali revolution. The Maobadi’s mix of 
communist goals and non-dogmatic methods disturb a lot of 
leftist assumptions too. When the CPN(Maoist) launched an 
armed uprising in 1996, some people thought these were outdated 
tactics. When the CPN(Maoist) suspended armed combat in 2006 
and entered an anti-monarchist coalition government, some people 
assumed they would lose their identity to a corrupt cabal. When 
the Maoists press their current anti-feudal program, some people 
think they are forgetting about socialism.

But silent skepticism is a wrong approach. The world needs to 
be watching Nepal. The stunning Maoist victory in the April 
elections was not, yet, the decisive victory over conservative 
forces. The Maobadi are at the center of the political staqe 
but they have not yet defeated or dismantled the old government’s 
army. New tests of strength lie ahead.

The Maoists of Nepal aren’t just a opposition movement any more 
– they are tackling the very different problems of leading a 
society through a process of radical change. They are maneuvering 
hard to avoid a sudden crushing defeat at the hands of powerful 
armies. As a result, the Maobadi of Nepal are carrying out tactics 
for isolating their internal rivals, broadening their appeal, and 
neutralizing external enemies.

All this looks bewildering seen up close. This world has been 
through a long, heartless stretch without much radicalism or 
revolution. Most people have never seen what it looks like when 
a popular communist revolution reaches for power.

Let’s break the silence by listing four reasons for looking 
closely at Nepal.

Reason #1: Here are communists who have discarded rigid thinking, 
but not their radicalism.

Leaders of the CPN(Maoist) say they protect the living revolution 
“from the revolutionary phrases we used to memorize.”

The Maobadi took a fresh and painstakingly detailed look at 
their society. They identified which conditions and forces 
imposed the horrific poverty on the people. They developed 
creative methods for connecting deeply with the discontent 
and highest hopes of people. They have generated great and 
growing influence over the last fifteen years.

To get to the brink of power, this movement fused and alternated 
different forms of struggle. They started with a great organizing 
drive, followed by launching a guerrilla war in 1996, and then 
entering negotiations in 2006. They created new revolutionary 
governments in remote base areas over ten years, and followed up 
with a political offensive to win over new urban support. They 
have won victory in the special election in April, and challenged 
their foot-dragging opponents by threatening to launching mass 
mobilizations in the period ahead. They reached out broadly, 
without abandoning their armed forces or their independent course.

The Maobadi say they have the courage “to climb the unexplored 
mountain.” They insist that communism needs to be reconceived. 
They believe popular accountability may prevent the emergence of 
arrogant new 

Re: [Marxism] Zinn: the historian who changed history

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote:
>
>I wasn't even going to respond on this, and 
>get into the fish-slapping silly shit 
>about who is and isn't a Marxist.

Next time don't even read my post. You'll sleep
better   

>But who is and isn't a "Beardsian" may cost 
>me sleep.  I've never heard of a "Beardsian,
> but I suspect that, in this day and age, 
>most people wouldn't know one if it bit them 
>in the ass." 

...and I never used the term. I said that 
Zinn was the 'Charles Beard' of our time.
Now, let this bite you in the ass. Charles Beard
was enormously popular in the 1920's and 1930's, 
He was, I believe, the best selling historian
then, well loved and respected by many people. 
His 'An Economic Interpretation of the 
Constitution' was an enormously influential work 
that had a similar impact as "People's History.'
Zinn, in fact, singles Beard out for praise 
and acknowledges the influence on his own work. 
This is the only acknowledgement that I am aware 
of that Zinn ever made to another historian.

You are quite right that most people are
ignorant of Charles Beard and his work
has been forgetten by the public and repudiated
by almost all other American historians. The
only other contemporary writer invoking 
Beard that I can recall is Andrew Bacevich, 
who is not a historian.

As far as the simple observation that I made,
that Zinn was not a Marxist, why does that
upset you so much? We can certainly agree
that Foner was an important Marxist historian
and that his work on American labor is under
appreciated. You are also quite right to dispute
some of the well meaning obituaries to Zinn 
that give him credit for singlehandedly 
inventing social history or that he was
the first person to use his work as a 
political weapon. Let us leave it at
that and you can go back to sleep.



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Re: [Marxism] Zinn: The Historian Who Changed History

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote:

>What distinguished Howard Zinn, for me, was that 
>he managed to bridge those New Left concerns with 
>an older tradition of Marxist history, people like
>Phil Foner (whose name always manages to not get 
>mentioned here despite the enormous volume of work 
>he left behind).

The great irony in Mark's observation is that what 
while Zinn was enormously popular he was never a 
Marxist, unlike Foner. I don't want to start a 
Paula-esque/Rosaist flame war over the dubious merits of 
"A People's History." Howard Zinn had an enormously 
influential career and is beloved by the American left. 
His "Voices of a People's History" is of great merit 
as a collection of source material which will enrich 
the study of American history. He was, in many ways, 
the Charles Beard of this era which is fitting 
considering how of his work replicates Beard's approach.

It is equally true that it would be foolish in 
the extreme consider criticism of his work to
be some kind of line of demarcation. That reeks 
of a cult of personality that I sure he did not want.



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Re: [Marxism] Is Rosa real?

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote
>Rosa can certainly speak for herself on this, 
>provided there actually is a "herself" to Rosa 
>and she isn't somebody's beard.

and Jim wrote:
>More than one comrade has drowned
>in debates with Rosa.  Why is that?

I thought 'Rosa' was an artificial intelligence program 
designed to torment Marxists and paralyze discussion boards. 
At least that is one if the conspiracy theories online.



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[Marxism] Repression in India

[sobuadhaigh]

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Here's to comrades in India enduring
the violence of 'Operation Green Hunt'



Now here's why.

The Jan 1 post on the India’s Forgotten War blog
 , says it all.

>Time Magazine has declared India’s Maoist insurgency
>to be the 3rd most under-reported story of 2009.
>I’m surprised that they even noticed. While media coverage
>internationally and domestically has been sparse, this has
>started to slowly change. For too long, the Naxalites could
>be ignored by the urban-based Indian elite as a problem
>which affected only small segments of the largely invisible
>rural poor. While events such as the Mumbai terror attacks
>in 2008 threatened the safety and security of the countries
>chattering classes, what happened in the dusty forests of
>rural Chhattisgarh could easily be ignored. This has started
>to change. Perhaps, 2010 will bring increased coverage not 
>only to the insurgency, but also to the scandalous conditions 
>in which India’s rural poor exist. One can only hope.

The issues involving the Naxalite movement in general, and
the CPI-Maoist in particular, are complex and have been 
debated here in the past.  What I think is the heart of this 
crisis is the undeniable exploitation of India’s poorest and 
most oppressed people. This crime is being committed by ruling 
class elites across the Indian political spectrum from the Hindu 
fascists of the  BJP in Chhattisagarh to the popular front 
government of Congress and the CPM in West Bengal. One must ask, 
then, is the real problem the CPI-Maoist or the Indian state?

The problems for the people because of the policies of that
state are obvious. In Chhattisgarh the plans of government 
authorities to cash in on mineral resources at the expense 
of impoverished peasants are quite ambitious..

>Since the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000, the state
>government has signed 44  MOUs with companies like Arcelor
>Mittal, Tata and Jindal for mega industrial ventures
>worth Rs 198,362.26 crore.

>These prospective investors will acquire over 45,000
>hectares and eventually displace more than 1,000,000
>people.
(The data is from Sudha Bharadwaj, a Chhattisagarh activist
and columnist for the Sanhati website.)

I suppose the rationalization for all this is that a lucky
few will get a job in a strip mine but as Sanhati has so
succinctly put it, in these conditions

>‘'Development’ is the buzzword which the state has always
>used to justify its actions on behalf of the ruling class.

Before that happens the ruling class has to deal with the
obstacle of mass resistance including a Maoist led insurgency. 
Hence we have ‘Operation Green Hunt,’ How long will it be before 
Obama’s ‘war on terror’ drones are buzzing overhead?



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[Marxism] Operation Green Hunt/When the State Declares War on the People

[sobuadhaigh]

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For anyone wondering about the progress of Operation 
Green Hunt in India, this is a documentary 
investigating the trail of terror left by the state
security services and their paramilitary death squads.

WHEN THE STATE DECLARES WAR ON THE PEOPLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rygJzzutBOg&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Kvl3e1MlM&feature=channel

Since Mumbai I know there has been increased 
cooperation between the US military and intelligence agencies
and India involving counter insurgency training and support.
Does anyone know of anything showing direct US involvement in 
this asault against the Maoists and the rural population 
of Eastern India?



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Re: [Marxism] Obama is not a wimp

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote (in response to the comment by Louis 
that running an explisitly socialist elctoral challenge 
to Obama would be a bad, bad, bad, idea:

>I don't think it's a bad idea at all. For 60 years, 
>the word "socialism" has been abandoned to either 
>foaming attacks by the right, or the outright
>stupidity of the left.

This brings us to the same argument that has obsessed 
the left in Britain for years as to whether to form 
a "half way house" to chalenge New Labour or to
launch a new Socilaist Party that would mount an electoral 
campaign. It would seem that given the realpolitik of the
US there are a range of choices and all of them offer 
significant challenges. These are the choices as I see them.

1. A new populist party 

2. A united front of existing socialist/communist 
organizations with a common slate of candidates for 2012

3. A 'regrouped' socialist/communist party focused on
electoral work.

As far as Louis is concerned, #2 & 3 are the same and equally
ineffective. For Artesian and Eli, #2 is the option of choice.
Even with a common candidate (with some name recognition)
at the head of any of these tickets, there are formidable 
obstacles ahead. 

#1 requires a critical mass of the "Daily Kos"
type disgruntled liberal to make the divorce with DP 
final. They will be looking for institutional support 
and resources that are, as of now, not there. 

#2 requires a working agreement, quickly, between 
several of the existing parties and groups commiting
themselves to a untied front for 2012. Have these 
discussions probable or even possible?

#3 requires a leap of faith (not to mention consciousness).




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Re: [Marxism] Flaming Liberalism

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>The only issue I am raising at this juncture, and \
the key issue, is the execution of  CPI-M militants, 
by the Maoists.  Is this happening? 

Artesian poises a simple direst question and he deserves 
a straightforward answer. Members of the CPI-M are being 
killed by Naxalite insurgents. That is obviously true. 
Members of the 'Peace March' militia armed by the police 
are being killed by the insurgents. Members of the Indian 
security forces are being killed by the insurgents. Some 
of these killings are no doubt unbelievably violent and 
grotesque as is the killing of insurgents and their families 
and supporters. 'War is all hell' as I recall someone said 
and I know this this no more brutal form of war than an 
insurgency/civil war.

The question also follows why are members of the CPI-M 
being killed in this war zone? According to Vijay they 
are the real revolutionaries struggling to help the 
people by way of reforms through 'democratic institutions.' 
The members of the CPI-M are thus martyrs at the hands 
of a criminal gang of Maoists who are themselves the 
biggest obstacle to the liberation of the people. There 
is a 'popular front' problem now in that the CPI-M functions 
as the government for a bourgeois state whose 'democratic 
institutions' have spawned a protracted war by some of 
the poorest and most oppressed people in India against 
their oppression. So, just what are the CPI-M cadre doing 
in this war? Are they community organizers or are they 
agents of a state which seeks to disposes many of the 
people from their land for the sake of multinationals? 
How revolutionary are militants so deeply involved in 
the 'democratic institutions' of a ruling class seeking 
to maintain and extend their privileges in synch with 
American imperialist interests? Are they passing out 
leaflets in these villages or are they members of a 
party death squad hunting down Naxalite supporters with
weapons obtained from the police? I do not have all the 
answers but I at least know the right questions to ask.

There are no simple answers in this rebellion and it 
is a huge mistake to write the Naxalites off as Maoist 
thugs cheered on by deluded intellectuals. I believe 
there should be a critical look at all the issues with an 
awareness of the major shortcomings of the CPI-Maoist 
as explored recently on the Kasama site from the 
perspective of another revolutionary group in India:

Debate over Analysis & Strategy: A Critique of India’s Maoists
 

By the same token, I have seen nothing about the 
CPI-M that suggests it is anything other than reformist 
party so entwined with the power of a corrupt bourgeois 
regime that it is a inseparable from it. Is India any closer 
to socialism and a 'People's Democracy' because the CPI-M 
has almost a million members and wields power in three 
provinces?
 
Here is one version of the death of some of those cadre 
posted on the Revolution in south Asia site as an 
introduction to Vijay's Counterpunch article. I am sure 
there are many others


>Vijay Prashad is an unwavering supporter of the ruling 
>party in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India-Marxist
>(CPM), which has lorded over the tribals and other oppressed 
>in that state for nearly 30 years. >He played a key initiating 
>role in a letter from US intellectuals (some of whom later 
>withdrew their signatures when Arundhati Roy and other 
>intellectuals and activists in India made a prompt response) 
>denouncing >the uprising of tens of thousands of peasants 
>in Nandigram against a huge petrochemical plant that was 
>being forced on them by the CPM, which touts imperialist 
>“globalization” as a panacea for the people of West Bengal.

>In this article, Prashad neglects to inform his readers 
>that the CPM >members killed by enraged adivasis in the 
>Lalgarh area were either working with the police as informers 
>or had a history of brutality against the people.  He also 
>does not mention that the Maoists blow up schools when 
>the military moves into an area because they evict the 
>students and teachers and use the schools as their bases.

>In contrast to Prashad’s claim that the Maoists have 
>“no plans to immediately assist the grievances of the 
>various tribal communities,” dozens of Indian journalists 
>have seen with their own eyes that the Maoists in the 
>Dandakaranya region and around Lalgarh have been working 
>with tribal peoples for years–and in some areas for decades– 
>to redistribute land, build irrigation systems, roads, 
>schools and health centers, and develop tribal cultures 
>on the verge of extinction. See Is Lalgarh 

[Marxism] Naxalites and the Popular Front

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:
>Think history has clearly shown that "never" is the
>proper answer to when it makes sense for socialists
>to enter  into  bourgeois governments.

I think Artesian may be on to something here as evidenced
by  the situation in W.Bengal and the entrenched position
of the CPI-M via their popular front alliances with various
bourgeois partners. What kind of results has this produced
for  the people, especially the poorest and most oppressed?
The party program sounds resolute, but how effective
has it been?

{From ‘People’s Democracy and it Progamme’)
>While adhering to the aim of building socialism in our country,
>the Communist Party of India (Marxist), taking into consideration
>the degree of economic development, the political ideological
>maturity of the working class and its organisation, places
>before the people as the immediate objective, the establishment
>of people's democracy based on the coalition of all genuine
>anti-feudal, anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist forces led
>by the working class on the basis of a firm worker-peasant
>alliance.

I will leave it to others here to show me of the CPI-M did
indeed achieve a people’s democracy in one, two or even three
provinces while they functioned as the regional authority
for the Indian state in alliance with the Congress party.

Elsewhere In India I am aware of the many problems which
the bourgeois regime is no closer to solving now then they 
were 40 years ago. It is this stark fact which is at the 
base of the Naxalite insurgency.

An article from the Economist in 2006, described
the conditions endured of some of the poorest and 
most oppressed in the villages of the Bastar forest:


>In the tiny, dirt-poor villages scattered through the forest,
>the Indian state is almost invisible.

>In one there is a hand-pump installed by the local government,
>but the well is dry. There are no roads, waterpipes, electricity
>or telephone lines. In another village a teacher does come, but,
>in the absence of a school, holds classes outdoors. Policemen,
>health workers and officials are never seen. The vacuum is filled
>by Naxalite committees, running village affairs and providing
>logistic support to the fighters camping in the forest. For the
>past year, those fighters—mostly local >tribal people—have been
>battling not just the police and the six paramilitary battalions
>deployed in the district, but their own neighbours.

The “Viceland website also gives a tour  of this same region:


>There are some 30 tribes in Chhattisgarh, and they all have
>different languages and levels of socioeconomic development
>ranging from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to factory workers.
>What unites them is poverty and isolation. In Chhattisgarh, a
>common cure for financial trouble is to murder your family
>and then commit suicide. A common thing for young girls to
>do here is get raped by a forest officer….
>The reason things in Chhattisgarh have remained so fucked 
>despite 60 years of official concern for the backward population 
>is basically this: Money allocated for development of tribal
>areas gets wheedled away by corrupt officials at every level 
>of India’s bureaucracy. Vijay has written of this insurgency 
>extensively and his argument is that it serves no purpose 
>but to make the condition of these people worse and that  
>support for armed struggle in general is the clueless pastime 
>of the intellectual.

VJ wrote:

>The gun is an anthem for the deracinated middle class romantic,
>but not the glory song for the dispossessed, for whom only
>suffering comes at the gun's mouth.

Something tells me that the those in India confronting the
police and paramilitary death squads are not middle class
romantics bit rather those who are sick of being abused,exploited 
and robbed becasue hey are the most abused, 
exploited and robbed. 



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[Marxism] Showdown in Nepal

[sobuadhaigh]

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I avoid posting articles from other sources here, but tonight I 
am making an exception. Mike Ely at the Kasama Project put this 
up today on both the main Kasama site and on the  Revolution in 
South Asia site. It is well worth reading and considering: 

Nepal: Ring The Bell Loudly

To put this as bluntly as I can:

The Nepali Maoists are preparing right now (i mean over the 
next few weeks) for what-may-be a decisive military/political 
confrontation with the reactionary government and army.

The insurrection they have been preparing so carefully and so 
long may take place over the next two months.

The Maoists are seeking to mobilize the people (based on the 
understanding that their enemies will be wanting to act closely 
with Indian intrigues, and can be isolated by exposing those 
intrigues.) Their Indian, Nepali and American enemies understand 
this. Their revolutionary core base knows this. And we need to 
know it.

I will be ringing this bell loudly, and more loudly… and I want 
you to join me in ringing this bell.

Everyone we know and meet should start to consider how they can 
discuss and explain this important revolution in (what may be) 
its most bold and desperate hour.

The endgame is now taking shape in Nepal, perhaps in the next 
month or two, as the Maoists sum up their repeated “dress 
rehearsals” 
in Kathmandu and evaluate when (exactly) to go for a seizure of 
power.

It is possible that they will decide not to go for the final 
revolution this spring. But more likely (at this point) is that, 
through tremendous efforts and unexpected events, they will now 
rise in a test of strength — and fight for a peoples democratic 
Nepal — the birth of a Nepal on the socialist road. It may be the 
first serious (and potentially successful) attempt at communist 
revolution in decades.

With the utmost respect, I would like to disagree with the 
following 
claim:

>With the spearhead directed against India, the PLA [Maoist 
Peoples Liberation Army] is looking to the south, rather than being 
readied to do battle with the Nepal Army and the other repressive 
forces 
of the state.”

This misreads the situation. The reactionary/monarchist Nepali 
Army’s 
limited-but-real popular prestige in Nepal has been precisely based 
on their history of (supposedly) upholding Nepali independence 
against India.

In their moves to isolate and then defeat that National Army, the 
Maoists (and their Peoples Liberation Army) are politically 
claiming 
that national banner (AWAY from the monarchists’ army) in order to 
expose, divide and defeat that National army as Indian puppets and 
collaborators (which they are).

This is not some diversion from the preparations for power — It is 
one important way the Nepali Maoists are dividing  their enemies 
and 
winning over intermediate forces (including in and around that Army 
itself), precisely as the Maoists work to sum up a series of dress 
rehearsals for power.

We need to be preparing ourselves (here in the U.S.) for a 
political 
offensive of popularization and exposure — with teach-ins, 
outreach, 
and the active organization of all who can be won to such an 
effort. 
And for us to play our role, we need to clearly understand that we 
may (from now to spring) be facing the key time for “speaking on 
another plane” and to much wider audiences (as the Maoists own 
actions 
push them into the headlines).

Revolution in South Asia


Kasama Project site
  





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Re: [Marxism] American Revolution and National Unity

[sobuadhaigh]

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Tom wrote:

>Obviously what the media said or didn't say about it is not
>dispositive,let's not be naive.

Obviously what that extensive media coverage represents 
is an invaluable primary source of the social impact of 
the American Revolution in Europe. Shall we agree about 
the need to use primary materials as a basis of historical 
inquiry? You could, of course, restrict yourself to Howard 
Zinn but if you ever tire of reading "A People's 
History of the United States'  may I suggest something 
that actually involves both original research and footnotes? 
How about Vol.1 of 'The End of the Old Regime in Europe' 
by Franco Venturi available in English from Princeton. 
Here is sample quote from the preface:

>With the beginnings of the American Revolution, and 
>particularly with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, 
>the decisive crisis began. The empires of the West-Great 
>Britain, Spain, even Portugal, and France-were shaken, in 
>different ways but always deeply, by the ideas of the American 
>Insurgents and by the passionate discussion these aroused 
>everywhere. There was a progression from the problem of 
>independence to the right to determine one's own constitution, 
>from the will to resist to the proclamation of the rights of 
>man, from the affirmation of freedom of commerce to an effort 
>to combat the mercantile system in all its manifestations and 
>institutions, which just at that moment was defined and 
>denounced by Adam Smith.

Are you really so naive as to believe that the French 
Revolution is unrelated to the American Revolution? 
Do you believe that while the French Revolution was 
indeed a revolution that what happened in America was 
just a racist coup? 

Tom continues:
>There  was no so such fundamental change in
>the wake of 1783: more or less the same society 
>that existed before remained except no longer under 
>the political subjugation of Britain.
>
Except of course that titles of nobility were explicitly 
prohibited by the Constitution and that the whole rancid, 
culture of religious hatred was dealt a profound blow. 
Did I mention that the feudal prop of an established church 
and with it institutionalized religious hatred was abolished 
outright? Anti-Catholic bigotry would rear its head again in 
the 1840's and later but by and large the relations between 
Catholics and Protestants has been remarkably free of conflict 
given the English roots of American society. Would this be 
important to a multi religious working class swelled by the 
ranks of Catholic immigrants? Want to take a tour of Belfast 
with me?

>As to monarchy, please don't forget the dispute was with
>Parliament and its taxation of America, not with the monarchy 
>or George III personally,although as ceremonial head of state 
he took the flak, 

During this time George II was one of the weakest 
Kings in Europe but he was not quite just a ceremonial 
head of state. Yon may remember that the list of crimes 
in the Declaration of Independence is specifically directed 
against him because the parliament functioned in his name
and he did he did provide the executive authority to order 
British troops into action. As weak a monarch as George 
was, he was still at the apex of a system of aristocratic 
privilege resting on the assumption of social inequality. 
The Treaty of Paris that ended the war begins: 

>In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.
>It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose 
>the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince 
>George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great 
>Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, 
>duke of Brunswick and Luxembourg, arch- treasurer 
>and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc., 
>and of the United States of America...

The preamble of the US Constitution begins.

"We the people of the United States..."

Had George Washington become the king of America and 
a native aristocracy assumed the role of a parasitic 
and debilitating drag on the social development of this 
country you could then make a plausible claim there 
was no revolution and just a political separation. 
That did not happen and your claim is ludicrous.

>Previously the only time I've gotten into this issue 
>was in the"comments" section on Amazon with right wingers 
>whose sense of blind patriotism was outraged by my views 
>seeking to debunk the sterile myth and cult of 
>"The Founders" with their attitude being "slavery?", 
>so what?  

This is one of the stupidest things I have read on Marxmail 
and that is quite an achievement. Are you accusing me of 
being a right wing racist? If so then do it directly, now, 
and I will give you the proper Artesian response. 

Let's see, you get in a pissing contest with idiots on 
Amazon because

Re: [Marxism] American Unity and national unity and China

[sobuadhaigh]

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Shane wrote:

“…the clearest thinking slaves and native
americans fought on the side of... King George.”

The Native American tragedy is another story but how
clear thinking were those slaves? The same 
reprehensible empire that was, and would continue to be,
the superpower of the slave trade suddenly discovered
the virtue of human freedom? Gee, I wonder if that did
not reek of cynical opportunism then as much as it does now.
By the way Shane, what did happen to some of those African-
American recruits who fought with the British at Yorktown?
When food became scarce during the siege all those 
clear thinking former slaves were disarmed and driven into
no man’s land to be shot or starved. I also recall that the
final assault on the British fortifications was made by African- 
American troops of the Continental Army lead by Alexander 
Hamilton.

I find your praise of the British Empire as 
baffling as your cheerleading for the racial 
nationalists dreaming of a theocratic Tibet



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Re: [Marxism] American Revolution and National Unity

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>This issue is simply that the enslavement of labor 
>in the South precludes, not national development, not 
>national independence, not a national market-- all those 
>issues so critical to the bourgeois, but slavery precludes 
>the organization of labor for emancipation from its 
>condition as wage-labor.

Damn you, Artesian. Your presentation on the “up side “ of 
the American Civil War is so persuasive that if Zinn had not 
written otherwise I might think this struggle might indeed be 
characterized as, you know, the “p” word. The problem now is that 
this whole anti-slavery thing just might tie back in the so-called 
American Revolution in ways that undermine the Zinnite hegemony 
here on Marxmail. This is obviously serious business.

All right thinking radicals believe, of course, that the so called 
American Revolution was fought merely to set up a Caucasian 
Republic 
based on the notion that all white people are created equal. This 
is 
certainly what is taught at the eighth grade level around here and 
we all know how much Middle School teachers know about history and 
Enlightenment philosophy. This means that by the time of the 
Civil War the Southern planter elite's resentment over tariffs and 
trade policy makes sense but their paranoia about the prospects of
abolition seems wildly exaggerated since the entire country, 
North and South, was equally based on the cornerstone of White 
supremacy. Now you have me thinking about the ideological 
foundations of Succession, such as they were, and in 
particular the famous ‘Cornerstone’ speech delivered by Alexander 
Stephens the vice-president of the CSA, which was widely reprinted 
and 
distributed throughout the South. Remember that ringing 
denunciation 
of Thomas Jefferson and the rest of that reprehensible gang of 
‘foundering fathers’?

>The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading 
>statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, 
>were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the 
>laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, 
>and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal 
with, 
>but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow 
>or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be 
evanescent
>and pass away….. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. 
>They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was 
an 
>error…. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite 
>idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the 
>great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that 
slavery 
>subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal 
condition. 
>This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the 
world, 
>based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

This sounds to me as if there were some sharply competing ‘self 
evident’ 
truths at work in the struggle between the North and the South. 
What is more, could it be that our belief now in a racist consensus 
underlying the entire American Independence thing was not shared by 
those who later felt compelled to initiate  armed struggle to 
dissolve 
the Union? How long will it be before I start calling into question 
other assumptions such as those shared by Tom,

>The actual objective truth is…what occurred then was not really
> a social revolution, but a political revolution against British 
rule,
> unlike what happened in 1861-1870s which was a social revolution 
>on an epochal scale.

The extensive newspaper reporting on the American Revolution 
in Continental Europe at that time certainly portrayed it as ‘a 
social 
revolution on an epochal scale.’ From a Marxist perspective besides 
slavery blocking the road to working class emancipation there were 
other formidable obstacles. How about religious sectarianism and the
reactionary theology of Protestants and Catholics alike justifying
established churches and a hierarchal society based on aristocratic 
privilege? After national independence was won, laws prohibiting 
Catholicism quickly vanished including the statute in New York City 
punishing the saying of mass by a priest with the death penalty. 
This does not mean that the Catholic Church as an institution 
embraced 
this insurrection. Although the invasion of Quebec was a military 
failure, there were thousands of French Canadian volunteers who 
joined 
the Continental Army and as a result and they were all 
excommunicated 
by the Archbishop. The colonialists who has taken up arms against 
the 
Crown were in rebellion against the very notion of monarchy and 
aristocracy 
and that was a sin the Catholic hierarchy would not forgive. 
(American 
Catholics w

Re: [Marxism] '...ists' or '...ites' (Was Conspiracy and History)

[sobuadhaigh]

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Paul wrote:

>The term 'Stalinite' was used occasionally in the
>1930s in a hostile way, but it never caught on in Britain...
>The Weekly Worker, the paper of the reconstituted
>Communist Party of Great Britain, has lately revived
>it for some esoteric reason known only to its editors,

I even think the term Stalinist is negative and just as
inaccurate as Maoist. Communists are Marxist-Leninists
whatever the application of Marxism-Leninism to a specific
country (or failure thereof)and I have yet to see anyone else
whose work should be put on that same level.

As to the problem here using the 'T' word (Trotsky + ite)
I have absolutely no problem dispensing with its use.
Reflecting on what people have posted I would say
it is important not to dredge up the rancor of archaic 
labels that have no real relevance to our current 
struggle. If a simple word gets in the way of discussing 
and debating the history than I am happy to dispense 
with the simple word.

The present realities are challenging but hopeful in the
sense that almost everyone recognizes the failures and
severe limitations of the past. 'Existing socialism'
collapsed and the many Fourth Internationals were,
and are, complete failures. None of this has made 
capitalism any less oppressive or self destructive. 
The revolutionary road is forward. 



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Re: [Marxism] Conspiracy and History

[sobuadhaigh]

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New Tet wrote

>How much of today's Russian productive capacity is still in
>state hands and how much is private? How does it compare
>to China?

That is a good question about Russia and I don’t know. For
China 20% of the economy is still under state control and
that includes all the banking system and a few other odds
and ends such as publishing firms for school textbooks.

Artesian wrote:
>Come on Sobuadhaigh-- you know all about alternative universes,
>and conspiracy theories from the show trials 1930s-- …

Yes, comrade, I know the prosecutors case from this tragic
period. What I am wrestling with are Shane’s assertions that
had, indeed,it was Stalin who restored capitalism  and that
the KGB stage managed the 1991 coup against Gorbachev as a
pretext for installing Yeltsin as their puppet until Putin
could take over.

>I think Shane's theory on the KGB nexus is out there,

…on which planet? Serious reservations have been raised
about the role of the Romanian Securitate in the overthrow
of Ceauşescu and their influence in the subsequent government.
Does this mean that the collapse of the DDR, the Soviet Union,
etc., etc., must likewise have been security service conspiracies?
Is every revolution and military disaster from the storming of
the Bastille to 9-11 the work of secret cabals that create global
events to enhance their power and increase their profit?  The fact
that there are conspiracies in history does not prove that all
history is a conspiracy.

>I'm no expert in the characterization of the fSU as state 
capitalist-- but
>there's no mistaking state capitalism in China. The CCP is 
transparently
>state capitalist in its creation of a private bourgeoisie, private 
property
>in the means of production, private exploitation of wage-labor, 
state
>exploitation of wage-labor for the purposes of valorisation.. etc.

Why the qualifier of “state” before capitalism given the
widespread “creation of a private bourgeoisie?” At what
point then did China become state capitalist or simply capitalist?
I fought a protracted battle to get Louis to assign a date to
this phenomenon and he chose the mid 199o’s although by the
reckoning of some of the scholars I read, the state portion
 of the economy at this late date was still around 80%. Was Mao
and the Chinese Communist Party such an extension of Stalinism
that Mao initiated a state capitalist economy from 1949 on?
Were all those Soviet advisers there helping to create the
Chinese industrial infrastructure putting into place private
enterprise? What exactly was the measure of state capitalism
in the planned economy of the USSR? Beyond all that lingering
hatred of socialism in one country and the popular front, what
is the evidence that Stalin was agent of bourgeoisie restoration?
Someone show me the economic determinates, please.

 >Oh... and could you please drop the word "Trotskyite," and 
substitute
>"Trotskyist"?

As far as the “T” word, in this I have been following the vanguard
example of Comrade Waistine in what I assumed was a linguistic
leap. In truth this discussion has nothing to do with Trotsky at
all. If Stalin had presided over a capitalist regime, I am sure the
“old man” would have mentioned it. How about using term Cliffite ?
Is there such a thing as a Cliffist?  Has anyone here actually read
“State Capitalism in Russia”?

Finally, I am not sure about your passing reference to “Maoist” as
a positive characterization. I never liked the word because in the
era when China was committed to the “socialist road” the term used 
was “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong thought.” Communists were Marxist-
Leninists and not “Maoists.” It was an interesting bit of 
ideological humility that is worth maintaining.



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[Marxism] I think its time for an Irish rebel dance remix

[sobuadhaigh]

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Who would would have thought of a disco version of
"Broad Black Brimmer?"



Now if I could just find the Donna Summer version of
"Boys of the Old Brigade."



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Re: [Marxism] Conspiracy and History

[sobuadhaigh]

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Shane wrote:

>A sure sign of bad theory is the inability to recognize the
>obvious.

If conspiracy was that obvious than it wouldn't need to
be a conspiracy now would it? If everyone knew who was on
the grassy knoll then there would little in the way of self
satisfaction of those who really know what happened at Pearl
Harbor/9-11/Fall of the Soviet Union/etc.

To believe that history is the product of conspiracy does
have the advantage of already knowing the thesis before
beginning the research. Knowing the outcome in advance would
indeed make everything both obvious and self evident.

You still haven't explained the whole alternate universe
of state capitalism except that the fundamental economic
structure of the Soviet Union underwent a metamorphosis during
the time of the Moscow Trials from 1936-38 which is proved by a
KGB conspiracy in 1991. Hey, that sounds reasonable to me.
The secret police organized a coup against Gorbachev because 
they really supported Yeltsin whom they could have easily 
installed without organizing press conferences for Boris Pugo, 
so they could kill him and the misses afterwards. 

I am serious about wanting to know the theory behind
state capitalism. If anyone wants to weigh in on just
what exactly it says I would appreciate it. I am familiar
with the Chinese version (Tony Cliff on steroids?) but I
know little of the Trotskyite original that apparently Trotsky
himself never proposed. Or did he? Inquiring minds want to know.
If I ever go to one of those big ISO conferences, it would
be very helpful to at least understand the dialect.



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Re: [Marxism] The "Heroic" Charm of the Bourgeoisie

[sobuadhaigh]

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This is obviously not as important as the current 
debate on "foreskin privilege," but there are still 
a few points to clear up and then we can cut it off.

Gary wrote:
>,,, occasionally, very occasionally, they strike
>and successfully carry off a heroic pose and I
>have chosen the word "pose" deliberately. I cited Yelstin
>on the tank as one of these instances.

No comrade, you cited Yeltsin as an example of the capability
of the bourgeoisie to be heroic and thus exhibit a
strength that those of us in the "opposition" must
acknowledge. There is no courage involved in striking
a "heroic pose." For this you received a scathing,
but deserved, rebuke from Artesian.

>You point out I cited Yelstin on the tank as one of
>these instances. You point out that it was a media stunt.
>Of course it was a successful pose. He carried it off.

Was it a media stunt? Was the whole thing staged with the
tank as a prop? Was there even a Russian bourgeoisie at
that time for Yeltsin to be a member of? Let us return,
briefly, to those heady days of 1991.

Boris Yeltsin was the elected leader, and employee of, the
Russian Socialist Federated Republic - the largest component
of the Union of Soviet Republic. He received a paycheck from
the same account that paid all the members of the Congress
of People's Deputies. It was clearly his intention then to
use the Russian Federation as a power base to confront and
eventually dismember the Soviet Union and destroy the
Communist Party. Was it, even then, his plan to turn Russia
into an oligarchy of cronies and gangsters? Even if that was
true would Yeltsin have been acting as a member of a class
which he would certainly create but which had not yet come
into existence?

(Maybe it is my own fault for not understanding the whole
state capitalist thing and if you can explain that
peculiar doctrine, please do.)

As to that storied tank, what actually happened that day?
Gorbachev was in the Crimea under house arrest and everyone
knew that the coup leaders would have to move against Yeltsin.
People started to gather outside the "White House" as a
show of support and Yeltsin went out to speak to them. It was
in this context that he climbed on the tank and it could
have been stagecraft or he could have simply been
looking for a place to stand where everybody could see him.
The later explanation is not as dramatic as the first but I
believe it is equally plausible. Yeltsin would employ
American media consultants to help with his re-election
but that was in the future and this was in a very chaotic and 
unpredictable present.

What is true beyond doubt is that the world was riveted and
Americans especially saw what they wanted to see. They wanted
a courageous anti-communist hero who had faced down the Red
Empire by the power of a speech on a tank sent to crush freedom,
and that is what it became. It as if they had gotten to re-run 
the events of Tiananmen Square only now the good guys had triumphed
and the communist tank had been vanquished.

The showdown between the the fading loyalists of the Soviet Union 
the burgeoning power of the Russian Federation was a hight stakes 
struggle for state power. We all know who won and the subsequent 
suffering this caused. Yeltsin undoubtedly showed more than "bottle 
courage" in risking everything to gain political power. 
Did this make him a hero? Did his membership in the political elite 
of the Soviet Union make him a member of the bourgeoisie?
Let's face it comrade, Boris Yeltsin, for many reasons, was
the wrong person to pick to illustrate your point. You would
have better off to stick with Winston.



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Re: [Marxism] The "Heroic" Charm of the Bourgeoisie

[sobuadhaigh]

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Gary wrote:

>For some time I have been contemplating a post 
>on the heroic moments of the bourgeoisie. Historically 
>the most cowardly of classes has still had its
>moments.  Yeltsin standing up on the tank was one 
>of them.

There was nothing particularly courageous about Yeltsin
using that particular tank as a speaking platform.
In the course of the hard line coup against Gorbachov in 
1991, troops from Moscow went over to the side of Yeltsin 
and the government of the Russian Federation. The reason 
that tank was sitting there outside the "White House" 
(home of the Supreme Soviet/Congress of people's Deputies 
of the RSFSR) was because those soldiers were suporting 
Yeltisn and opposed to the coup. It was certainly a great 
media moment when Yeltsin made the speech standing on that 
tank but he was in no danger and the White House was not 
being assaulted or besieged at that point.

In 1993 Tanks would attack the White House under orders to 
destroy the Congress of People's Deputies that Yeltsin had 
once been a member of. This time the tanks would  blast the 
building as a prelude to an infantry assault which Boris 
Yeltsin ordered in his own coup against the Russian parliament.

Artesian wrote (about American bourgeois politicians) 

>These people are the most vicious, venal,
>dishonest, people you'll meet outside of organized crime.

This is also a very apt description of Yeltsin and his cronies
except that in this case there is no need to draw a distinction 
between "government" and "organized crime."



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Re: [Marxism] Dismisal of the Liberal/sexist humor

[sobuadhaigh]

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Greg wrote:

Greg wrote:
>My attempt to 'dis'-arm with humor obviously fell 
>flat...I guess some folks just can't take a joke.


Lara writes some nice things about Dogan after reading all
the the criticism he has received of late. You responded
with sexual innuendo. It wasn't funny comrade. Let it drop
and perhaps send an apology off list.

Thinking about the lack of participation by more female comrades, 
I can't help bit think that the short, nasty put down 
passing as a post is surely one of those reasons. Louis has asked 
for more "polished" submissions and on that I can unite with him. 
For example, I greatly value the substantive information you 
have posted here about events in Central America and the need for 
solidarity. If you, or Mark, think that Lara is foolish for 
translating Dogan's work than tell her off the list, please. 
It has no bearing on anything we are discussing here



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Re: [Marxism] Communist Party backs Senate health care "reform" bill

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark got in quite a few good ones at the CP over their
support of the Senate mutilation of "health care."

He wrote:

>The bill the CPUSA's defending here is the contemptible work 
>of what used to be rightly known as the biggest gentlemen's 
>club in the world attempting to hoodwink the hoodwinkable.

Contemptible it is. It was P. J. O'Rourke who characterized 
the three branches of the US government as money, television, 
and bullshit. (from "Parliament of Whores") He is right wing 
I know but I think that aptly sums it up.

(on how the CP responds to criticism)
> * the person making this scurilously anticommunist charge 
>must be an anarchist or a Trotskyist or a counterrevolutionary 
>traitor.

Ah, for the good old days of those enormous conventions in 
Madison Square Guarden with 700 delegates and thousands of 
spectators where Browder did indeed castigate both Trotskyites 
and Lovestonites as  "traitors." This kind of rhetoric changed 
markedly after the repression of the 1950's, however. Gus Hall 
used to attack every revolutionary outside the party as the 
"phony left" while Sam Webb merely refers to the "sectarian left."

>>I don't think the CPUSA was ever in a position to betray a 
>revolution in the US or to sell out much of anything for the 
>last half century. They have, however, finally bought the farm...
>the funny farm. There was an old IWW cartoon from the 1930s 
>that depicted the CP looking admiringly at the billboard 
>advertisement of the Great American Bull. 

The cartoon was in the Industrial Worker sometime from 1956. 
The cow is marked "CPUSA" and it gazes longingly at a bull 
on a billboard. The caption read "still falling for the same 
old bull" or something to that effect. It was reproduced in 
"Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology" by Joyce Kornbluh but I can't 
find my copy. Someone send me a a scan of that cartoon and I 
will reward you with a copy of the CPUSA pamplet "The Communist 
Party in Action" which  savagely attacks FDR, the New Deal, and 
the Democratic Party with such stirring phrases as:

"This, however, does not mean that it is only Roosevelt and the 
Democratic Party that make the government subservient to Wall 
Street and to the big capitalists. It means the that bourgeois 
democracy, as a system and form of government, is and can be 
nothing else but a dictatorship of the capitalist class...
regardless of whether the government is held by the Republicans, 
Democratic, "Socialist" or any form of bourgeois or reformist 
political organization."
 
>On the bright side, the CP marches proudly into oblivion 
>alongside the SWP which, it was recently announced, is holding 
>a public forum in Philadelphia about selling books in Venezuela. 
>There's always room for more in the dustbin of history.

The last time I compared the CP and the SWP, Mark told me this 
was like comparing different species of fish in different oceans. 
It appears these two historic parties of revolutionary struggle 
are much closer related than might appear from their positions on 
the Popular Front.

>PS: The nineteenth century expression that comes to mind 
>is "dead but too dumb to fall over."

Sadly this expression brings to mind looking at a great 
deal of the North American left outside the CP/SWP too.
  




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Re: [Marxism] Decline & Fall

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote:
> the problem's a lot less about what you're
>arguing than your slipshod thinking

So it's no longer bizarre then, merely slipshod,
well that's an improvement.

>In this long and silly post, you try to argue that the
>SWP's "turn to industry" was didn't work based on election
>returns.

No, I didn't. I continued to saga of the CPUSA and did
so quantitatively which granted makes the post longer
(feel free not to read them) but it is at least an
attempt to find some objective basis to present the
"Decline & Fall" rather than just screaming "betrayal."

>this bizarre comparison of the CP and the SWP...

oops, I spoke too soon. It is bizarre after all.

>which, in American electoral politics, is a bit
>like comparing how well two different kinds of goldfish
>are doing on different ends of the Pacific Ocean...
>without reference to context at all.

The context is, of course the extreme difficulty
that all Socialist and Communist organizations have
had in the post war era of gaining a "base" among
the people they are fighting for. Is this a problem?
Should this be of concern? You, comrade, who have
written so much on the problem of the "Nano" groups
and their abject failure might appreciate these
figures and ponder the implications.

>Still, what's the connection between election
>returns and a "turn to industry"?

Rare indeed is the revolutionary organization in
this country that has gotten any kind of traction
with the public via the electoral arena. On a
small scale, granted, the SWP was actually starting
to show a little of this traction in the period
from 1964 - 1976 as the figures show. Now consider
that running these presidential campaigns is a
major priority of the SWP to which they still
devote enormous amount of time and resources.
For example, the SWP was on the ballot in 13
states in the last election and that does not
come easy of cheap. Okay, now hold that all of
that date in your head and answer the following.
What on Earth compelled the leadership of the SWP
to sacrifice their most powerful, dynamic, and
charismatic vote getter because he would get a job
working on an assembly line somewhere in New Jersey?
Does that not illustrate how truly "bizarre" the
turn to industry was?

>I mean, honestly, would the turn have been
>no less a bad idea if the SWP had gotten
>more votes?

You can't get more votes unless you have an
organization that runs successful campaigns and
learns from mistakes to more convincingly present
their message to the American people. The whole
point of engaging in electoral politics is so
that people respond by voting, contributing,
and becoming involved in the party. That can't happen
if parties destroy both the quality and quantity
of the cadre by disastrous campaigns based on
the whim of leadership cliques divorced from
objective realities. This was not just the problem
of the SWP in the grip of Jack and Mary Alice.
Did you ever wonder why the CP kept running Gus Hall
for president? Did it never occur to the Central
Committee of the CP that Angela Davis running from
her jail cell would have gotten more votes than the
cumulative totals of Hall, Browder, and Foster combined
and then probably squared? Might more successful
electoral campaigns have presented some opportunities
that didn't exist before? We'll never know because
it never happened and now it is starting to look
like those gold fish mentioned earlier are not
only in the same ocean they are the same species
after all.

>But--granted--the turn was a disaster--a
>more complete disaster than people not involved
>in it could possibly imagine. Still, there's nothing
>inherent in that which refutes Mehmet's suggestion
>that "we couldn't simply dismiss the idea of
>encouraging party members to work in factories and
>thus strive to organize the ordinary workers from inside."

Yes we can dismiss the whole disaster as such
because they weren't "encouraged" they were ordered
wholesale and it wasn't to organize anyone it was 
to immerse the SWP in the sick identity politics of more
proletarian than thou. Sending selected cadres to
do selected missions is one thing but to shove a
bunch of new, inexperienced members (they were
still growing then so they had lots of them)
into factories is not a noble idea. How do you
think they got those jobs? The poor saps I ran
into were told and shown how to best lie on
their application forms which, of course,
made it easier for the companies to
fire them latter.

>It could be that the SWP's turn was badly conceived
>or it may have had >not had the membership that could
pull it off the right way or maybe >the timing was way
off or maybe it was ineptly managed. My answer would
be all of the above and more...

Okay, prove your answer and by all means let's here the "mor

[Marxism] Away with all Liberals?

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>I think we now have the answer to
>soubadhaigh's earlier question-- would Sam Webb 
>be bounced from this list? Clearly the answer is no. 
>Dogan produced two sizeable extracts from Mr.
>Webb and he wasn't bounced. And the moderator has 
>himself reproduced Mr.Webb's piece from the PWW-- 
>not for the purpose of exclusion, but for the
>fundamental Marxist necessity for criticism.

If that is so then there is a contradiction, a huge one 
here on Marxmail. If Chairman Webb, or anyone who advocates
or tolerates or admits to supporting Obama or anything
connected to the Democratic Party is, in essence, guilty of
"liberalism" than why should they not be bounced for being 
fundamentally at odds with the mission of Marxmail? Why should the 
betrayal of class collaboration be any more tolerated than endorsing
cruise missile attacks on Pakistan? Are the Popular Frontists 
in DSA and the CP just another variant of Marxism or are they 
the apologists and enablers of imperialism and therefore enemies?

I did not ask if people debating or presenting the Comrade 
Chairman's
ideas would be bounced. I asked if the author of this representation
of Marxism would be bounced. If his work is really that egregious a 
distortion than why shouldn't he? 



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[Marxism] Decline & Fall (was the CP is Still Ga-Ga)

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mehmet wrote about my criticism of the SWP:

>I think we couldn't simply dismiss the idea
>of encouraging party members to work in
>factories and thus strive to organize the
>ordinary workers from inside.

Yes it can most certainly be dismissed
because "the turn to industry" was a
supremely stupid idea that wasted the
talent and dedication of SWP members
and achieved little beyond wrecking
their organization. I will explain why
but first, let's do the numbers.

To finish the story of the CPUSA, Klehr &
his published the following numbers
for the post war membership of the Party.

194922,000
1956 3,000
1991 1,000

(Since that times it has possible that the Party has grown 
slightly form both new members as well as winning
back some disgruntled members who left in the wake 
of Gus Hall's heavy handed way of maintaining control
after the Soviet Union collapsed.)

Just for fun let's set up a comparison with 
the SWP not based on membership but on the number of 
votes for president each party received from 1956 to
2008. The only membership figure I have for the SWP
is a high water estimate of 1,200 for the early 70's 
published in "Revolution in the Air." So, let us see 
how each did at both mobilizing their membership 
to put their name and platform before the American people.
Of course restrictive ballots laws, lack of resources,
not recording votes,and all the other hurdles designed 
to marginalize "third parties are all at work but
with even all these restrictions this data has potential 
to tell us something about the strength and effectiveness
of the communist movement in the US.

(I have tried to set these columns up so that the formatting
for this list wouldn't render them totally unreadable. The 
s/c total is for all the various Socialist/Communist parties 
combined. I made the following choices to try and keep the
category consistent:
The results for all  parties with "Communist" or "Socialist" 
in their name were counted.
Workers World was counted. 
The Workers League was counted.
I did not count the Peace & Freedom Party, 
the New Alliance Party,
or Lyndon LaRouche's Labor Party. 

I have been working on a theory that voters who support a 
party with an overt Communist or Socialist identity do so 
because they share this identity even though they have no 
affiliation with the group nor any desire to necessarily 
join an organization. 

1952SWP 10,312   S/C  60,741

1956SWP  7,797   S/C  54,141

1960SWP 40,175   S/C  87,697

1964SWP 32,706   S/C  77,895

1968 CP  1,077  SWP 41,396   S/C  95,062

1972 CP 25,597  SWP 83,380   S/C 176,669

1976 CP 58,709  SWP 90,986   S/C 165,262

1980 CP 44,933  SWP 10,279   S/C 114,243

1984 CP 36,386  SWP 24,699   S/C  89,871

1988SWP 15,602   S/C  46,023

1992SWP 23,533   S/C  29,822

1996SWP  8,476   S/C  44,763

2000SWP  7,038   S/C  17,435

2004SWP  10,795  S/C  25,120

2008SWP   7,577  S/C  14,398

(source: David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/, Keep in mind if you look at his 
site that he uses Red for the Democratic Party and Blue for the 
Republican in the Electoral Collage state maps. The CP website 
also publishes the totals for all their presidential
candidates with totals that are slightly smaller than the the ones
used by Lepis. 

The numbers certainly show that the CP, just as before the war and 
even 
before the Popular Front, does not do well with electoral politics. 
This was true even when one of the candidates for vice president, 
Angela Davis, 
had enormous positive name recognition among the the groups that 
the Party 
was most trying to reach with its campaigns.

On the SWP side you will note that the total results in 1952
were almost exactly the same as in 2004 just as the results for 
1956 mirror the numbers for 2008. Despite half a century of effort,
the party not tainted by the betrayal of the Popular Front 
has really done no better than than their class collaborationist
rivals. The CP has pulled the plug on this whole quixotic exercise 
in 1988 but the SWP soldiers on with diminishing results.

Now go look at the peak results of both parties in 1976.

The SWP has continued to increase its vote total for the 
fourth election in a row and their results of that year 
tripled the total for 1964.  The SWP candidate for president
was Peter Camejo and I believe that this was a factor in this
success. Camejo was the kind of dynamic candidate who would gain 
votes after people heard him speak as oppossed to someone like 
Fred Mazelis of the Workers League.

Do you know how Peter Camejo was purged from the SWP?
I believe he was ordered to tak

[Marxism] Mini, Maxi, and Transitional

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>What is a reform, and a reform movement?  
>In the context of class struggle, a reform 
>movement is an attempt to stabilize and/or improve 
>the condition of the working class or a section of 
>the working class without challenging the 
>basic social relations of production

>How is it distinct from class collaboration?  
>In that it does not necessarily compel the working 
>class to subordinate its own needs to those 
>of the bourgeoisie.  It does not exclude the development 
>and presentation of such needs, nor does it prevent, 
>necessarily, development of a class struggle that moves 
>beyond the boundaries of reform and does threaten the 
>social relations of production.  

I like this definition and it accords nicely with what
the Chairman has written on this important topic

>…the struggle for radical reforms and a new model of 
>governance is imperative. While neither will resolve 
>the contradictions (and its main contradiction between 
>private appropriation and socialized production) and 
>crisis tendencies of capitalism, both will mitigate 
>capitalism’s impact on the conditions of life and work 
>of working people.

>Furthermore, in struggles for radical democratic restructuring 
>the working class and its allies not only come up against the 
>insufficiencies of capitalism, but also gain the experience, 
>desire, and unity to transform themselves and society.


My question is how then to understand the "transitional"
demand. How does it relate to the old division between the
"minimum program" (the demand for immediate reforms) and the 
"maximum program" (the goals of a revolutionary state)?
Take heath care for example. Would support for the current
DP health care proposal be a class collaborationist betrayal
because its passage would strengthen the Democratic Party
and the prestige of Obama? Would that also be true even 
if this were a decent health care reform instead of the 
current mish mash of federal subsidies to the insurance 
industry?

Given the political realities of the US, does a single
payer health care plan become a transitional demand that
sounds like a reform but is in fact only raised to show
that it is unobtainable without revolution?

Since observing the frenzy of the tea baggers this 
summer and seeing health care "reform" degenerate in 
the Senate, it appears even a modest improvement 
in the access to health care and a decreased cost to 
prescription drugs will require an insurrection. 
Perhaps a red base area adjacent to the border with 
access to Canadian doctors? Given the horrific 
conditions here in the Detroit area - 50% unemployment, 
hundreds of thousands struggling to obtain food, and 
public schools on the verge of financial collapse 
according to the headlines - I almost wish this were 
in the realm of possibility.



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Re: [Marxism] The CP is Still Ga-Ga

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mehmet wrote:


>I just came across a video which perfectly exemplifies 
>the possible outcome of sophisticated strategies to 
>achieve the goal of socialism:


Is this supposed to be the sports equivalent of the 
"turn to industry" or perhaps the founding of the 
International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)? 



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: Its not what you think

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>The distinction in Browder's speeches and Webb's is derived from
past
>practices. What were the summation speeches like in 1941, 1942,
1943, >1944, 1945?

On a simple research note, the summation speeches
were given at the national conventions which
are not held every year. Sometimes they go for eight
years between conventions so that there are a lot less
to read. I believe there is one coming up next year so here
is your chance to her Sam Webb for yourself. If Marquitt
is still alive try and get more liquor out of him.

>What were the positions of the CP regarding Carter vs. Reagan,
>Mondale vs Reagan, Dukakis vs. Bush, Clinton vs. Bush,
Clinton vs. >Dole,Gore vs.Bush, Kerry vs. Bush?

The sea change is with the Jesse Jackson candidacy. After that
they quit the pretext of running a presidential campaign.
All the Republicans, especially Regan come in for vilification
but no one gets the positive spin given to Obama. Klehr did
discover some Soviet intelligence documents in which Gus Hall
is leading for more money so they can insure the election of
Walter Mondale. It sounds totally unconvincing and there is
no indication that they gave it to him.

>I have no doubt, as I have previously studied some of the CP labor
>activity, that CP labor unions were among the most progressive and
>democratic on issues of race, gender, and that they fought for
enhanced
>freedoms and the dignity of the American worker-- but the question
is:
>What's particularly communist about any of that?

Your exact question was what was the relationship between
Communist led unions and class struggle and not if Communist
led unions were sufficiently communist. All right, answer
it yourself. Do militant, democratically run unions that
confront the issues of race and gender advance or retard
the class struggle. Think carefully before you answer.
If you are still not sure than than please work out of
Local 289 of the Carpenters union in Oklahoma City. When I
did the most important decisions were made not in the meeting hall
but in a strip joint later. You would think that the alcohol
and cheap thrills would have made them more militant but
instead they just got depressed and capitulated on every
fucking contract. That, comrade, was dragging the class
struggle backwards.

>Sobuadhaigh provides an interpretation of history that glosses
over the
>single most important "shift" of the CP, and its most enduring,
that of the
>popular front. Regarding that epochal transition from its
predecessor we
>are given this:

>"After the labor reform legislation of the New Deal some of these
unions
>enjoyed some success and in the wake of strikes in early 1933,
TUUL unions
>represented 95,000 workers. Most of the unions
>were very small however and with the coming of the Popular Front
it was
>merged with AFL ." And then it's on to the next item.

That's right, you asked if the Communist party had founded its
own unions and I responded yes and sent you a treasure trove
of data for you to play with along with the standard membership
figures for the TUUL. If you want a book on the Popular Front you
will have to write it yourself. Try and avoid the overuse of the
word "betrayal" as Louis has warned us about.
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Re: [Marxism] Communist Party Membership figures

[sobuadhaigh]

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Louis wrote:

>The CPUSA supported Wallace because Wallace believed
>that Truman represented a repudiation of New Deal
>values. The DP's main objection to the CP was not
>that it backed Wallace but that it was an obstacle
>to its Cold War agenda. In other words, if the Wallace
>campaign had never existed, the CP would still have
>been hounded from the unions as well as other venues.

You are right that the a general assault against
anything and everything connected to the Communist
Party was imminent and would have happened 
regardless of what the Party did or did not due. 
It is also true that the Wallace campaign/Progressive 
Party wrapped themselves in the mantle of the New Deal. 
I used the term "New Deal coalition" to indicate the tight
alliance between organized labor and the Democratic
Party, particularly as regards presidential elections.

I believe that an explicit threat to this 
alliance was what was uppermost in the  
minds of the top leadership of the CIO and explains
the specific timing for the attack on the Communist
led unions. In a recent account I just read, 
Mike Quinn of the Transport Workers Union 
went to W. Z. Foster to warn him of the serious and 
potentially catastrophic consequences of backing 
Wallace in the 1948 election. Foster replied that 
the Party was going to go all out for the Progressive 
Party campaign and that the CP unions would fully 
back Wallace. He then told Quinn not to worry 
about retaliation and said that if necessary the 
Party would form a third labor federation.

If the offensive against communists in the trade 
unions was primarily a function of the Cold War 
then why hadn't Murray made the move in 1946, '47 
or '48 and waited until after the presidential 
election? The Association of Catholic Trade Unionists
were pressuring Murray for years to purge Communists 
and the cold War was well under way before the CIO
"cleaned house."

As I said before I believe Philip Murray resisted 
the urge becasue he was worried about creating division
within labor's ranks given the surge in Republican 
strength after WWII. On the other hand becasue of 
New Deal legislation that made union organizing 
and collective bargaining easier,as well as the 
Republican threats against organized labor, I am 
sure many union officials considered the Democratic 
Party as the only legitimate political expression 
of the labor movement. I will have to take a creative 
leap here and propose that in 1948 the Democratic 
Party and their labor allies were not as much afraid 
of Wallace winning the election as they were he would 
take enough blue collar votes to give the presidency 
to Dewey. I believe that Murray knew that most of  
the membership of the CP led unions would still 
vote for Truman as long as there was no attack
on their unions that might enrage them enough 
to switch their voted to Wallace. Nevertheless, 
the mere fact of any of the CIO unions actually 
endorsing a party to the left of Democratic Party 
was a precedent they would not tolerate. I have not 
done the research to see if all or most of those 
unions did indeed endorse Wallace but I sure 
even if only one or two actually did and commit 
resources to help the Progressive party this would 
have been considered a grave threat. Remember the 
rage of liberals over the Nader candidacy in 2000?
It might just be that within all the hysteria about
Communist spies and Soviet nuclear weapons there 
was also some high level conderations about 
domestic power relationships that set the stage 
for the anti-communist purge in labor.


>If the CP had stayed the course with the Progressive
>Party, I think that American history would have taken
>a different direction. With a party of 25000 people
>involved in a 3rd party effort such as that, who knows...

The experience of Henry Wallace and the 
Progressive Party in 1948 is so roundly criticized 
that I have nerver thought of this before. Had 
the CP made good on Foster's promise of a third labor 
federation ot is quire probable that many of those 
unions would have survived as did the United Electrical 
workers all by itself when it hat defied Party 
orders and left the CIO to become independent. 
Consider now the existenace of a mass party to the 
left of the Democratic Party and a labor federation 
of a million members to the left of the AFL-CIO. 
As it was the CP abandoned the idea of working 
in the Progressive Party and the communist led 
unions were destroyed. This is, unfortunately, 
the history we have. 



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: Its not what you think

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>S. claims that the CP has always had a strategy, and then
>provides as proof of the claim, the statements provided by the 
>CP itself--that technique is a distinctly uncritical way of 
>examining history.

Not really. The self proclaimed purpose and strategic orientation 
of a group derives from the statements of the group. Where else 
would one examine this except from the the source documents 
produced, 
in this case, by the Communist Party. I showed this was classic 
vanguardist fare  which most definitely (to date) has been an 
abject failure in fulfilling its intention to lead the working 
class to power or even securing a credible political base within 
the working class. There was a remarkable consistency in both the 
expression of and believe in that strategy over the history of 
the CP despite all objective evidence to the contrary. This is 
not just a critical failing for them but you could plug in any  
number of other initials, say SWP, PLP, RCP, etc. and the dismal 
results are the same. The fact that the CP has abandoned a vanguard 
strategy is, in and of itself,  not necessarily a bad thing. 
However, 
recognizing that the inherent contradiction between the public 
production and private appropriation of wealth is the cause of 
recurring economic crisis, what is the ability of the Party's 
new strategy to actually ameloerate the worst effects of those 
recurring crises? What exactly is this "people's coalition" and 
how does the CP represent working class interest within it? 
The old strategy was very precise, optimistic, and energetic 
in its conception, if vague in the specific details. The new 
strategy is simply vague and decidedly pessimistic over the 
prospects of the fundamental transformation of society. If a 
revolutionary group must strike the proper balance between 
realism and inspiration, the CP is decidedly lacking on the 
inspirational side.

>S. lists a number of critical failures of the CP-- 
>to win electoral contests, the failure to organize or gain 
>control of "Red Unions," leading to red zones of working class 
>neighborhoods a la Paris, its inability to defend itself from 
>the US domestic cold war repression after WW2. Again
>critical evaluation requires a bit more in the concrete 
>historical analysis department-- like did the CP actually 
>attempt to organize communist unions,

Yes they did in the Trade Union Unity League from 1929 - 1935. 
You can see the results here on page 144 based on the data 
collected 
by A. Dunn for the Labor Research Association.



(Sorry for the long URL but this is contained in "Ebb and Flow
in Trade Unionism" by Leo Wolman published in 1936 and reprinted 
by the National Bureau of Economics Research.) 

After the labor reform legislation of the New Deal some of these 
unions enjoyed some success and in the wake of strikes in early 
1933, TUUL unions represented 95,000 workers. Most of the unions 
were very small however and with the coming of the Popular Front 
it was merged with AFL . From this experience and the the 
organizing 
work among the unemployed the Party produced a number of very 
experienced and effective cadre who became organizers for the 
CIO and then became leading members of many of the new industrial 
unions. BY 1948 the Communist Party controlled 18 of the unions 
representing 26% of the membership of the entire CIO. This was 
all lost in the purge of 1949 initiated when the Party confronted 
the Democratic Party through the presidential campaign of Henry 
Wallace. 

>and we might ask, where did the PCF's specific gravity in the 
>CGT in >France lead? Were there >specific conflicts between 
>the rank and file >membership and the PCF influenced/dominated 
>leadership? If so, what >were those impacts on actual events 
>in the class struggle? 

I won't bore the list with my take on France bit there are two 
important points here. The first is that numbers and control 
of unions and red base areas do not guarantee success as France 
is certainly an example. The Japanese Communist Party is the 
oldest political party in the country, has 500,000 members 
heavily concentrated in the Industrial proletariat, controls 
lots of unions, has newspapers, office buildings and with elected 
representatives in the Diet. Most people have never heard of them 
and the JCP is no closer to participating (much less leading) a 
revolution now than when they were formed. Numbers don't guarantee 
success but to be a credibl

Re: [Marxism] Leninism: Communist Party Membership Figures

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark Wrote (about the suport of the CP for the Democratic Party)

>There is no such alliance, no such coalition. The component of a 
coalition
>or an alliance gets something out of it. The CPUSA in Connecticut 
has
>gotten nothing out of ringing doorbells for Joe Lieberman...at 
least,
>nothing good for it or anyone else

What the Party gets for its support of the DP now is access or the 
ability to intersect with social movements it feels are important, 
such as labor and civil rights organizations. In Detroit party 
members 
were dutifully working the phone banks for Obama in union halls 
while 
promoting the People's Weekly world, etc. If this sounds like they 
are 
not getting much out if it, you are right but these are modest 
times for 
every self described socialist/communist. This was not so in the 
past. 
In April of 1941 Earl Browder began serving a 4 year prison 
sentence 
for his role in a Comintern mission to aid the Chinese Communist 
Party. 
After the attack on Pearl harbor FDR freed Browder as a "gesture of 
national unity."

Tom Kerry wrote this in his 1957 review of "The Communist Party vs.
the CIO" by Max Kampelman.

>The CP had a corps of trade-union militants and organizers trained 
>in the unions of the TUUL and unemployed organizations who were 
>thrown into the organizing drives of the formative period of the 
>CIO. Many of these quickly rose to positions of prominence in a 
>number of the new unions. Above all, with their new Peoples Front 
>line of support to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, the CP 
>followers found a common language and arrived at a common policy 
>with the other union leaders who directed the CIO.

The process he described ultimately led to the CP controlling 
unions 
representing a quarter of the entire membership of the CIO and 
brought 
it to the height of its influence within the labor movement.  These 
unions (except for the United Electrical Workers) were destroyed in 
the great anticommunist purge conducted by the CIO in 1949 and 
the event that triggered it was the CP's support of Henry Wallace 
in the 1948 presidential election. Obviously failure to stay in a 
coalition with the DP destroyed that "common language" that Kerry 
referred to.

>...have all those detailed records survived and been available to 
the scholars who are >coming up with these numbers? I don't know 
the answer to this, but the question's >worth asking if we want to 
know how reliable the numbers are.

 I will concede that the exact number of CP members, at certain 
moments,
may never be absolutely known. I hope you will consider that there 
is a 
level of certitude which is irrelevant. There was a dynamic of the 
undeniable growth of the CP in the 1930’and if numbers were getting 
fudged, they weren’t doubling or tripling the exact figures as was 
probably the case in early 20’s. I think the more important 
question 
is who was joining and where they were joining. The figures at the 
state or local level are a lot harder to find and in this regard 
the 
comprehensive account promised in Gregory Taylor’s “The History of 
the North Carolina Communist Party” will be interesting. (Please 
note 
that this book was published this year by the U of South Carolina 
Press 
and I do not have it yet. I made this chart by taking figures from 
a 
review so if anyone has the book please feel free to double check 
these with the original text.)

1931  99 (of which 68 were African-Americans)
1933  33
1938  95
1945  50
1946 250
1957  30  
1960   1

North Carolina was an important manufacturing center for both 
furniture
and textiles and Party activists were involved in trade union work 
there. 
During the “dual unionist” phase of the Trade Union Unity League, 
the CP 
launched both the National Textile Workers Union and the Furniture 
Workers 
Union. North Carolina was a battleground during the national 
general strike 
of textile workers in 1934  led by the United Textile Workers 
involving 437,000 strikers. Throughout the South, 17 workers were 
killed by the police, National 
Guard, and company gunmen. The  strike failed and in an article in 
“The 
Communist” of Nov. 1937, the author admitted that “The Communist 
Party’s 
forces in the striker’s ranks were too weak to stem the retreat and 
we had 
little influence upon the leadership.” 

This is not to say that the CP’s union work was a total failure 
because 
it was not. At many levels the Party played an essential role in 
the 
organization of the CIO and wound up controlling 18 of those unions 
representing 1,213,000 members (26% of all the membership of the 
entire 
Congress of Industrial Organizations). Where it failed was to 
translate 
any of this organizational success into significant

Re: [Marxism] Nepal: Maoists seize Kathmandu

[sobuadhaigh]

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Artesian wrote:

>I have very little information on the real progress 
>of this struggle and would welcome any links, etc. to sources.

I always check the "Revolution in South Asia" site which
is an "Internationalist Info Project" of Kasama. You can link 
to it off of the main site: , 
or go directly there at 

It has a great range of news & commentary/debate. It is 
partisan of course but does a good job of covering
multiple perspectives within the revolutionary movement.

The online news service of the BBC does extensive reporting but I 
don't know if the Kathmandu newspapers print all their editions 
online.

Lal Salaam



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism It's Not What You Think

[sobuadhaigh]

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Mark wrote:

>but some basic source criticism is in order

>But why are these Comintern figures reliable? What I mean is where 
would
>they have been getting the numbers from, if not the American CP.

>As to Browder's claim that 1/7 of his party in 1927 had been 
around from >the beginning, how would he know that?

First off, is this discussion worth having? A critical 
analysis of the historical experience of the CPUSA is 
relevant. It belongs here and not on the “dustbin of 
history” list set up by our esteemed moderator. The 
strategy of the Communist Party and the way in which 
it has evolved is a direct product of the class struggle 
in this country and the attempt to apply an ideology of 
revolutionary transformation to the economic and political 
realities of this society. That strategy was tragically 
flawed from the beginning but it nonetheless derived from 
a revolutionary organization that for a time actually 
gained some political traction with the American people. 
The membership figures are an important piece to this 
puzzle and it is worthwhile to devote some time to 
nailing them down.

There is a range of scholarship on CPUSA encompassing 
the ideological gamut. They disagree about many things
but all the stuff I have read is pretty consistent on 
the size and the rate of growth of the Party.
This consensus can be summarized as follows:

>Throughout the 1920's it remained a small group, 
>torn apart by internal strife that required frequent
>intervention by the Comintern. In the 1930's the 
>party started to grow.
"The Soviet World of American Communism" by Klehr, 
Haynes, and Anderson.

This book is a right wing attack on the CP based on 
archives of the Russian Center for the Preservation 
and Study of Documents of Recent History (RTsKhIDNI). 
This collection contains both the records of the Comintern 
(including Intelligence reports) and the records of the 
CPUSA itself sent there for safekeeping. From this source 
this work estimated a membership of 66,000 in 1939 and 
estimate that for every member there were 10 active 
sympathizers. Browder claimed 100,000 at the time and 
Max Gordon, a communist militant and journalist who lest 
the party in 1958 (after 30 years) wrote that in 1939 
there were 75,000 regular members and 20,000 members 
of the Young Communist League.

The Comintern report cited by Draper was a public 
article written by Jay Lovestone. The inaccuracy of 
the foreign language records derived from the practice 
of counting husbands and wifes as members when only the 
husband was actively engaged in party work. Canon, 
Ruthenberg, Foster and Lovestone were all in the 
faction opposing the influence of the foreign 
language federations and their political line.

As to the accuracy of records, the answer is there are 
some periods with more records than others and those 
periods with more records give sa good picture of the 
total numbers. Keep in mind that a member was always 
defined as someone who  "accepts the party program, 
attends the regular meetings, who pays dues regularly, 
and is active in Party work."  The significnt financial 
support of the Comintern mean that here were always a 
large number of full time cadre and one of their jobs 
was to dutifully record dues payments. There was also a 
detailed system to record transfers to other branches 
and even temporary withdrawals to get at break for the 
demands of Party work.  All this generated lots of records 
that were essential to keep so that the Party could 
determine their dues finances which were also tied 
to membership standing. Putting exaggerated membership 
figures in a press release is one thing but internal 
records needed to be accurate. For this reason Browder 
would have been able to determine from the dues records 
how  many of the original members in the various CP's 
were still in the party in 1927.

What were all those people attracted to and working for? 
The CPUSA does indeed have, and has always had, a “strategy.” 
In 1934 Alex Bittleman succinctly stated it in “The Communist 
Party in Action.”

>The chief strategic aim of our Party in the present 
>period is to win the majority of the working class 
>for the struggle against capitalism under our leadership.

In 1969, the 19th national convention still maintained that,

>“the necessary means for securing…power is a Marxist-Leninist, 
>working class party-a revolutionary party dedicated to a 
>fundamental transformation of society. It must be a party 
>that applies Marxism-Leninism to the struggles of the 
>workers and their allies, a party that seeks to guide 
>that class to power.”

The problem was that 35 years after Bittleman wrote that 
pamplet beginning with

“You have joined the Communist Party of the United State

Re: [Marxism] Leninism It's not what you think

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Mark wrote (concerning CP membership figures):

>The sources used for membership numbers are more
>important than the numbers. Whose numbers are they
>and, more importantly,where did they get them
>(No, "academic" sources are an insufficient
>description and no guarantee we're dealing with
>anything other than external claims or internal kiting.)

For the very early period of the CP I think the relevant chapters 
in Theodore Draper "The Roots of American Communism" are the best. 
In chapter 23 he specifically discusses the problem of pining down 
the the true size of the forces as they finally fused into a single 
party. The high estimates that Greg cites were bandied around back 
then but I have always been suspicious of the figures provided by 
the foreign language federations. Draper cites Comintern reports 
criticizing the accuracy of the reported membership totals and 
gives his estimates (between 6-8,000 in 1922 and 8-10,000 in 1923.) 

Interestingly enough, In an article for "The Communist" (Sept. 1939)
Earl Browder's says that in 1927 the CP had 7,000 members but that 
only 1,000 of them had been in the Party since the beginning in 
1919. Whatever the true number of the very early CP, the vast 
majority did not stick around.



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: It's not what you think

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Greg wrote about his recent "WTF" response to my comments 
on the Communist Party:

>My only source for those numbers (I state sheepishly) is 
>from the wiki page on the CPUSA. 

Let me be of help comrade. Harvey Klehr, a communist militant 
and journalist who left the party in 1958 after 30 years. 
He wrote a critique of a review of two studies of the CPUSA 
published by the NY Times in 1982. In that review he cites 
some membership figures for both the Socialist and Communist 
Party over the period we have been discussing. These figures are 
in line with the scholarly work I have read and so allow me
to share them.

 SP  CP
1930   10,000   7,000
1931   21,000  21,000
1936   15,000  40,000
1939 6,500 75,000
  (+ 20,000 in the Young Communist League)

The consensus among historians is that CP membership peaked
at over 100,000 In 1944 after the party had liquidated itself
to become the Communist Political Association so as to function
more closely with the Democratic Party.

Given that all politics is local it is useful to look at
state party membership as it fluctuated throughout these years.
In Gregory Taylor’s “The History of the Communist Party in North 
Carolina” there is this very interesting passage.

>In 1931 there were ninety-nine Communists in the state,
>sixty-eight of them African-American. Two years later 
>two-thirds of the members had quit. Between 1935 and 1938 
>there was little improvement, with membership barely making 
>it back to the 1933 level. The war years were hard and the 
>party reached its "nadir,"with only about fifty members in 
>1945. The following year membership shot up to 250…. 
>1951 inaugurated a period of "slow decline" even though 
>the party's opposition to the Korean War "energized the 
>Party". By 1957 there were thirty Communists in the state; 
>three years later there was one.



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Re: [Marxism] The CPUSA is still ga-ga

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Tom wrote :

>including for the world-historic victory of the revolution in
>1949, one of the most epochal events in human history? give us a
>break!

(referring to an earlier post I had written)
>> That is the realm of perdition reserved for anything
>> in China after 1927

I would certainly agree with you on the epochal
part but I have it on good authority here that there
really was no Chinese revolution. In fact Mao Zedong
represented merely 3 degrees of separation from
Deng Xiaoping meaning the the Chinese embrace of
capitalism from the 1990's on was an inevitable product
of the revolution that never happened. There are details
about the average size of land holdings by peasants in
Northern China which I will be happy to send you off list.
Please pay attention comrade and read the posts on China
more carefully.
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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: It's not what you think

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David wrote:

>…it's interesting to ponder that the parties of the
>3rd international….seem to avoid sectarianism,
>or at least chronic bouts of splits.

Artesian was right to point out that there were plenty
of splits in the formative period of the CPUSA but it
is also true that thee splits never shattered the organization.
Those that were expelled or broke away started small and
usually got smaller. I think there was only one European
party where the Right Opposition temporarily had a majority .
The cohesiveness of the Third International came
from the unquestioned prestige of the Soviet Union which
the other groups struggled, unsuccessfully, to confront.

Louis wrote of this same period:
>… CP's emerged out of a mass movement. Even if their leaders
>were allowing themselves to be manipulated by the Kremlin, on the
>local level they had much more of an organic relationship to the
>mass movement than small Trotskyist and Maoist groups that tended
>to focus on "the correct line". Of course, the CP's were never
>capable of seizing power since the Popular Front turn had
>effectively turned them into social democratic organizations sui
>generis.

Was the CP any closer to seizing power before the Popular Front?
Was it any more effective trying to form “red unions” during the
TUUL Era? Was its membership any more proletarian? I am also
uncertain as to what “mass movement” the CPUSA emerged out of.
It certainly wasn’t the labor movement which remained firmly anti-
communist. Unless you count the substantial number of
disgruntled SP members, particularly in the foreign language
federations, there was no “mass movement.” There was a larger
number of revolutionaries than are active in America today  and
they certainly did struggle to build a united party around a
“correct line” acceptable to the Third International.

That is all in the past of course. The way forward to that
mass, revolutionary party is still to be determined.
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Re: [Marxism] The CPUSA is still ga-ga

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I take it that when Louis posted the article by 
Jon Bechtel with no more commentary than the "ga-ga" 
in the subject line, he was consigning the Communist 
Party USA to the lowest depths of Marxmail hell. 
That is the realm of perdition reserved for anything 
in China after 1927, the turn to industry, and craven 
liberals masquerading as socialists. I believe that level 
of chastisement deserves the analysis of a more substantive 
document.How about the recent report by the 
chairman himself, Sam Webb, made to the National Committee 
in November which I think qualifies as fairly definitive.
It is a long document so permit me to excerpt the most
important part to fairly assess whether the historic party of 
the Third International is, in fact, ga-ga over Obama.
My question is, had Sam the time to post this on Marxmail would he 
have been booted from the list for being a liberal? (I did note 
that the CP is not endorsing the "surge" in Afghanistan and 
has called for protests against it).


>Some political and ideological questions

>The president doesn’t simply register and reflect the 
>balance of power; but he influences it as well; no 
>other person has as much power as the president. To 
>identify him as a centrist democrat akin to Clinton 
>or Carter or Kennedy conceals more than it reveals; 
>it’s too neat. It doesn’t help us understand him as 
>a political actor and his place in the broader movement 
>fight for progressive change. And it can quickly lead 
>to narrow tactics and a wrong-headed strategic policy.

>Some say, for example, that the strategic role of the 
>left is to criticize the president, to push him from left. 
>But is that a good point of departure strategically? 
>Doesn’t it elevate a tactical question to a strategic one?

>Criticizing the president (especially in the internet age) 
>takes little imagination or effort, far less than activating 
>the various forces that elected him last year. To do the 
>latter takes a strategic sense, flexible tactics, creative 
>thinking, and sweated labor. The president’s report card, 
>it could easily be argued, is better than the coalition 
>that elected him. He doesn’t get an A, but neither do we.

>There are no prohibitions against criticism of the 
>president, but it should be done in a unifying and 
>constructive way. We shouldn’t lose sight of two things
>that should frame our attitude: first, the task of expanding, 
>broadening, deepening, unifying, and activating the strategic 
>alliance that will drive the process of change; and second, 
>an appreciation of the main class and political obstacles 
>to progressive change.

>The success or failure of the Obama presidency will 
>resonate for years. A deep imprint on class and racial 
>relations will be part of his legacy. It is hard to 
>imagine how a successful struggle for reforms can happen 
>without the president or how anyone other the extreme right 
>and sections of the ruling class would benefit if his 
>presidency fails.






 



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Re: [Marxism] What if the Sun does not rise?

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> Nestor wrote:
 
> "From the military point of view, the Viet Namese didn?t "win" 
>the war.  Not even the famous Tet offensive finished with a VN 
>victory.

I beg to differ. The National Liberation Front and the 
North Vietnamese military did, in fact, decisively "win" 
the Vietnam war. The mistake Nestor and many others make 
is to try and separate out different aspects of armed conflict 
instead of seeing them as a whole. I will follow Clausewitz in 
insisting that for war to be understood, "the part and whole 
must always be thought of together."

The destruction of US imperialism's political goals in SE 
Asia was a military defeat. All war "starts from a political 
condition and is called forth by a political motive." War is 
never independent of this political context but because it is 
in essence a "political instrument."

How did this military defeat occur? In short US forces were 
required to shore up a regime crumbling under the blows of 
a people war waged by the National Liberation Front. The 
massive presence of ground combat units staved off the 
collapse of the South Vietnamese government but was effectively 
countered by the introduction of regular force units of the North 
Vietnamese Army, particularly in the Central Highlands. From 1965 
until the last American troops left, the goal of the US was to 
aggressively seek out and destroy these units. This was never, 
ever accomplished. It is true that in the many battles fought,
the best the NVA could do in any individual engagement with US 
forces was a draw, but this is irrelevant. Even the defeat of 
Giap's insurrection strategy of Tet never deprived the ability 
of NVA & VC units from maintaining the initiative in their areas 
of operation. The US military supported by tons of ordnance and 
billions of dollars pursued a decisive battle for years and in 
the end they were forced to leave and the war was "lost."

Was the US antiwar movement part of the equation? Of course 
it was but Artesian is correct in stating that it was declining 
in influence and presence as the war was reaching its climax. 
He is also correct to point out the Great Society's imperialism 
and social programs (guns & butter?) ended in economic decline 
and a severe recession. All of this comprises the parts 
of the greater whole that Americans dub the "Vietnam War." As one 
comrade in arms told me, "we could not make them give up." 
True that and this is precisely why the US lost the Vietnam war 
militarily, politically, ideologically, and in any other way you 
wish to enumerate.

Nestor's larger point is well worth considering about the 
difficulty of mobilizing a mass antiwar movement now given 
the political limitations of the forces contending with US 
Imperialism now. The groups that specialize in demos will 
organize them but will a great deal of the "peace & justice" 
base be absent? If they are is this just because they are still 
"gaga"over Obama or will there be a reluctance to enter into 
a principled internationalism given the program of the Taliban? 
I don't know the answer to that one. I suppose the controversy 
here will be should this question even be raised.

For those of you demanding my specific quotes, here that are and 
they are not by Marx, but well worth considering.

Krieg einer Gemeinheit - ganzer Völker - und namentlich gebildeter 
Völker geht immer von einem politischen Zustande aus und wird nur 
durch ein politisches Motiv hervorgerufen. Er ist also ein 
politischer Akt.  Vom Kriege, Erstes Buch:Über die Natur des 
Krieges, 
#23.

Wir sehen also erstens: daß wir uns den Krieg unter allen Umständen 
als kein selbständiges Ding, sondern als ein politisches Instrument 
zu denken haben; und nur mit dieser Vorstellungsart ist es möglich, 
nicht mit der sämtlichen Kriegsgeschichte in Widerspruch zu 
geraten. 
Vom Kriege, Erstes Buch:Über die Natur des Krieges, #27.



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[Marxism] 4 + 1 Internaional

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I read with some interest that the Fourth International
has endorsed the call by Chavez to launch the Fifth 
Socialist International. Is this preplanned obsolescence
on their part or another attempt at entryism? According to
Francois Sabado,


>Chavez situates the building of the Fifth
>International in continuity with the Fourth. 

No, he did not as in the speech the lessons of the 1st, 
2nd and 3rd were discussed but the “4th” was not mentioned. 

>We have already declared on many occasions: what do labels matter, 
>if there is convergence over the content. 

Does that include the label “Trotskyite”?

>It is in this spirit that the Fourth international, its 
organizations 
>and its militants, will answer “Present”!

This sounds really stupid in English. The correct term is 
“Presente!”
without the “benefit” of translation. According to this rendition, 
the Fourth International sounds like a kid responding to a 
substitute 
teacher taking attendance.

I am not sure what will become of the Fifth Socialist International,
but I am pretty sure very few people will notice the passing of the 
Fourth.



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[Marxism] Long Live the 5th International!

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from a dispatch by Felipe Stuart on the 
first extraordinary congress of the PSUV:

>Chavez called for the launching of the Fifth
>International. He had taken some time to explain 
>the history of the First, Second, and Third Internationals. 
>His call was not ex abrupt. It was a serious proposal, 
>and he ended the speech with a series of chants, including
>"Long Live the Fifth International!" 


It appears that Chavez is also acquainted with
the Fourth International(s) too or else he would 
not have claimed the number five. Are there any 
Fifth Internationalists on the list? Does this mean 
that all those cool hammer and sickle designs with
the number four are now obsolete? Is Stuart's
later mocking of 

"...the self-appointed vanguards and telephone-booth 
internationals" 

a specific reference to Trotskyism or a more
general attack on the non-Bolivarian left?



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Re: [Marxism] Come back Karl

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Artesian wrote,

>.. why weren't the CP's of the DDR and the
> fSU able to mobilize workers in those 
>countries to salvage those first historical 
>attempts?  Because, perhaps, the CPs in 
>question were responsible for the decay of 
>those attempts? Because the CP's were totally 
>discredited with the workers, and with the 
>overwhelming mass of the population?  

Artesian is right that the party was 
certainly discredited with industrial 
workers whose vote in the 1990 
elections went to a right wing block
lead by the Christian Democrats and after 
that to the list of the SPD. Left wing 
parties still pulled 20% of the vote
and were heavily supported by teachers.

I think about this whenever I go to 
leftist conferences and note there are
very few steelworkers in attendance but 
always an abundant supply of public school
employees. Does this count as working class 
involvement in America's struggling 
revolutionary movement?



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Re: [Marxism] The Russia Question

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Louis wrote:

>But from everything I have read 
>of Getty online, including his most 
>ambitious work co-authored with a 
>Russian historian, there is absolutely 
>no engagement with Marxism. There 
>is no sense of an understanding of the 
>relevance of historical materialism to 
>the Soviet Union. It is strictly a number 
>crunching exercise 

I have not read Getty but so far the best
of the Stalin revisionists I have read is
Robert Thurston at Miami University, 
the author of "Life and Terror in Stalin's 
Russia,1934-1941." This work is far beyond
number crunching and does a superb job
of restoring some measure of materialism 
to the understanding of life and society during 
the worst of the Stalin era. Not only is 
it an antidote to Conquest, but also confronts
the entire "totalitarian" construction of
history.



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Re: [Marxism] The Chinese Revolution (90 Years later)

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Artesian wrote:
>I have a copy of Bianco's book and intend to
>read it as soon as I finish some work on
>railroads and the Mexican revolution
>I'll make you a deal-- you get Waistline to
>read my "thin list," and you read Huang's studies,
>and in return I'll read every book on the list you
>provided, including the one on Mao's political thought.
>Deal?

>
If Waistline is so inclined I will lend him
my copy of "Problems of the Chinese Revolution,"
and throw in "Stalin's Failure in China"and then,
later, buy (some of)the beer to discuss all this
at the Gaelic League. Any other comrades
in the Detroit area are invited too.
As to Huang, do you mean Philip C. C. Huang
(The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China)?
If so it looks like the first 40 pages are online
and I am sure I can find the book here.

For your end of the bargin, let me suggest
some modifications. You should really begin
with The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist
Peasant Movement, 1922-1928 (Harvard East
Asian Series, No. 90) ~ Roy Hofheinz Jr. and
read that in conjunction with The Foundations of
Mao Zedong's Political Thought, 1917-1935.
You can get both of these used from Amazon
for about two dollars each. Reading those two
first and then going through the most important
chapters of Bianco (4, 5, & 6) will give a
very interesting contrast in interpretation.

These are the most important and if you have time
after that, Sun Shuyun's account of the Long March
is very compelling and well written.

For future discussions, I hope we return
to the comment someone made about an emerging
Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism.
It was just getting started and then vanished
too soon.



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Re: [Marxism] Historic WWP Conference

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Butterfield wrote: 

>The Workers World Party 50th anniversary conference this 
>past weekend was an important milestone for the coming 
>year of struggle. 

Do tell, did anyone there reveal the reasons 
why Brian Becker and a substantial part of the 
WWP walked out and set up the Party 
of Socialism and Liberation? Is this still a 
secret? What ever happened to the time honored 
tradition of drawing the appropriate lessons 
behind such a significant split? Is it possible
to have a two line struggle when no one knows 
what the hell the lines are? 

Given the importance of the WWP to the "coming 
year of struggle" I am quite sure that someone, 
somewhere in that organization has discussed 
this thoroughly. It has been a few years true 
but I would honestly like to know what the hell 
happened. These were the folks, after all,
that organized all those demonstrations in DC
back when people still protested imperialist war.



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Re: [Marxism] The Chinese Revolution (90 Years Ago)

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Louis wrote:

>I thought I set up a mailing list for the express purpose of
>picking at old scabs.
>
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soviet_legacy/
>
Obviously an invitation to end
the discussion.

I have not joined the "old scab"
mailing list,and have no intention
to do so, because revolutionary
history is not a "scab." True, it
can be discussed in a pedantic yet 
thoroughly uniformed manner and
it often is on this list. Still
there is often a new insight to
be gained or a new source to investigate
which comes up in these exchanges.
It was not a waste of time to debate
the legacy of Fred Hampton and the
Black Panther party. Picking on that
scab, which started rather inelegantly,
produced a piece by Boynton that
was one of the finest things I have
read here.

I will do my best to refrain
from discussing anything related
to Chna older than yesterday's 
New York Times, but will no doubt
fail. I will respond to Artesian's 
challenge via out dueling reading lists
and leave it that. La Guerre Est Finie



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Re: [Marxism] The Chinese Revolution (90 years ago)

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Artesian wrote:

>Or we can read a few things before we engage 
>in combat-- like Isaacs' Tragedy of the Chinese 
>Revolution, and/or Trotsky's Problems of 
>the Chinese Revolution, available on the 
>Marxist Internet Archive. 

This is a very thin reading list comrade, 
to engage in such serious combat as
consigning the Chinese revolution to
oblivion because of the events of 1927.
The statement, too, that "we all know what 
happened to the united front" implies a 
simplistic polemical certainty to 
something as complex as 20th century
Chinese history. I am not sure at all
what we are all supposed to know.

On the way to the fight, here are a few
more readily available works:

Enemies and Friends: The United Front in 
Chinese Communist History by Lyman Van Slyke 
(Stanford)

Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949 
by Lucien Bianco  (Stanford)

Power Relations Within the Chinese Communist 
Movement: A Study of Documents
By Tso-Liang Hsiao (Univ. of Washington)

The Foundations of Mao Zedong’s Political Thought, 
1917-1935 by Brantly Womack (Univ. Hawaii)


I guess I am supposed to believe that here
was indeed an authentic Chinese communist
movement rooted in the Shanghai proletariat
which was utterly and totally destroyed
in the fateful year of 1927. The blame for 
this is because no one was listening 
to Trotsky at the time and therefore Stalin
proved the utter futility of the United
Front for all time.

The United Front with the QMD would surface
again during the war with Japan but by
this time the revolutionary movement 
was lead by Mao Zedong and the Chinese 
Communist Party was no longer communist 
because the Red Army was composed of 
peasants.

The simplified narrative above is easy
to remember and argue ad nauseum, but it
has yet to convince me. 

I do not doubt for a second that Stalin
& the Comintern made a whokle serious 
of catastrophic errors as outlined in
Stalin's Failure in China by Conrad Brandt.
I am also aware that before the United Front
with Sun Yat Sen, the Communist Party
was an insignificant sect and after this 
alliance it became a national political 
force with a strength of 60,000. 
Half of the cadre survived the slaughter 
initiated by Jiang and what emerged from 
the cauldron of the next eight years was 
a movement that was able to organize,
lead, and involve millions to 
make a revolution 

There is a great deal of study 
that needs to be done on 1927. I am
hopeful that as a new generation of 
Chinese historians come to the US
and publish in English there will be 
more work available on the level of 
The Long March: The True Story of 
Communist China's Founding Myth by 
Sun Shuyun. Work such as this
has the ability to illuminate this 
subject better than a library of 
ideologically driven polemics. 



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[Marxism] Marxmail at its finest

[sobuadhaigh]

There are times on this list when
I forget the cynicism and irritation
some of the debates engender and
truly appreciate the work of Louis
and Les at making the whole thing go.
Such has been my response to the series
of posts on the Black Panther Party.
I found it absolutely fascinating
to read the radically different
responses of Tom and Louis to the
same event - the speech by Fred Hampton
to a YSA convention in Chicago in 1969.

I was not surprised by the resulting
dismissal/glorification of the Panthers
and expected the debate to simply
stagnate and end there. Instead, thanks
to Anthony's superb piece on 8 Nov. and
the impressive response of the same day
by Artesian, this exchange became
something far greater. I can honesty
say that thanks to the the quality of
these contributions I was also moved to
re-evaluate some of my own judgments
on this period and consider those
years again in a new light.

There is now on the "A Few Words in
Defense of the Black Panthers" thread
a recurring memory of the disconnect
between different generations of
revolutionaries and the tragic failure
to support and learn from each other.
I remember well when Gus Hall was
denouncing every radical group outside
the Communist Party as the "phony left"
while at the same time the country was 
on fire with outrage and anger over 
racism and imperialism.  Nestor
wrote powerfully of the agony across the
generational divide in Argentina as
young activists hurled themselves
into their repressive state, only
to be consumed.

There are no easy answers to these
questions and very few places to
discuss and struggle with them.
This time Marxmail has proven
itself more than equal to the task.



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Re: [Marxism] Internationale in Irish

[sobuadhaigh]

Einde wrote (concerning
Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile )
>
>A lovely song - but nevertheless a Jacobite song
>in support of.the counter-revolution in Britain.

This is why Padrig Pearse wrote new
lyrics and it is this version sung by
Sinéad O'Connor and used by the volunteers
of Óglaigh na hÉireann as shown in this
scene from "The Wind that Shakes the Barley."



It is a fine rebel song whose lyrics
have meaning today, and not just in Éire.

Welcome oh woman who was so afflicted,
It was our ruin that you were in bondage,
Our fine land in the possession of thieves...

'Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar,
Do b' é ár gcreach tú bheith i ngéibheann,
Do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh méirleach,



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Re: [Marxism] Internationale in Irish

[sobuadhaigh]

Matt, 
Thanks for posting that version
of the Internationale. But then again,
everything sounds better in Gaeilge
and here's proof:





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Re: [Marxism] Correction/INLA

[sobuadhaigh]

My Thanks to Donal on correcting my post
referring to he Irish National Liberation
Army - INLA. From the INLA prisoners 
in the Irish Republic came this statement
posted recently on the Gaelico blog. 

“We, the members of the Tony McClelland Cumann, 
E4 Landing Portlaoise Gaol, unanimously support 
the leadership of the Republican Socialist 
Movement and in doing so fully endorse the 
ongoing developments presently taking place.

We fully support the leadership of the Irish 
National Liberation Army and the decision that 
“The armed struggle is over.” We look forward 
with confidence as our movement continues to 
work towards achieving our ultimate goal of 
establishing a 32 County Irish Socialist Republic.

Saoirse go deo”.

Paul Kelly, Gerard Mackin, Eugene Kelly, 
Jonathan Keogh, Noel Mooney, Paddy Walls, 
Owen Claile, Dennis Dwyer, Neil Myles, 
John McCrossan, Gerard Kelleher, Thomas Kelly, 
Barry Petticrew, David O’Connor



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Re: [Marxism] Armed Strugle

[sobuadhaigh]

Artesian wrote:

"You say that the relationship between armed
and mass struggle requires serious consideration.
Indeed it does. Consideration more serious than
simple praise, defense, of the actions of a sect
"that opposes class-conscious mass actions."

I am most certainly reading your postings
on this topic. You apparently are not reading
mine. Nowhere have I ever offered simple
praise for the Naxalites or anybody
else for that matter. I asked Rajesh 
if they are criminals. I will ask you 
the same thing.

"What is the content of that
confrontation? Self-style vanguards,
wearing Chairman Mao buttons marching
in the streets with AK 47s and red books?"

Again I have no idea whose postings
you are reading because they are certainly
not mine. I discussed the evidence of growing
political polarization and the fraying of
vaunted consensus that gave American capitalism 
such tremendous political stability.
People screaming "kill him" and carrying
assault rifles outside public appearances
by the president are not "thinly veiled
threats." The display of raw right
wing hatred this summer is an indication
of a deepening political polarization 
fully capable of developing into 
violent confrontation. The people I 
witnessed in screaming fights with
the tea baggers were definitely not
from any nano vanguard.


"As for what the American people would or
would not stand for, I think your
assessment is rather superficial, shallow,
and precisely because you base
it on some allegiance, imagined or real,
that you think you, or Marxists,
might or might not share with the
"American people" about Constitutional
provisions and "social contracts."

The observation that there is
a distinctive political culture heavily
influenced by such things as Enlightenment
notions of democratic rights and a
social contract is neither superficial
or shallow. American history does indeed
form the objective conditions that
radicals must either ignore or engage with.
Who said anything about an "allegiance"
to the US Constitution" Marxists must share?
The revolutionary struggle in this country
will indeed be closely involved in the
struggle to protect democratic rights
or it will remain confined to online
posturing and very small groups with
very long names. I do not share your 
pessimism that a military coup or the
suspension of the Bill of Rights 
would elicit nothing in the way of 
mass resistance.

"There is no Soviet Union to prop up 
a Mao, an NLF etc."

I don't have the figures on the tonnage 
of logistical support flowing from the
Soviet Union to China but it is a safe
bet that the vast majority of their aid 
went to the Guomindang because of the 
military alliance period extending from 
1930's through the end of WWII. That the 
Chinese Communist party emerged 
victorious in that struggle does
indicate to me that it is possible to 
have a mass, rural, peasant based 
movement that is class conscious 
precisely because of their invovlemet
an armed struggle to contest state power. 
This is no guarantee of anybody else being 
to do this, of course, and I would
advise against traveling in those 
areas of India currently targeted 
by the government in order to do
your own investigation. It would also 
be wise to base your analysis of 
the Naxalite movement on more than a
couple of posts from one Marxmail 
subscriber and a superficial/shallow 
comparison to Sendero Luminoso. 




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Re: [Marxism] India and Armed Struggle

[sobuadhaigh]

Nada wrote:

"Palestine itself is not engaged in armed 
struggle for socialism. If so, I missed the memo. 
They are engaged in a defensive, somewhat
centrifugally expressed *defensive* armed 
struggle."

Yes comrade, you did indeed miss that 
memo as well as the entire history 
of the Palestinian revolutionary
movement. The Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has been 
fighting for decades to defeat Zionism 
by creating a socialist Palestine. That 
is the meaning of the slogan
"Revolution until Victory" The Democratic 
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) 
is another organization that while not 
as active or influential now, is also 
socialist. These currents in Palestinain 
nationalism were always a minority but 
hey were certainly not "nano groups" and 
both of them had a profound influence on the 
unrelenting struggle against Israeli
occupation. 

Besides missing the memo I am afraid 
you also missed the point of my post. 
My response to Rajesh was specifically 
about his attack on the Maoists of India 
as criminals. Are they?
I did not claim that the the Comumnist 
Party of the Philippine or the Irish 
Republican Socialist Party/Irish National 
Liberation Army had been successful.
I mentioned them as other examples of
revolutionaries that had committed 
themselves to armed struggle (the INLA 
is currently on cease fire but has not 
disbanded). Are these criminals too?

If the purpose of revolutionary
struggle is to not only confront the
power of the state but also to seize 
that power, are there instances when 
armed struggle is justified?
In a world where Communism has 
supposedly been consigned to either
extermination or a permanent 
parliamentary opposition, why the 
persistence of Maoism and the doctrine
of prolonged people's war in places
like Nepal, India and the Philippines?




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Re: [Marxism] India and Armed Struggle

[sobuadhaigh]

Rajesh wrote:
 "...the question for them and their 
proponents is the same.. is there a 
murdering path to socialism/communism?"

No, the question should be: is armed struggle 
a legitimate path to socialism/communism
in India? The same question could be raised 
for the Philippines, or Palestine, or
even Northern Ireland. That revolutionary
movements exist in all those places 
committed to socialist transformation 
through military means does raise important 
issues. Those issues take on an added
urgency now that the Indian state is 
preparing its war of extermination 
against the Maoists.

Rajesh, you keep describing the Naxalites 
as "ultra revolutionaries." Given your
comment above wouldn't it be more accurate 
to simply label them as criminals?
Murder is a crime and in the words of 
Maggie Thatcher consigning the hunger 
strikers to death-
"Crime is crime is crime."



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Re: [Marxism] Blaming Mao & Bad History

[sobuadhaigh]

Daniel wrote:
>
>Well, from THE book, the definitive book on the subject.
>I am referring of course to Jung Chang's biography of
>Mao ("Mao : The unknown story"),

Thank you for replying to my question as
to your source for your alternate version of
Chinese revolutionary history and for you
rather interesting outline of the career of
Mao Zedong. I specifically asked if you had
read anything besides polemical literature as
the basis of your argument and it appears
the answer is no.

"Mao: The Unknown Story"was written to
prove a point the authors already believed.
This is usually a recipe for bad history and
this book is no exception. Be honest now Daniel,
is there any one "definitive" book on a subject so
vast, complicated, and contradictory?
Have you settled other other historical
questions so economically by finding just
one source? Might it just be that you had
already arrived at your conclusions concerning
Chinese history first and then read
"The Unknown Story?"

The heart of Chang and Halliday's argument
is that Mao was a cynical operative of Stalin
who had no real attachment to anything
other than the promotion of his career.
OK then, may I suggest you start by looking
at the whole question of Soviet Chinese
relations and particularly the relationship
between the Communist party of the Soviet
Union and the Chinese Communist Party. Before
you are allowed to cite any "secret documents"
delve into the best analysis of all the public
material via the Soviet press and government
publications by Charles McClane in "Soviet
Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931-1946"
(Columbia). Once you have done that now read
the Stalin/Molotov correspondence concerning
China as well as the recently released transcript
of the meeting between Mao and Stalin
in 1949. Do that and I trust you will find
that McLane's conclusions in 1958
were right on the money and Halliday
writing in 2006 was, not for the first time,
full of shit.

As to Chang's fantasy that Mao was
jumping between the Guomindang and
the CCP and her ridiculous attempt
to prove his innate ruthlessness by citing
an essay written as a schoolboy, it is
hard to know where to begin. Perhaps
"The Foundations of Mao Zedong's Political
Thought: 1917-1935" by Brantly Womack
(Univ. of Hawaii) is as good a place as any.
Womack  surveys all the earliest writing
(including school essays)by Mao and does
a really good job of outlining his earliest
political work in Changsha.

Was Mao a member of the GMD? The
answer is yes because every member of
the CCP joined the nationalists in the
United Front period. Did he only join
the communists because his career
as a nationalist apparatchik was blocked?
If so he picked a hell of a time to make a
career move after the 1927 assault by Jiang
that left the communists either dead, in
hiding, or, in Mao's case, sheltering in a
cave with bandits trying to escape
annihilation. The cynical, and safest
tactic at the time would have been to
dump the Communist Party and stay with
the QMD - not the other way around.

What do you say Daniel? Why not take the
"Maoist" challenge. Before making sweeping
pronouncements why not do a little
investigation first. This involves reading
more than one book and coming to your own
conclusions instead of just parroting
the thesis of a right wing polemic.

Lal Salaam



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Re: [Marxism] crime and history

[sobuadhaigh]

David wrote:
>
>That he (Mao) started off in the Kuomintang, 
>rose up the ranks, then switched 
>to the CCP when he could go up no further, 

Have you read anyting on the history of the Chinese 
revolution (or the history of China for that matter)
that was not a polemic? If so I would like to know
where you got this fanciful "biography".



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Re: [Marxism] Obama and GOP support for Afghanistan

[sobuadhaigh]

Louis posted an article from the NY Times 
on Obama quoting Andrew Bacevich, "a professor 
of international relations and history
at Boston University" according to the Times. 
What was not mentioned was that he was also an 
armored cavalry brigade commander in Desert 
Storm and that his own son was killed in action
in Iraq. He has now become a leading academic 
critic of American militarism.

>Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and 
history
>at Boston University, said, ?There was a time, back in 2003 and 
2004,
>when it was possible to drum up popular support for the war by 
>attaching to the argument claims that the United States of America 
was >eliminating evil and advancing democracy and women?s rights.

>?But this is many years later, with the economy in shambles, 5,000
>American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those notions 
are >no longer as compelling as they might have been. War 
exhaustion sets >in,? said Professor Bacevich, author of ?The 
Limits of Power: The End >of American Exceptionalism.?



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Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail lines

[sobuadhaigh]

Shane wrote:

>But neither do the Chinese Stalinists *use*
>capitalism--they practice it and they
>always have, because capitalists is what
>they are.
>
>

In the undying spirit of narrow sectarian
polemics, Shane interjects a clumsy broadside
into a very interesting, and even nuanced debate
about the direction and function of the Chinese
economy.

Okay comrade, remind me again just when China
became capitalist. If Stalinism equals capitalism
(as Stalin supposedly equals Hitler) then I still
not quite sure of the date that the Communist Party
of China became a corporation. 1921? 1927? 1949? 1966?
The answer is important and when I pressed Louis
on this matter his answer was the mid 90's, although
according to my reading, there was only a 20% share
of the economy in private hands then, which
has increased now to 80%. Luckily for the PRC that
20% state sector includes banking and hence no
financial meltdown last fall.

The point that Luko makes that there is more
at work than just a cheap source of labor for the
West was amply supported  by China's announcement
that it would no longer export heavy metals after
2014. These leaves a lot of American and European
manufacturers of advanced batteries and other
alternate  energy devices/machines scrambling for
log term supplies. This announcement also coincides
with the stated Chinese goal of jumping ahead in
Automobile and truck design to electric powered vehicles. 
As anyone who has used a cell phone in China can 
can attest, a planned infrastructure
improvement "jump" was made in the construction
of an explemplary national grid for wireless
service. Cell phone reception the middle of the Gobi
desert is in fact a whole lot better than it is here
just across the county line.

None of the above makes China a socialist paradise
and it is from my observation far from this goal
and getting further away. China has in fact gone
from being the most egalitarian society on earth
in the late Mao era to where it now equals Nepal
in social and economic inequality. However,I just
don't get Shane's point. Is it that Maoism is
Stalinism and China is still Maoist because of
its embrace of capitalism? Does this mean the CCP,
just like the CPSU, was really just a corporate
entity looking for private profit all along?
The argument is as ludicrous as the fervent
belief in a Kenyan birth certificate for
Barak Obama.



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[Marxism] Now it's official...

[sobuadhaigh]

>From the analysis by Tom Raum, "Obama keeps Bush 
nominees in top post" comes this telling quote:

"The notion that he's moving the government 
to the left is laughable, it's utterly laughable," 
said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the 
Brookings Institution.

Now that it's official I have three questions.

1. Does this guy post on Marxmail and if so what 
is his name here?

2. Do the people carrying assault rifles outside 
Obama's public appearances and those screaming 
"death to socialists" at town hall meetings
know this?

3. Will it require armed struggle to get a 
decent public option, much less a single payer
health plan?

You can read the whole thing at,






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Re: [Marxism] Race and Class Struggle in the US

[sobuadhaigh]

Arn wrote:
>Comrade Butler raised serious issues 
>in his recent email about the
>role of racism in the US class struggle.

>What works do readers recommend to 
>analyze these issues? I will make
>>a compendium from the reader's 
>responses for this list.


It's too bad that Greg was so fixated on conspiracy 
theories related to the SWP and the fate of Trotsky.
He has some interesting things to say about the 
influence of race and on revolutionary struggle 
in America. There is a lot to read on the subject 
and I would suggest one place to start would be 
with some of the recent postings by Mike Ely on 
the Kasama site:

>This piece focuses on what the 1960s tell us 
>about the potential alignments and sources of 
>revolutionary energy in the U.S.

>by Mike Ely

>I wrote:

“Revolutionary rumblings [in the 1960s] 
didn’t take the form of “class against class” 
in the U.S. — and never will.

>Bryan writes:

“Revolutionary rumblings will take 
the form of “class against class,” in 
this country and around the world….You 
don’t claim to be Marxists still, do you?”

>There is a great transition happening 
>in human society — breaking out of the 
>sharp contradiction between social 
>production and private appropriation. 
>But to think that takes the form of 
>workers gathering over here, and 
>capitalists gathering over there — 
>and then a rumble…. well that is 
>non-materialist and non-Marxist 
>(if you will).

>There was in the 1960s a great element 
>of rebellion rising from below (in more 
>ways than often appreciated) and it has 
>much to do with the radicalization of 
>the most oppressed and working class 
>layers of Black people in the U.S. And 
>I don’t believe that great revolutions 
>will arise in our epoch without a great 
>ferment from below — without a driving 
>force (a revolutionary people) arising 
>from below and bringing with them into 
>politics a spirit of “nothing to lose.”

The rest of the article is here:
Class Against Class? Real World Alignments 
for Revolution


This discussion continues through several
more postings on the life and legacy of
George Jackson which are well worth reading

George Jackson & Re-Thinking Revolutionary Strategy








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Re: [Marxism] Words-Cuban economy

[sobuadhaigh]

Nada wrote:
>I think we ought not to get into a debate 
>on the class nature of Cuban society 

Please note that I said absolutely nothing 
abut the class nature of Cuba

>... no one thinks that  Havana ought to become 
>the second city of Ford Motor Company or be the 
>biggest producer of industrial productions...
>...if there is a different model for socialism, 
>that avoids the huge social and environmental 
>dislocations caused by industrialization, 
>please speak up on this too, 

There can also be a heavy environmental
cost by retaining a dependance on
large scale sugar cane production.
In the case of Cuba it was a degree of 
deforestation in order to increase the
acerage under cultivation. I am sure
there are some people on this list
who participated in the goal of harvesting
more cane in order to boast the tonnage
of sugar being exported.

Maintaining an economy based on the
production of commodities (without a
cartel to set prices) usually results
in a fluctuating income from exports
chasing  ever increasing prices for 
manufactured imports. This is what
I meant by the classic formula for
under development. In the Cuban example
all the heroic exammples to dramatically 
increase sugar cane production still
had to contend with an international
commodities market where increased
production is rewarded by falling
prices. The barter system the Cubans
established with the Soviets and 
Eastern Europe kept them in oil
but also tied them to buying certain 
manufactured goods that did not meet
their needs and thus did not help
in the developing an economy to
fulfill socialist objectives. 

I agree there must be changes in the 
conception of economic development so
that it is more and more sustainable 
by being less and less wasteful and 
environmentally damaging. This does not
automatically result from rejecting
manufacturing in favor of retaining
an overwhelming dependence on 
agricultural commodities for export.



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[Marxism] Tariq Ali on Obama and Empire

[sobuadhaigh]

The Kasama site has posted this presentation by 
Tariq Ali on Obama (and American Imperialism
in general) from a conference this summer. 
The talk is well worth listening to.



As long as you're on that site you may 
as well see the Jay-Z Maoist rap video. 



Go ahead, you know you want to.



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Re: [Marxism] Words (Cuban economy)

[sobuadhaigh]

Tom Cod wrote:

>Hey, how much heavy industry is there in Cuba.  Don't they still 
>rely on their traditional natural resource: sugar?
>
The answer is yes, to Cuba's detriment. 
Cuba's top exports are:
Sugar and honey 53%
Nickel  23%
Fish 6.8%
Tobacco  5.6%

and they import oil, food, machinery, chemicals.

Fidel once remarked that although Cuba faced 
a severe challenge with the fall of the Soviet
bloc, at least they didn't have to buy all the
crap Bulgarian machinery they were obligated to
formerly. I am not sure where they buy their 
machine tools and trucks from now but these 
figures would seem to indicate the classic
formula for third world economic 
under development.



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[Marxism] Proletarian Defense II

[sobuadhaigh]

Comrades,
I haven't had time to read all the 
denunciations of "Proletarian Defense 
for Democrats?" yet as I am just back 
from the scene of battle. I am not 
sure about the vaunted reach of 
the Daily Kos or MoveOn or the Obama 
groups, but I saw precious little of 
their mobilizing ability tonight. 
To be fair I never actually made it 
inside the "town hall" meeting as 
over 400 people had already lined 
up an hour and a half before the event.
The room only held 175 so I was stuck 
on the outside surrounded by a bitter 
sea of right wing fanatics. I reminded
myself that being a communist is 
never easy.

This flash mob was diverse but will 
organized with people handing out 
publications and overseerers with 
clipboards stopping chants like
"Kill the Bill" because the kill 
part might not sound good on the
evening news. The LaRouchies were 
there with a huge poster of Obama
with a Hitler mustache that lots
of people had their picture taken
in front of. The LaRouche folks
were quit clear that Obama was a 
fascist and not a socialist and 
this provoked some consternation 
among the Obama is a socialist faction
and for those that couldn't decide 
wether these terms were interchageable
or mutually exclusive concepts.
Rather than initiating a screaming 
fight, as a handful of
Obama supporters were then engaged 
in, I just piled on the questions 
and let them meander to their own
illogical and unsupportable conclusions.
In that way it was kind of like 
posting on Marxmail except people 
here are comrades after all, 
and they can only threaten to 
punch you in the face.

As luck would have it a second
shift of protestors was allowed 
inside and I almost made the cut 
but was stopped by security and now 
this group couldn't go in but didn't 
want to go back outside. They started 
to get loud and soon the aging 
congressman's wife shows up to try and 
calm the water. She has ambitions for 
this seat herself and she did her best 
to show what she could do to diffuse 
the situation. After promising another 
meeting in a larger space people started 
screaming again. A woman ranting about 
abortion was followed by an older guy 
mocking the way the aged congressman 
had lost his committee chairmanship 
to democratic caucus politics. She 
responded "I believe in democracy"
and he shot back, "We don't."

When she finally tired and left 
an organizer type jumped up to begin
a harangue and at this point it was 
time to get loud,and profane, and
the indignant right wing steamroller was
stalled as security intervened and 
evicted everyone outside the building.


The Republican Party is not fascist
but there are fascists in it even though
they are so muddled and incoherent
in their thinking they could not 
even define the term much less 
recognize themselves.  One lady told
me how much she despised aged congressman
except for all the great things he 
had done for veterans through improving
service at the local VA hospital. 
When I told her I had served 
during two eras of war and was eligible 
for comprehensive government paid health 
care through the VA she told me that 
socialism was okay for veterans. 

>From a newspaper distributed tonight 
I found this bit of strategic vision 
from the organizers:

Target: A self-serving, self-
perpetuating political class
that no longer represents the
the will of the people.

The will of the people, as they
see it, is right wing, racially 
tinged populism and there is a whiff
of "by any means necessary" in
their rhetoric and demeanor. The 
question I asked in my last post
remains: what is the best most 
effective way to respond? 




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[Marxism] Proletarian Defense for Democrats?

[sobuadhaigh]

Now that we have dispensed with who 
won WWII, the history of the RKKA/CA,
and the sensational and still un-
substantiated charges by Mark, 
it is time to move on to proletarian 
defense guards for Democrats, specifically 
Democratic congress members attempting to
hold town hall meeting. It sounds wierd, 
true, but I was contacted today as part of 
a mobilization to confront the hysterical
collection of Ron Paulites, birthers,and 
other associated stormtroops who will
be attempting to shut down a discussion
of health care tonight by our aging
congressman. In other parts of the country 
liberal representatives have had to flee
of be escorted out by the police. The
UAW is also supposed  to lend some rank
and file militants to this so we shall
see how things turn out.

Does a proletarian defense guard for an
aging Democratic hack make any sense to
anyone here? It is true that the local
right wing is particularly virulent and 
I noticed seveal "Death to communists" 
at the "tea party" tax protest. It brought
to mind the fact that all the Obama signs/
stickers I saw on campus were defaced with
a Soviet flag stickers. Given how 
incensed these people are one wonders what 
they would do if a real socialist were
in any elected office.

I am not going to agonize now over the 
popular front overtones about all 
this but I really hate these creeps and
I can be as loud as these assholes 
any day of the week. The larger question
remains is that what is the correct path
in this era of political polarization
and the increasing virulence of the
neo-nazi faction of the Republican party.
I would appreciate other comrades experience
and thoughts on this issue.

Lal salaam




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Re: [Marxism] Totalitarianism and Mass Rape (Soldiers and socialism)

[sobuadhaigh]

Nestor wrote:
>Had the war been waged as a war for 
>the extension of socialism, 
>officers on the field, and every soldier 
>to the last, would have had strict 
>political orders to repress rapists 
>on the spot. Shootings included, if 
>necessary. It is politics that leads 
>war, not the other way round.
>
Nestor is absolutely right that the
Red Army and the Soviet government
bear the responsibility for the 
criminal acts committed by their 
soldiers in the field. We must also
bear in mind though that while politics
always aspires to lead war, it is not 
always the case. The Red soldiers, sailors
and workers that stormed the Winter
Palace were definitely fighting 
for socialism. It is also true that 
when the comrades discovered the 
vast wine cellars a good many of 
them were drunk off their butt for 
about two days before order and 
discipline were restored.

It is evident to me that the order
and discipline of the Soviet Army 
regarding looting and rape dissolved 
when they hit German territory. I 
believe the top leadership on the 
spot, political and military lost 
control and the atrocities
ensued. It was an unbelievably savage 
zone of conflict at the end of an 
unbelievably savage campaign. In 1945
Soviet soldiers captured by the 
Germans were beaten to death on the 
spot with the small shovels 
(entrenching tool) carried by 
infantrymen.

Once again, the tenet of the 
totalitarian school believes that 
the evil dictatorship has such 
overwhelming social control that
everything done must be according 
to an official directive. The top 
Soviet priority in the spring of 1945
was to finish off the Nazis as 
quickly as possible and everythng
else became secondary. This was 
tragic for German civilians and
a political disaster when the 
Soviets had to then construct an regime
in East Germany founded on the premise
of eternal friensdship between the 
German and Soviet peoples. The security 
services on the ground knew this which 
is why they were sending those anguished
reports. Does this imply that mass rape
was an organized goal of Stavka and 
the Politburo? Mark has so contended 
and the evidence does not support him.

Could it just be that there were many
other instances in Soviet history
when the party and the government 
were responding to events as they 
imperfectly understood them and, 
in essence, lost control of
situations they were essentially 
reacting to? Was everything in the 
Stalin era a cynical ploy by people 
without commitment to anything other 
than their own murderous hold on power? 
This is an open historical question 
and one which is at the heart of Mark's 
vehemence toward other comrades
on this list.




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Re: [Marxism] Totalitarianism and Mass Rape

[sobuadhaigh]

Mark wrote:
>Anybody who cares to examine the facts 
>knows that Stalin's "Great Patriotic War" 
>was not waged with internationalist 
>principles and the official policy of the 
>USSR unleashed a war against German 
>civilians. The terror was imposed 
>with the institutionally sanctioned 
>mass rape of German females of all ages.
>
I get it now. You really hate the Stalin
and the USSR and these two terms are 
essentially the same thing. I keep
forgetting that totalitarian regimes
are the malignant extension of a 
totalitarian dictator whose cynicism
and brutality animates every aspect 
of life as well as public policy.
I am still unclear as to "the facts"
behind your analysis. Where do they 
reside? With the avalanche of documents
available from former Soviet archives
it should be easy to demonstrate that 
the Soviets planned and executed the 
mass rape of millions of German females 
of all ages. If you have done research
on this I would be most interested in
your findings and in particular which
agency did the operational planning, 
how was this atrocity organized and for 
how long a period of time.

If, on the other hand your polemical zeal
is in advance of your research may I 
suggest you read some literature 
on the subject starting with "Red Storm
on the Reich' by the British military
historian Christopher Duffy. In this 
work Duffy pays a great deal attention 
to the breakdown in the order and 
discipline of the Soviet Army once 
it crossed into German territory.
According to Duffy this breakdown
alarmed Soviet officers because it 
degraded the military capacity of their 
units. For example, tanks were so full 
of looted goods that they could not carry
their full load of ammunition.

The archival documents I am aware of
do talk about rape and these reports 
from the security services were also 
alarmed and highly critical of this 
activity. I believe there was
a wide spread breakdown of discipline 
in Soviet forces as they drove to 
Berlin an this is readily seen in
early works such as "The Last Battle" 
by Cornelius Ryan. In that book Ryan 
depicts a range of actions by Soviet 
units with some maintaining their
discipline and others not. All the
accounts of the fall of Berlin I
have read describe a frenzy of looting 
and rape for around two days after the 
final defeat of the Nazis followed by 
the Red Army bringing order to 
the city and dispensing food to 
civilians.
 



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Re: [Marxism] post "Totalitarianism"

[sobuadhaigh]

Bashkar wrote:  
>The label "totalitarianism" is a staple of 
>bourgeois blather (used to denounce everything 
>from the French Revolution to food stamps), 
>but as a denunciation of Stalinism it's perfectly 
>acceptable.
>
No. it's not acceptable because the bogus
concept of "totalitrianism" is still 
bourgeoisie blather especially when it is 
applied to the Soviet Union or Nazi German 
or anywhere else for that matter. Spare me 
the sermon on the omnipresence of the NKVD 
and fearful conformity of a population 
brainwashed by propoganda. There were 
large administrative regions of the Soviet 
Union where the total NKVD contingent was 
less less than 10, a third of them were 
bridge inspectors, and the official mode
of transportation was by bicycle. As 
undeniably vast as the gulag was, it is
also undeniable that repression was 
never uniformly applied nor 
consistently administered and that 
large sections of the population 
supported the regime for reasons that 
had nothing to do with state terror.

"Totalitarianism" as a concept is a 
staple of the brainwashing begun in 
school textbooks to construct a fearful 
"otherness" for revolutionary 
movements or regimes by trying to make 
them all equivalent to Nazism. Let's
see, Stalin and Hitler both had secret 
police who tortured political 
prisoners and therefore they are the same
phenomenon. We should, therefore, be 
eternally grateful that we live under a 
regime that doesn't engage in propaganda
and imprison its enemies in secret prisons 
where they are systematically tortured.

The above is a much abridged version of
most high school civics courses and of
course it is utter bullshit. Communism 
is not fascism no matter what Glen
Beck believes or what the correct answer
is on a high school exam. The Stalin era
came nowhere close to achieving the "total 
control" over its people as posited by
the totalitarian model.



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