Click on the headline to link to the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace website.
JOIN US In BOSTON
Friday, November llth
To participate in pre-parade actions at the State House and military recruiters, meet at 10:00AM at the corner of Beacon and Charles across from the Starbucks. Bring signs.
The American Legion parade starts 1PM. We will assemble at noon on the corner of Beacon and Charles and march immediately after them.
Participate in a pre-parade picket of the military recruiting offices on 141 Tremont Street as well as the State House
March with us behind the "official" parade
Join us for a post-parade rally at Faneuil Hall with speakers and live music
Meet us at 10:OOAM on Boston Commons at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street across from the Starbucks.
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Veterans For Peace
Contact us at: info@massvfp.org Facebook: Smedley D. Butler Brigade
http://smedleyvfp.org of Veterans for Peace
Phone: 617-942-0328
Twitter: Smedley Butler VFP
VETERANS' DAY 2011
*********
Looking For A Few Good Men…And Women For Peace- A Stroll In The Boston Common On Veterans Day, Circa 2011- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!
Click on the headline to link to the Veterans For Peace website for the latest news.
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Looking For A Few Good Men…And Women For Peace- A Stroll In The Boston Common On Veterans Day, Circa 2011- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!
Markin comment:
Last year when I wrote what amounted to a paean to the Veterans For Peace and their Boston Common anti-war activities on Veterans Day 2010 in the entry, A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day, where I said the following:
“Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.”
And this year I expected to say roughly the same thing, except now that I have worked with them in some actions here in Boston, down in Washington D.C. in front of the Winter Palace (oops, the White House) in some civil disobedience actions, and in front of the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia in defense of the heroic Army private, Bradley Manning, that copy-cat approach doesn’t seem adequate. And here is why.
For an anti-war war veteran there are two kinds of ways to call oneself a veteran. The obvious one is to have “gone into the service,” as my grandmother (and probably many, too many, other grandmothers as well) used to say. The other is to be a veteran of the kind of anti-war actions described above. And, in the old days (the VVAW days) we used to say that kind of veteran service with a certain knowing snicker. A snicker like it was good to know, know finally, that you were on the side of the angels. And so to put paid to this piece let me finish with a story, a story about how a few god men and women kept on the right side of those angels just recently here in Boston.
Everybody with a pulse knows that there is a populist movement that has swept part of America (and the world) this fall looking for a little social justice and an end to the 1% takes all system we have lived under all our lives, the Occupy movement. An attentive news reader also knows that part of the publicity generated around the movement centers on establishing encampments in cities, large and small, in order to dramatize the pressing needs of the great majority of people. Here in Boston that started on September 31, 2011 with successful occupation of a section of the Rose Kennedy Greenway at Dewey Square near South Station. On October 10th elements within the movement attempted to expand the encampment another block and pitched tents accordingly. This “affrontery” set Boston Mayor Thomas Menino into spasms and he ordered out his Cossacks (a. k. a. cops) to disband the rabble, forthwith. At a General Assembly (the decision-making body that drives the camp and the political perspectives) that evening the overwhelming majority of those present and voting voted to defend the second site. As result in the dead of night (about 2:00 AM) the Mayor’s horde descended on the campsite in full combat regalia to arrest the peaceful assembly waiting to defend the site. Some one hundred and forty people were arrested that early morning.
That is the back story, and is more or less widely known by now. What is less well known is that a contingent of veterans, almost all veterans of previous civil disobediences actions, had determined one more time to defend something. This time not the mythical home and country but “family,” a family of mainly younger people who were not as well- versed in cop madness, or the niceties of the nightstick as these veterans. And so as is called for when an encampment is set up in enemy territory that contingent set up a perimeter on the pathway in front of the camp in the direction from which the attack was expected. And it came. The veterans, some of who were arrested and others who were merely pushed aside, or to the ground, “defended” the camp, honorably . And you now know why anything I expected to say about this years Veterans Day anti-war gathering on November 11th pales in comparison. A few good women and men, indeed. And I say that without a snicker today.
Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!
*********
Markin comment 2011:
I am re-posting this entry from last year's Veterans' Day anti-war march as it hits all the main points I want to make on this year's march. Be there!
******
Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists, and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstools”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigagde of the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
Showing posts with label anti-fascist struggle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-fascist struggle. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-Never Forget-From The Marxist Archives-Fascism:How to Fight It And How Not To Fight It
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
*******
LEON TROTSKY ON FIGHTING FASCISTS:
"In this period it is very important to distinguish between the fascists and the state. The state is not yet ready to subordinate itself to the fascists: it wants to ‘arbitrate.’ ... .Our strategic task is to increase these hesitations and apprehensions on the part of the 'arbiter,' its army and its police. How? By showing that we are stronger than the fascists, that is, by giving them a good beating in full view of this arbiter without, as long as we are not absolutely forced to directly taking on the state itself. That is the whole point." —reprinted in Intercontinental Press, 2 December 1974
**********
On 15 June 1974 London's Red Lion Square witnessed one of the bloodiest confrontations between police and left-wing forces in recent British history. Countless demonstrators were beaten with police truncheons, a number were trampled under mounted patrols, and one young man, Kevin Gately, was killed by the cops, his head so brutally battered that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The occasion was a protest against a rally scheduled by the fascist-inspired National Front.
The NF is one of many extreme-rightist organizations that have been surfacing and spreading in Europe during recent months. Their breeding ground is the fear of economic ruin, in particular an intensified competition for jobs in the wake of a worldwide capitalist economic slump.
As in the past, one of the common fascist themes is race hatred against Jews, blacks and now immigrant workers. Former National Front fuehrer John Tyndall was quoted in 1969 as saying: "the Jew is a poisonous maggot feeding on a body in an advanced state of decay" (Sunday Times, 30 March 1969). Along with NF national organizer Martin Webster and others in the group's leadership, Tyndall was during the early 1960's a member of the now-defunct British National Socialist* Movement, which called for "deportation of all non-Aryans" from Britain.
While many of these groups seek to put on respectable airs, their aim is to recruit petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements for the purpose of brutally smashing "the reds" and organized labor. As the history of the rise of Nazism tragically demonstrated, it is literally a life-and-death matter for the workers movement to crush such reactionary paramilitary organizations while they are still weak.
With the growth of the NF in recent years (it polled 113,000 votes in last October's parliamentary elections), many leftists and labor militants have understood the need to stop this racialist anti-communist outfit. The occasion for their protest last June was a National Front meeting against the Labour Party government's decision to grant amnesty to persons deemed “illegal immigrants" under the discriminatory 1971 Immigration Act.
Police Riot at Red Lion Square
On the day of the rally, the 1,500 NF marchers drew up in military formation, drums beating and Union Jacks Flying. Many of the flags were mounted on steel-pointed poles, some of the marchers were dressed in black shirts while others wore army surplus uniforms. A counterdemonstration of about 1,000 was organized by the Communist Party (CP) and Liberation, with contingents of the International Socialists (13) and International Marxist Group (IMG).
Trouble began as the anti-fascist demonstrators approached Red Lion Square, occupied (according to the IS account) by about 500 police including mounted patrols. The bourgeois press and police claim the marchers were told in advance to make a right turn as they entered the square, moving away from the meeting hall where the NF rally was to take place. The left organizations say they were told no such thing. In any case it is clear that a section of the march, with the IMG toward the front, sought to break through the police lines to get to Conway Hall.
The police thereupon launched a baton charge, kicking and punching their way into the crowd. As the momentum of the march carried more people into the square, units of the elite Special Patrol Group, notorious for smashing workers' picket lines, were brought in. They formed a wedge and drove through the crowd, splitting it in two.
The fighting intensified as they cornered one section of the ^marchers in a side street. Then the arrests began. Blood-soaked demonstrators were dragged by their hair to waiting "'police vans and several bodies were left lying in the square, among them Kevin Gately. Some of the remaining protesters regrouped on the side street and jeered the NF marchers, who were now approaching from a different direction. After a pause of about ten minutes, the police suddenly launched a mounted charge against the leftists, a savage and totally unprovoked attack. The National Front column looked on jubilantly, then paraded triumphantly into Red Lion Square cheering the police and chanting, "We got to get the reds'."
The cops' vicious attack, including an unprovoked horse charge and the death of Kevin Gately, are the responsibility of the Wilson government. Gately's funeral drew thousands of angry marchers and the wanton police assault has been vigorously condemned by numerous socialist and union organizations. Yet, incredibly, the government has sought to blame the left, particularly the IMG, for the violence! The recently published Scarman Tribunal report rejected most charges police brutality and denied any responsibility of the cops in: Gately's death. This is in spite of the fact that the demonstrators used no weapons, only the police had instruments which could have caused the head wounds (truncheons and horses' hooves), and there were witnesses to the beating. This "report" is a shameless whitewash of what was in fact a police riot.
However, our proletarian solidarity with the victims of bourgeois "law and order" must not be an excuse to cover up serious errors committed by some leaders of the antifascist demonstration at Red Lion Square. It is not enough to want to fight fascists—one must know how to do it. A New Left policy of confrontation with police who obviously intended to defend the National Front is not the way.
There is no doubt that the IMG sought to break through police lines in order to arrive in front of the meeting hall. Jackie Stevens, a member of the IMG, gave this report: "We came across a line of police, and behind them were mounted police. When we tried to get through to Conway Hall, the police drew their batons and charged..." (Intercontinental Press, 24 June 1974).
It is less clear why the IMG took this dangerously mistaken step. But whatever the prior arrangements with the police; whether demonstrators had made plans beforehand or simply fell into a police trap; if it was bravado or confusion—in any case, the decision to try to push through the police lines was a disastrous move. The fact that the demonstrators lacked any means to defend themselves from the cops' murderous onslaught, while it refutes police theories of a conspiracy to attack the police, only makes this move all the more grievously wrong.
Marxists do not uphold a spurious "right" of fascists to freedom of speech; we call on the labor movement to mobilize to prevent the reactionary terror gangs from spewing out their race-hate poison in mass rallies and by provocations such as their marches in military uniform. But to prevent them from speaking through militant mass action requires a favorable balance of forces—something that was obviously not present in Red Lion Square.
Yes, 20,000 workers could, and should, have prevented the NF from holding its racist meeting. The failure of the unions to mobilize against these anti-labor scum is criminal. But this betrayal cannot be corrected by false heroics, sending several score demonstrators against well-equipped riot police. Not only was one militant killed and many injured, but the National Front scored a significant publicity victory as a result.
"Far Left" Battles Cops in Paris
Unfortunately, such confrontationism is not an isolated phenomenon. In France, while the Stalinists and social democrats systematically abstain from mobilizing the working class ^against the fascists, the fake "Trotskyists" of the United Secretariat (of which the IMG is the British affiliate) have taken a different approach: adventurist clashes with police protecting the fascists. The classic case of this substitutionism occurred on June 21, 1973.
On that date the Ligue Communiste (now Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire), French section of the USec, organized a counterdemonstration against a rally by the fascist Ordre Nouveau ("New Order"). The ON had for some time been campaigning against "wildcat immigration" with virulently racist rhetoric, and had succeeded in provoking assaults on immigrant workers. They planned to highlight this campaign nationally with a mass rally at the Mutuality meeting hall in Paris.
While traditionally the Paris police had not mobilized heavily in conflicts between the right and left, this time they clearly were preparing to defend Ordre Nouveau. First they looked on as the ON turned the meeting hall into an armed camp, moving in van loads of iron pipes, clubs and other assorted weaponry. Then, by the Ligue Communiste's own report, the Mutuality was surrounded by 2,000 police, a veritable army to protect the fascists, waiting for the "far left" demonstrators to make the slightest move.
The LC, which early in the day realized that the police were ready to break up the anti-fascist demonstration, encouraged people to come to the march prepared for a confrontation. The leftists were heavily armed with clubs and molotov cocktails. Thus it was clear from the beginning that the Ligue fully expected a bash with the cops—a battle which, however, they could not possibly win without massive contingents of workers and left militants from all quarters.
When the police cordoned off the area around the hall they were bombarded by incendiaries. The anti-fascist demonstrators then broke up into small groups and long into the night isolated clashes continued throughout the area. While there was no clear military defeat of the leftists, they were unable to do more than harass the -cops and did not stop the fascists. The next day Ligue headquarters were occupied by the police, 25 of its supporters were arrested and the organization was outlawed.
The Spartacist League immediately and vigorously protested this viciously anti-democratic government attack and called for united defense of the Ligue. But we also criticized its adventurist tactics:
"The Trotskyist movement has a long history o£ resistance to fascist groups, including attacking and dispersing fascist meetings.... In this case, however, the presence of massive police force made the relation of forces unfavorable to the left. It would appear that the Ligue Communiste recklessly entered into an adventurist confrontation by attempting to take on the armed power of the state under circumstances which could lead only to the defeat of the left. The correct tactic, given the government's authorization of the meeting, was to mount a campaign calling on the mass workers organizations ... to mobilize tens of thousands of their members to prevent the fascist meeting. In their absence, the Ligue could certainly have organized a mass protest demonstration. This is not the same thing, however, as a futile attempt to overwhelm the police with 1,000 youths."
—"Repeal the Ban on the French Ligue Communiste," WV No. 25, 20 July 1973
I
Portugal: A Hair's Breadth from Disaster
Another instance of stupid guerrillaist confrontation tactics occurred earlier this year in Portugal, where it could easily have had disastrous consequences in an explosive pre-revolutionary situation. On the night of January 25-26 several thousand youth and workers in the northern city of Porto surrounded a meeting hall where the rightist Social Democratic Center (CDS) was holding its national congress. This party's leaders include numerous former officials of the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship.
Four leftist organizations-LUAR, MES, PRP, and LCI-called a demonstration in front of the meeting hall. Their joint communique' merely announced a protest action. After an hour, however, a second demonstration arrived on the scene, this one led by the OCMLP (Portuguese Communist Organization Marxist-Leninist, a left-Maoist group), which in an attempt to stop the congress proceedings attacked the paramilitary police who were protecting the building (Esquerda Socialista, 28 January).
This infantile "heroic" gesture led to baton charges by the special police and a tear gas barrage followed by shots, leaving a dozen demonstrators injured, some seriously. The leftists' only means of defense was to hurl bricks. Then beginning around 8 p.m. the regional military commander sent in several army units. The officer in charge asked the CDS to end the meeting (which it did), while the ranks outside fraternized with the demonstrators.
Due to the hostile attitude of the troops, rightist politicians in the Crystal Palace were afraid to leave the building, however, and during the early morning hours a second paramilitary police unit attacked on horse and in personnel carriers. Soldiers reportedly resisted the police assault. Finally, at 7 a.m. parachutists from a base commanded by conservative officers managed to extract the besieged reactionaries (Luta Popular, 2 February; Revolucao, 7 February).
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
*******
LEON TROTSKY ON FIGHTING FASCISTS:
"In this period it is very important to distinguish between the fascists and the state. The state is not yet ready to subordinate itself to the fascists: it wants to ‘arbitrate.’ ... .Our strategic task is to increase these hesitations and apprehensions on the part of the 'arbiter,' its army and its police. How? By showing that we are stronger than the fascists, that is, by giving them a good beating in full view of this arbiter without, as long as we are not absolutely forced to directly taking on the state itself. That is the whole point." —reprinted in Intercontinental Press, 2 December 1974
**********
On 15 June 1974 London's Red Lion Square witnessed one of the bloodiest confrontations between police and left-wing forces in recent British history. Countless demonstrators were beaten with police truncheons, a number were trampled under mounted patrols, and one young man, Kevin Gately, was killed by the cops, his head so brutally battered that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The occasion was a protest against a rally scheduled by the fascist-inspired National Front.
The NF is one of many extreme-rightist organizations that have been surfacing and spreading in Europe during recent months. Their breeding ground is the fear of economic ruin, in particular an intensified competition for jobs in the wake of a worldwide capitalist economic slump.
As in the past, one of the common fascist themes is race hatred against Jews, blacks and now immigrant workers. Former National Front fuehrer John Tyndall was quoted in 1969 as saying: "the Jew is a poisonous maggot feeding on a body in an advanced state of decay" (Sunday Times, 30 March 1969). Along with NF national organizer Martin Webster and others in the group's leadership, Tyndall was during the early 1960's a member of the now-defunct British National Socialist* Movement, which called for "deportation of all non-Aryans" from Britain.
While many of these groups seek to put on respectable airs, their aim is to recruit petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements for the purpose of brutally smashing "the reds" and organized labor. As the history of the rise of Nazism tragically demonstrated, it is literally a life-and-death matter for the workers movement to crush such reactionary paramilitary organizations while they are still weak.
With the growth of the NF in recent years (it polled 113,000 votes in last October's parliamentary elections), many leftists and labor militants have understood the need to stop this racialist anti-communist outfit. The occasion for their protest last June was a National Front meeting against the Labour Party government's decision to grant amnesty to persons deemed “illegal immigrants" under the discriminatory 1971 Immigration Act.
Police Riot at Red Lion Square
On the day of the rally, the 1,500 NF marchers drew up in military formation, drums beating and Union Jacks Flying. Many of the flags were mounted on steel-pointed poles, some of the marchers were dressed in black shirts while others wore army surplus uniforms. A counterdemonstration of about 1,000 was organized by the Communist Party (CP) and Liberation, with contingents of the International Socialists (13) and International Marxist Group (IMG).
Trouble began as the anti-fascist demonstrators approached Red Lion Square, occupied (according to the IS account) by about 500 police including mounted patrols. The bourgeois press and police claim the marchers were told in advance to make a right turn as they entered the square, moving away from the meeting hall where the NF rally was to take place. The left organizations say they were told no such thing. In any case it is clear that a section of the march, with the IMG toward the front, sought to break through the police lines to get to Conway Hall.
The police thereupon launched a baton charge, kicking and punching their way into the crowd. As the momentum of the march carried more people into the square, units of the elite Special Patrol Group, notorious for smashing workers' picket lines, were brought in. They formed a wedge and drove through the crowd, splitting it in two.
The fighting intensified as they cornered one section of the ^marchers in a side street. Then the arrests began. Blood-soaked demonstrators were dragged by their hair to waiting "'police vans and several bodies were left lying in the square, among them Kevin Gately. Some of the remaining protesters regrouped on the side street and jeered the NF marchers, who were now approaching from a different direction. After a pause of about ten minutes, the police suddenly launched a mounted charge against the leftists, a savage and totally unprovoked attack. The National Front column looked on jubilantly, then paraded triumphantly into Red Lion Square cheering the police and chanting, "We got to get the reds'."
The cops' vicious attack, including an unprovoked horse charge and the death of Kevin Gately, are the responsibility of the Wilson government. Gately's funeral drew thousands of angry marchers and the wanton police assault has been vigorously condemned by numerous socialist and union organizations. Yet, incredibly, the government has sought to blame the left, particularly the IMG, for the violence! The recently published Scarman Tribunal report rejected most charges police brutality and denied any responsibility of the cops in: Gately's death. This is in spite of the fact that the demonstrators used no weapons, only the police had instruments which could have caused the head wounds (truncheons and horses' hooves), and there were witnesses to the beating. This "report" is a shameless whitewash of what was in fact a police riot.
However, our proletarian solidarity with the victims of bourgeois "law and order" must not be an excuse to cover up serious errors committed by some leaders of the antifascist demonstration at Red Lion Square. It is not enough to want to fight fascists—one must know how to do it. A New Left policy of confrontation with police who obviously intended to defend the National Front is not the way.
There is no doubt that the IMG sought to break through police lines in order to arrive in front of the meeting hall. Jackie Stevens, a member of the IMG, gave this report: "We came across a line of police, and behind them were mounted police. When we tried to get through to Conway Hall, the police drew their batons and charged..." (Intercontinental Press, 24 June 1974).
It is less clear why the IMG took this dangerously mistaken step. But whatever the prior arrangements with the police; whether demonstrators had made plans beforehand or simply fell into a police trap; if it was bravado or confusion—in any case, the decision to try to push through the police lines was a disastrous move. The fact that the demonstrators lacked any means to defend themselves from the cops' murderous onslaught, while it refutes police theories of a conspiracy to attack the police, only makes this move all the more grievously wrong.
Marxists do not uphold a spurious "right" of fascists to freedom of speech; we call on the labor movement to mobilize to prevent the reactionary terror gangs from spewing out their race-hate poison in mass rallies and by provocations such as their marches in military uniform. But to prevent them from speaking through militant mass action requires a favorable balance of forces—something that was obviously not present in Red Lion Square.
Yes, 20,000 workers could, and should, have prevented the NF from holding its racist meeting. The failure of the unions to mobilize against these anti-labor scum is criminal. But this betrayal cannot be corrected by false heroics, sending several score demonstrators against well-equipped riot police. Not only was one militant killed and many injured, but the National Front scored a significant publicity victory as a result.
"Far Left" Battles Cops in Paris
Unfortunately, such confrontationism is not an isolated phenomenon. In France, while the Stalinists and social democrats systematically abstain from mobilizing the working class ^against the fascists, the fake "Trotskyists" of the United Secretariat (of which the IMG is the British affiliate) have taken a different approach: adventurist clashes with police protecting the fascists. The classic case of this substitutionism occurred on June 21, 1973.
On that date the Ligue Communiste (now Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire), French section of the USec, organized a counterdemonstration against a rally by the fascist Ordre Nouveau ("New Order"). The ON had for some time been campaigning against "wildcat immigration" with virulently racist rhetoric, and had succeeded in provoking assaults on immigrant workers. They planned to highlight this campaign nationally with a mass rally at the Mutuality meeting hall in Paris.
While traditionally the Paris police had not mobilized heavily in conflicts between the right and left, this time they clearly were preparing to defend Ordre Nouveau. First they looked on as the ON turned the meeting hall into an armed camp, moving in van loads of iron pipes, clubs and other assorted weaponry. Then, by the Ligue Communiste's own report, the Mutuality was surrounded by 2,000 police, a veritable army to protect the fascists, waiting for the "far left" demonstrators to make the slightest move.
The LC, which early in the day realized that the police were ready to break up the anti-fascist demonstration, encouraged people to come to the march prepared for a confrontation. The leftists were heavily armed with clubs and molotov cocktails. Thus it was clear from the beginning that the Ligue fully expected a bash with the cops—a battle which, however, they could not possibly win without massive contingents of workers and left militants from all quarters.
When the police cordoned off the area around the hall they were bombarded by incendiaries. The anti-fascist demonstrators then broke up into small groups and long into the night isolated clashes continued throughout the area. While there was no clear military defeat of the leftists, they were unable to do more than harass the -cops and did not stop the fascists. The next day Ligue headquarters were occupied by the police, 25 of its supporters were arrested and the organization was outlawed.
The Spartacist League immediately and vigorously protested this viciously anti-democratic government attack and called for united defense of the Ligue. But we also criticized its adventurist tactics:
"The Trotskyist movement has a long history o£ resistance to fascist groups, including attacking and dispersing fascist meetings.... In this case, however, the presence of massive police force made the relation of forces unfavorable to the left. It would appear that the Ligue Communiste recklessly entered into an adventurist confrontation by attempting to take on the armed power of the state under circumstances which could lead only to the defeat of the left. The correct tactic, given the government's authorization of the meeting, was to mount a campaign calling on the mass workers organizations ... to mobilize tens of thousands of their members to prevent the fascist meeting. In their absence, the Ligue could certainly have organized a mass protest demonstration. This is not the same thing, however, as a futile attempt to overwhelm the police with 1,000 youths."
—"Repeal the Ban on the French Ligue Communiste," WV No. 25, 20 July 1973
I
Portugal: A Hair's Breadth from Disaster
Another instance of stupid guerrillaist confrontation tactics occurred earlier this year in Portugal, where it could easily have had disastrous consequences in an explosive pre-revolutionary situation. On the night of January 25-26 several thousand youth and workers in the northern city of Porto surrounded a meeting hall where the rightist Social Democratic Center (CDS) was holding its national congress. This party's leaders include numerous former officials of the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship.
Four leftist organizations-LUAR, MES, PRP, and LCI-called a demonstration in front of the meeting hall. Their joint communique' merely announced a protest action. After an hour, however, a second demonstration arrived on the scene, this one led by the OCMLP (Portuguese Communist Organization Marxist-Leninist, a left-Maoist group), which in an attempt to stop the congress proceedings attacked the paramilitary police who were protecting the building (Esquerda Socialista, 28 January).
This infantile "heroic" gesture led to baton charges by the special police and a tear gas barrage followed by shots, leaving a dozen demonstrators injured, some seriously. The leftists' only means of defense was to hurl bricks. Then beginning around 8 p.m. the regional military commander sent in several army units. The officer in charge asked the CDS to end the meeting (which it did), while the ranks outside fraternized with the demonstrators.
Due to the hostile attitude of the troops, rightist politicians in the Crystal Palace were afraid to leave the building, however, and during the early morning hours a second paramilitary police unit attacked on horse and in personnel carriers. Soldiers reportedly resisted the police assault. Finally, at 7 a.m. parachutists from a base commanded by conservative officers managed to extract the besieged reactionaries (Luta Popular, 2 February; Revolucao, 7 February).
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-From "Young Spartacus" -"Mobilize British Labor To Fight The National Front (December1978/January 1979)
From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-From "Young Spartacus" -"Mobilize British Labor To Fight The National Front (December1978/January 1979)
Markin comment on this series:
One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.
There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.
The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.
Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:
"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."
This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
*************
Markin comment on this article:
This is good advise on how to think about fighting the fascists when they rear their heads. Frankly, a lot of it could have been written today, just as well as back in 1978.
*******
From Young Spartacus -Mobilize British Labor To Fight The National Front (December1978/January 1979)
"When 1 first came into politics...the common term of opprobrium or abuse for your political opponents was, of course, to call them a fascist... What is most interesting in Britain in the last four or five years is that there has been an evaporation of that use of the term 'fascist' as a general term of abuse and a greater precision-in what people understand to be fascism. One of the reasons for that is quite simply, social being determines consciousness. When you see two thousand thugs march down a street chanting 'The reds, the reds, we've got to get rid of the reds,' or 'The National Front is a White Man's Front,' then you begin to understand what fascism is and how it differs and how importantly it differs from just ordinary run-of-the-mill right-wing yobs which abound in any class society."
With these words comrade James Flanagan of the Spartacist League/ Britain (SL/B) opened the Spartacus Youth League forum "Mobilize British Labor to Fight the National Front" held at Barnard College, New York on November 16. Quoting electoral statistics from the past four years, he outlined the dramatic growth of the fascist National Front (NF) since 1974.
In the British general election of October 1974 the NF took 113,000 votes. By the time of the local government (municipal) elections of spring 1977, that figure had more than doubled to 250,000 votes nationally, in London alone the fascists polled 119,000 votes in 91 constituencies, beating the Liberals—the junior party of British capitalism—in 33 areas, and taking up to 20 percent of the vote in certain parts of the mainly immigrant East End. While those votes do not constitute a hardened base of organized support for the NF, they nonetheless testify to the seriousness of the fascist threat and the urgency of mobilizing Britain's well-organized labor movement against it.
The question most obviously posed by these developments is—why Britain and why now? Recalling Trotsky's capsule analysis of fascism as the last resort of a desperate bourgeoisie faced with the prospect of its own overthrow, comrade Flanagan, a former member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the Irish Commission of the Workers Socialist League, sketched the deep social decay and critical condition of capitalism in Britain. With 1.5 million workers unemployed, with wages held down as inflation continues at 8-9 percent, and with social services cut to the bone, leaving the already depressed inner cities even more barren, the social conditions which spawn fascist movements already exist in Britain.
Moreover, the bourgeoisie is faced with a strong, undefeated working class which in the past has fought against and defeated attempts to make them pay for the current crisis—from the 1969 revolt which crushed the Labour government's anti-union Bill ("In Place of Strife"), through the 1974 miners strike which felled the Conservative Heath government, right over to the Ford workers who just recently punched a hole in Labour's wage controls. For the bourgeoisie the situation looks bleak:
"Labour hasn't worked; the Tories haven't worked; a Labour-Liberal coalition hasn't worked. The prospects in store for them are weak, hung parliaments, minority governments supported by minority parties. Ultimately what they have to look for as a way of getting out of this situation is some sort of strong state—take on the unions, beat the unions and resolve it in that way. And that importantly is where the fascists come in."
Clearly, evolution in such a direction would mean a qualitative escalation in the level of class struggle in Britain, and the development of a perilous situation in which the alternatives posed would be socialist revolution or fascist barbarism. Britain is as yet some distance from that, but the recurring clashes between the fascists and the left foreshadow greater battles to come.
The Battle of Cable Street
The willingness of the British bourgeoisie to opt for a fascistic solution is shown by events of the past. During the crisis-wracked 1930's, when the German bourgeoisie turned to Hitler's brown-shirts, there arose in Britain a fascist movement—Sir Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists (BUF)—which won significant support from sections of the bourgeoisie. The Daily Mail (a leading capitalist daily), for example, had as its headline in the issue of 15 January 1934, "Hurrah For the Fascists."
Clad in black shirts, Moseley's bands held a series of meetings throughout England during the 1933-36 period, aimed at terrorizing immigrant groups and crushing the unions. ("We've got to get rid of the Yids" was one of their chants, a slogan emulated by the National Front of today.) In June of 1934 they held a 15,000 strong indoor rally at the Olympia building in London, beating up would-be hecklers in the audience and demonstrating openly their vicious determination to silence all their opponents.
As the real character of Moseley's movement became clear, the working class began to fight back. In June 1936, a BUF meeting in the coal mining town of Tonypandy in South Wales was broken up and the fascists were driven out of the area. But it wasn't until a couple of months later that the decisive blow was struck against Moseley, in what became known as "The Battle of Cable Street"— named after the site in London's East End where the BUF was routed. The events of the day were described by comrade Flanagan:
"So the culmination came on the 4th of October 1936. Moseley had organized for that day a demonstration to march into the East End of London right through a heavily Jewish area. This was a deliberate provocation in much the same way as Hitler's fascists had marched through Altona, a working-class area of Hamburg just four years earlier. The reaction of the Labour Party tops and the trade-union leaders to this decision was that they weren't going to do anything about it— The Communist Party of Great Britain, which today likes to pose as being the champions of the fight against the fascists in 1936, as the leaders of Cable Street, also advocated that people not go there. They said there is a rally to take place in Trafalgar Square the same day and people should go and march there.
"As it was the Communist Party eventually made it over. Under pressure from the local Communist Party, from the Independent Labour Party of Fenner Brockway and the working class of that area, they actually did turn out. The result was that something like a quarter of a million workers—some estimates put it as high as half a million—turned out to prevent Moseley's fascists from marching through the area. The London police had mobilized 6,000 of their foot division and the entire mounted horse division but they weren't able to cut a path through the crowd."
Comrade Flanagan then cited an account of the battle by the man who later became a Communist Party member of Parliament from the East End. In his book, Our Flag Stays Red, Phil Piratin recalls:
"It was obvious that the fascists and the police would now turn their attention to
Cable Street. We were ready. The moment this became apparent the signal was given to put up the barricades. Supplemented by bits of old furniture, mattresses, and every kind of thing you expect to find in box-rooms, it was a barricade which the police did not find easy to penetrate. As they charged they were met with milk bottles, stones and marbles. Some of the housewives began to drop milk bottles from the roof tops. A number of police surrendered. This had never happened before, so the lads didn't know what to do, but they took away their batons, and one took a helmet for his son as a souvenir."
Cable Street and Today
A direct consequence of the Cable Street rout was a marked decline in fascist activity in that period. Since the late 1960's/early 1970's, however, the fascist movement in Britain has re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Grouping together different fascistic sects to form the National Front (NF), NF leaders John Tyndall and Martin Webster have begun building what the latter once referred to as "a well-oiled Nazi machine in this country." Particularly since 1974, the NF has combined electioneering with provocative street marches through largely immigrant areas as a means of winning support. And since 1974 the left has mobilized in attempts to deny the fascists any platform for spewing their race-hate filth.
As comrade Flanagan put it, the spirit which motivated the left,
"and which drew a large number of people into politics at that time was’ No Platform for Fascists'—we must prevent the fascists from meeting wherever they try; a wholly admirable, supportable sentiment. But what they transformed that into was military-style confrontations when the balance of forces wasn't suitable for actually crushing the fascists and what it degenerated into was a series of drawn-out inconclusive brawls, not with the fascists but with the state, the police..."
The high-point of this type of struggle came on August 13, 1977 in the London borough of Lewisham, when 5,000 antifascist demonstrators gathered to stop a 500-strong NF march through this largely West Indian area. Very rapidly, the counter-mobilization became a confrontation with the police who time ever on the British mainland. (Riot gear is of course a familiar sight in Northern Ireland.) The seriousness of this confrontation, which involved a quarter of the entire London metropolitan police force, stung the bourgeoisie, who were quick to go on a red-baiting offensive against the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the main force behind the" demonstration. Labour leaders likewise joined in the witchhunt, denouncing the SWP as "red fascists"(Morning Star, 17 August 1977).
For the most part, however, the left's counter-demonstrations consisted, of adventurist street confrontations with the fascists. Opportunistically ducking out of the difficult task of fighting within Britain's powerful labor movement for leadership prepared to mobilize the unions against the NF, the left tried to substitute itself for the organized working class. And while they were refusing to fight for trade-union defense squads to crush the fascists, they criminally called on the bourgeois state to deal with the Front.
Precisely how stupid and dangerous appeals to the capitalist state are was confirmed in two incidents during this period. In June 1973, the United Secretariat's (USec) French group, then called the Ligue Communiste (LC), engaged in an adventurist confrontation with cops and members of the fascist Ordre Nouveau in Paris, while simultaneously calling on the state to stop the meeting. As a result the LC was banned ("impartially," of course, along with the fascists). In June 1974 the British USec group, the International Marxist Group (IMG), likewise got involved in a brawl with British police in London's Red Lion Square outside an NF meeting the IMG had previously called on the government to stop. In the course of the confrontation the police truncheoned to death a young IMG supporter, Kevin Gately.
Although the SWP at first defended its Lewisham actions, it soon capitulated to the pressure and was instrumental in launching the Anti Nazi League (ANL)—a popular-frontist bloc with liberals, Labour Party "lefts" and other "respectable" figures, which shuns street confrontations with the fascists in favor of social-patriotic appeals to "anti-Nazi" (anti-German) sentiments within the British working class, calls for state bans, and "magic" carnivals to halt the National Front. The creation of this strictly legalist, pacifistic outfit—the right opportunist flip-side of the SWP's previous left adventurism—predictably led to an abdication of any serious struggle against the fascists.
As comrade Flanagan made clear in his talk, the question of a revolutionary strategy to fight the National Front revolves around the question of the pro-capitalist trade-union bureaucracy and the Labour Party, the mass reformist party of the British working class. The common thread between adventurist street confrontations and wretched appeals to the state is a refusal to take on the question of defeating Labourism, in both its trade-union and parliamentary forms, through intransigent political battle to win over its proletarian base. When the reformist and centrist left appeal to the state to ban fascism they address themselves to the same Labour Party officials who send out the cops in droves to protect the fascist rallies. The task is to mobilize the masses of British unionists, the Labour Party's rank and file, to deal a death blow to the fascist
scum.
No Support to the ANL!
From the outset, the Spartacist League/Britain refused to tail after the ANL, uniquely denouncing it as a popular-frontist formation which would soon lead to outright betrayal. On September 24 this analysis was confirmed. On that day 2,000 NFers marched through London, while the ANL took some 80,000 would-be antifascists miles off in the opposite direction to a carnival in Brixton (in South London)! Only about 1,500 leftists— including the SL/B, who turned out one of the largest single organized contingents—refused to go carnivaling, and went instead to the East End. As it was their forces were pitifully inadequate to stop the fascists who, protected by the usual ranks of police at their side, marched triumphantly into the area. (For a more detailed account see Spartacist Britain No. 5, October 1978.) Interestingly, after comrade Flanagan had concluded his presentation of the ANL's betrayal, two British defenders of the ANL rose to support its decision to go ahead with the Carnival. The Spartacists were "far too damning" of the ANL, they maintained, and "wrong-headed,"
"in suggesting that the Anti Nazi League should have called off a mass demonstration in order to respond to a small counter-demonstration called in another part of London..."
In his summary, Flanagan took issue with this classic reformist argument, virtually identical to the ones used to try to keep the working class away from Cable Street in 1936:
"So what happened with the Anti Nazi League? They heard a month before¬
hand that the fascists were marching through the east of London. This is not
just an ordinary demonstration. It was a march against communism when the
reds were away, through the most oppressed area of London where the
minorities lived. They said they were going to be there and that night they
were. 'There are no "no-go" areas for us in London,' they said, 'we can march
where we want, and we will terrorize this area.' And that's what they did.
Then later that night they rampaged down nearby Brick Lane.
"So the purpose of our sharpness is to actually say: yes, there was a class line
on that day. The people who went to the Carnival were scabs, and people who
went to Brick Lane were not. There was a class line, and it was very, very
clear.
"You see they marched off in the opposite direction. Now you would think their response to that might be: 'Oh god, we ballsed up,' or something like that. 'We're sorry, you know, but...' But they didn't. Socialist Challenge, the paper of the International Marxist Group, had on its back page: yes, we were right! We were right to go, they said, to the Carnival. We were right to leave the black community of the East End defenseless.
"Tony Cliff, now, was more honest in Socialist Worker. He was more honest—he said: ‘If the Anti Nazi League Carnival had been diverted from Brixton, then the ANL would have disintegrated. And that's why they didn't go to the East End but went to Brixton. Because they didn't want to lose the support of Lord Avery, or Peter Hain, or Jonathan Dimbleby, Panorama reporter for the BBC. They didn't want to lose the support of those people, because they’re respectable, because they want mass influence.
"Mass movements are important things. But there's an interesting thing that Trotsky said years and years ago: mass movements are of different characters. The pilgrimage to Lourdes is a mass movement. So was the imperialist invasion of the Soviet Union a mass movement. The bombing of Hanoi was a mass movement. The Anti Nazi League Carnival was also a mass movement, but so was Cable Street in 1936. And that's the spirit we stand on. That's what we say should have happened. On that day, the Communist Party wanted to go to Trafalgar Square. But they at least made it over to the East End and the fascists were routed. The SWP and the IMG can't even claim that. We said in the issue of Spartacist Britain which appeared after this that September 24 has drawn the line. Make your choice
Markin comment on this series:
One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.
There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.
The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.
Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:
"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."
This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
*************
Markin comment on this article:
This is good advise on how to think about fighting the fascists when they rear their heads. Frankly, a lot of it could have been written today, just as well as back in 1978.
*******
From Young Spartacus -Mobilize British Labor To Fight The National Front (December1978/January 1979)
"When 1 first came into politics...the common term of opprobrium or abuse for your political opponents was, of course, to call them a fascist... What is most interesting in Britain in the last four or five years is that there has been an evaporation of that use of the term 'fascist' as a general term of abuse and a greater precision-in what people understand to be fascism. One of the reasons for that is quite simply, social being determines consciousness. When you see two thousand thugs march down a street chanting 'The reds, the reds, we've got to get rid of the reds,' or 'The National Front is a White Man's Front,' then you begin to understand what fascism is and how it differs and how importantly it differs from just ordinary run-of-the-mill right-wing yobs which abound in any class society."
With these words comrade James Flanagan of the Spartacist League/ Britain (SL/B) opened the Spartacus Youth League forum "Mobilize British Labor to Fight the National Front" held at Barnard College, New York on November 16. Quoting electoral statistics from the past four years, he outlined the dramatic growth of the fascist National Front (NF) since 1974.
In the British general election of October 1974 the NF took 113,000 votes. By the time of the local government (municipal) elections of spring 1977, that figure had more than doubled to 250,000 votes nationally, in London alone the fascists polled 119,000 votes in 91 constituencies, beating the Liberals—the junior party of British capitalism—in 33 areas, and taking up to 20 percent of the vote in certain parts of the mainly immigrant East End. While those votes do not constitute a hardened base of organized support for the NF, they nonetheless testify to the seriousness of the fascist threat and the urgency of mobilizing Britain's well-organized labor movement against it.
The question most obviously posed by these developments is—why Britain and why now? Recalling Trotsky's capsule analysis of fascism as the last resort of a desperate bourgeoisie faced with the prospect of its own overthrow, comrade Flanagan, a former member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the Irish Commission of the Workers Socialist League, sketched the deep social decay and critical condition of capitalism in Britain. With 1.5 million workers unemployed, with wages held down as inflation continues at 8-9 percent, and with social services cut to the bone, leaving the already depressed inner cities even more barren, the social conditions which spawn fascist movements already exist in Britain.
Moreover, the bourgeoisie is faced with a strong, undefeated working class which in the past has fought against and defeated attempts to make them pay for the current crisis—from the 1969 revolt which crushed the Labour government's anti-union Bill ("In Place of Strife"), through the 1974 miners strike which felled the Conservative Heath government, right over to the Ford workers who just recently punched a hole in Labour's wage controls. For the bourgeoisie the situation looks bleak:
"Labour hasn't worked; the Tories haven't worked; a Labour-Liberal coalition hasn't worked. The prospects in store for them are weak, hung parliaments, minority governments supported by minority parties. Ultimately what they have to look for as a way of getting out of this situation is some sort of strong state—take on the unions, beat the unions and resolve it in that way. And that importantly is where the fascists come in."
Clearly, evolution in such a direction would mean a qualitative escalation in the level of class struggle in Britain, and the development of a perilous situation in which the alternatives posed would be socialist revolution or fascist barbarism. Britain is as yet some distance from that, but the recurring clashes between the fascists and the left foreshadow greater battles to come.
The Battle of Cable Street
The willingness of the British bourgeoisie to opt for a fascistic solution is shown by events of the past. During the crisis-wracked 1930's, when the German bourgeoisie turned to Hitler's brown-shirts, there arose in Britain a fascist movement—Sir Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists (BUF)—which won significant support from sections of the bourgeoisie. The Daily Mail (a leading capitalist daily), for example, had as its headline in the issue of 15 January 1934, "Hurrah For the Fascists."
Clad in black shirts, Moseley's bands held a series of meetings throughout England during the 1933-36 period, aimed at terrorizing immigrant groups and crushing the unions. ("We've got to get rid of the Yids" was one of their chants, a slogan emulated by the National Front of today.) In June of 1934 they held a 15,000 strong indoor rally at the Olympia building in London, beating up would-be hecklers in the audience and demonstrating openly their vicious determination to silence all their opponents.
As the real character of Moseley's movement became clear, the working class began to fight back. In June 1936, a BUF meeting in the coal mining town of Tonypandy in South Wales was broken up and the fascists were driven out of the area. But it wasn't until a couple of months later that the decisive blow was struck against Moseley, in what became known as "The Battle of Cable Street"— named after the site in London's East End where the BUF was routed. The events of the day were described by comrade Flanagan:
"So the culmination came on the 4th of October 1936. Moseley had organized for that day a demonstration to march into the East End of London right through a heavily Jewish area. This was a deliberate provocation in much the same way as Hitler's fascists had marched through Altona, a working-class area of Hamburg just four years earlier. The reaction of the Labour Party tops and the trade-union leaders to this decision was that they weren't going to do anything about it— The Communist Party of Great Britain, which today likes to pose as being the champions of the fight against the fascists in 1936, as the leaders of Cable Street, also advocated that people not go there. They said there is a rally to take place in Trafalgar Square the same day and people should go and march there.
"As it was the Communist Party eventually made it over. Under pressure from the local Communist Party, from the Independent Labour Party of Fenner Brockway and the working class of that area, they actually did turn out. The result was that something like a quarter of a million workers—some estimates put it as high as half a million—turned out to prevent Moseley's fascists from marching through the area. The London police had mobilized 6,000 of their foot division and the entire mounted horse division but they weren't able to cut a path through the crowd."
Comrade Flanagan then cited an account of the battle by the man who later became a Communist Party member of Parliament from the East End. In his book, Our Flag Stays Red, Phil Piratin recalls:
"It was obvious that the fascists and the police would now turn their attention to
Cable Street. We were ready. The moment this became apparent the signal was given to put up the barricades. Supplemented by bits of old furniture, mattresses, and every kind of thing you expect to find in box-rooms, it was a barricade which the police did not find easy to penetrate. As they charged they were met with milk bottles, stones and marbles. Some of the housewives began to drop milk bottles from the roof tops. A number of police surrendered. This had never happened before, so the lads didn't know what to do, but they took away their batons, and one took a helmet for his son as a souvenir."
Cable Street and Today
A direct consequence of the Cable Street rout was a marked decline in fascist activity in that period. Since the late 1960's/early 1970's, however, the fascist movement in Britain has re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Grouping together different fascistic sects to form the National Front (NF), NF leaders John Tyndall and Martin Webster have begun building what the latter once referred to as "a well-oiled Nazi machine in this country." Particularly since 1974, the NF has combined electioneering with provocative street marches through largely immigrant areas as a means of winning support. And since 1974 the left has mobilized in attempts to deny the fascists any platform for spewing their race-hate filth.
As comrade Flanagan put it, the spirit which motivated the left,
"and which drew a large number of people into politics at that time was’ No Platform for Fascists'—we must prevent the fascists from meeting wherever they try; a wholly admirable, supportable sentiment. But what they transformed that into was military-style confrontations when the balance of forces wasn't suitable for actually crushing the fascists and what it degenerated into was a series of drawn-out inconclusive brawls, not with the fascists but with the state, the police..."
The high-point of this type of struggle came on August 13, 1977 in the London borough of Lewisham, when 5,000 antifascist demonstrators gathered to stop a 500-strong NF march through this largely West Indian area. Very rapidly, the counter-mobilization became a confrontation with the police who time ever on the British mainland. (Riot gear is of course a familiar sight in Northern Ireland.) The seriousness of this confrontation, which involved a quarter of the entire London metropolitan police force, stung the bourgeoisie, who were quick to go on a red-baiting offensive against the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the main force behind the" demonstration. Labour leaders likewise joined in the witchhunt, denouncing the SWP as "red fascists"(Morning Star, 17 August 1977).
For the most part, however, the left's counter-demonstrations consisted, of adventurist street confrontations with the fascists. Opportunistically ducking out of the difficult task of fighting within Britain's powerful labor movement for leadership prepared to mobilize the unions against the NF, the left tried to substitute itself for the organized working class. And while they were refusing to fight for trade-union defense squads to crush the fascists, they criminally called on the bourgeois state to deal with the Front.
Precisely how stupid and dangerous appeals to the capitalist state are was confirmed in two incidents during this period. In June 1973, the United Secretariat's (USec) French group, then called the Ligue Communiste (LC), engaged in an adventurist confrontation with cops and members of the fascist Ordre Nouveau in Paris, while simultaneously calling on the state to stop the meeting. As a result the LC was banned ("impartially," of course, along with the fascists). In June 1974 the British USec group, the International Marxist Group (IMG), likewise got involved in a brawl with British police in London's Red Lion Square outside an NF meeting the IMG had previously called on the government to stop. In the course of the confrontation the police truncheoned to death a young IMG supporter, Kevin Gately.
Although the SWP at first defended its Lewisham actions, it soon capitulated to the pressure and was instrumental in launching the Anti Nazi League (ANL)—a popular-frontist bloc with liberals, Labour Party "lefts" and other "respectable" figures, which shuns street confrontations with the fascists in favor of social-patriotic appeals to "anti-Nazi" (anti-German) sentiments within the British working class, calls for state bans, and "magic" carnivals to halt the National Front. The creation of this strictly legalist, pacifistic outfit—the right opportunist flip-side of the SWP's previous left adventurism—predictably led to an abdication of any serious struggle against the fascists.
As comrade Flanagan made clear in his talk, the question of a revolutionary strategy to fight the National Front revolves around the question of the pro-capitalist trade-union bureaucracy and the Labour Party, the mass reformist party of the British working class. The common thread between adventurist street confrontations and wretched appeals to the state is a refusal to take on the question of defeating Labourism, in both its trade-union and parliamentary forms, through intransigent political battle to win over its proletarian base. When the reformist and centrist left appeal to the state to ban fascism they address themselves to the same Labour Party officials who send out the cops in droves to protect the fascist rallies. The task is to mobilize the masses of British unionists, the Labour Party's rank and file, to deal a death blow to the fascist
scum.
No Support to the ANL!
From the outset, the Spartacist League/Britain refused to tail after the ANL, uniquely denouncing it as a popular-frontist formation which would soon lead to outright betrayal. On September 24 this analysis was confirmed. On that day 2,000 NFers marched through London, while the ANL took some 80,000 would-be antifascists miles off in the opposite direction to a carnival in Brixton (in South London)! Only about 1,500 leftists— including the SL/B, who turned out one of the largest single organized contingents—refused to go carnivaling, and went instead to the East End. As it was their forces were pitifully inadequate to stop the fascists who, protected by the usual ranks of police at their side, marched triumphantly into the area. (For a more detailed account see Spartacist Britain No. 5, October 1978.) Interestingly, after comrade Flanagan had concluded his presentation of the ANL's betrayal, two British defenders of the ANL rose to support its decision to go ahead with the Carnival. The Spartacists were "far too damning" of the ANL, they maintained, and "wrong-headed,"
"in suggesting that the Anti Nazi League should have called off a mass demonstration in order to respond to a small counter-demonstration called in another part of London..."
In his summary, Flanagan took issue with this classic reformist argument, virtually identical to the ones used to try to keep the working class away from Cable Street in 1936:
"So what happened with the Anti Nazi League? They heard a month before¬
hand that the fascists were marching through the east of London. This is not
just an ordinary demonstration. It was a march against communism when the
reds were away, through the most oppressed area of London where the
minorities lived. They said they were going to be there and that night they
were. 'There are no "no-go" areas for us in London,' they said, 'we can march
where we want, and we will terrorize this area.' And that's what they did.
Then later that night they rampaged down nearby Brick Lane.
"So the purpose of our sharpness is to actually say: yes, there was a class line
on that day. The people who went to the Carnival were scabs, and people who
went to Brick Lane were not. There was a class line, and it was very, very
clear.
"You see they marched off in the opposite direction. Now you would think their response to that might be: 'Oh god, we ballsed up,' or something like that. 'We're sorry, you know, but...' But they didn't. Socialist Challenge, the paper of the International Marxist Group, had on its back page: yes, we were right! We were right to go, they said, to the Carnival. We were right to leave the black community of the East End defenseless.
"Tony Cliff, now, was more honest in Socialist Worker. He was more honest—he said: ‘If the Anti Nazi League Carnival had been diverted from Brixton, then the ANL would have disintegrated. And that's why they didn't go to the East End but went to Brixton. Because they didn't want to lose the support of Lord Avery, or Peter Hain, or Jonathan Dimbleby, Panorama reporter for the BBC. They didn't want to lose the support of those people, because they’re respectable, because they want mass influence.
"Mass movements are important things. But there's an interesting thing that Trotsky said years and years ago: mass movements are of different characters. The pilgrimage to Lourdes is a mass movement. So was the imperialist invasion of the Soviet Union a mass movement. The bombing of Hanoi was a mass movement. The Anti Nazi League Carnival was also a mass movement, but so was Cable Street in 1936. And that's the spirit we stand on. That's what we say should have happened. On that day, the Communist Party wanted to go to Trafalgar Square. But they at least made it over to the East End and the fascists were routed. The SWP and the IMG can't even claim that. We said in the issue of Spartacist Britain which appeared after this that September 24 has drawn the line. Make your choice
Saturday, November 3, 2012
On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-Never Forget- Learn The Lessons Of History-Should Fascists Be Allowed the Right of Free Speech?
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
Should Fascists Be Allowed the Right of Free Speech?
A Working Class Point of View on the Question That Was
Brought to the Fore Again by the Professional Democrats
When the Nazis Mobilized at the Garden
_
-Reprinted from the Socialist Appeal, 3 March 1939
It seems that the only point of importance that the Professional Liberals and Democrats could see in the big mobilization of the Nazis at Madison Square Garden last week, was their "right of free speech and assembly."
Mayor LaGuardia kept reiterating emphatically that his attachment to Democracy compelled him to grant the Fascists the right to hold their meeting and provide them with extraordinary police protection.
The American Civil Liberties Union rushed into print to insist that the right of free speech be extended to the Hitlerites.
One of the numerous committees of the Jewish bourgeoisie, anxious to demonstrate that it loves fairness above all else, did likewise.
Even the wretched little Jewish anarchist weekly published in New York indignantly reproached the Trotskyists for the lack of sense in "demanding the right of free speech and assembly for oneself and at the same time trying to prevent the freedom of speech of our opponents..."
Freedom for Nazis But Not for Pickets
Before going further into the consideration of the question
of "free speech for Fascists," it is interesting and important
to record the fact that all the above-mentioned who showed
such touching concern for the "democratic rights" of the Nazis,
are entirely unconcerned with the brutal police suppression
of the picketing rights of the workers who assembled outside
the Garden.
The Mayor simply refused to see a delegation which came to protest against the violence of the police who rode down and slugged the picketers.
The American Civil Liberties Union, apparently exhausted by its noble efforts in behalf of the Nazis, didn't utter a peep about the democratic rights of free speech, assembly and picketing being denied the 50,000 anti-Fascists who came to protest the Nazi rally. Ditto for the Jewish committee.
As for the anarchist Freie Arbeiter Stimme, it says not a word about the police assaults, but villainously insinuates that the Terrible Trotskyists were really at fault because, Mr. Police Commissioner, they planned a violent attack on the Nazis who were innocently celebrating Washington's Birthday. Unbelievable, but here are its exact words: "But there are times when people who endeavor to do social work, must reflect ten times, a hundred times, before they come out with an appeal for acts of violence."
What the Problem Really Involves
The question of "democratic rights for the Nazis" cannot be resolved on the basis of Liberal phrasemongers. All such a discussion can produce is a bewildering tangle of words and abstractions. At a more decisive stage, as all recent experience has proved, it produces a first class disaster not only for the working class but also for the Professional Liberals and Democrats themselves.
How many of them, indeed, are there in concentration camps, in prison and in exile who are continuing the thoroughly futile and abstract discussion over whether or not the Fascist gangsters should be granted the "democratic rights of free speech and assembly"!
And what is most decisive—this is the point which leads us directly to a solution of the problem that seems to agitate so many people—is the fact that in Italy, in Germany, in Austria, in Czechoslovakia, in Spain, the Democrats were so concerned with preserving the "rights" of the Fascists that they concentrated all their attacks and repressive measures upon those workers and those labor organization which sought to conduct a militant struggle against the Fascists and for the preservation and extension of their truly democratic rights and institutions.
It is when the bourgeois "democrats" like Giolitti in Italy and Bruening in Germany, had done all in their power to smash' the most progressive and active sections of the working class—as LaGuardia and his police tried to do on a smaller scale in New York last week—that the Fascists concluded successfully their march to totalitarian power. Whoever forgets this important lesson from abroad, is a fool. Whoever tries to keep others ignorant of this lesson, is a rogue.
A Simple Example
Let us take a simple example which every worker has ex¬perienced dozens of times.
A strike is called. The authorities promptly jump into the situation in order to protect the "democratic rights" of the scabs and the company gunmen who guard them. The "right to work" of the scab, which is guaranteed by the capitalist govern¬ment, amounts in reality to his "right" to starve out the striking workers and reduce them to helpless pawns of the employers.
Millons of workers have learned the futility and deceptiveness of the academic discussion of the scab's "democratic rights," as well as of appealing to the government and its police to "arbitrate" the dispute involved. They try to solve the question, as they must, in the course of struggle. The workers throw their picket-lines around the struck plant. The conflict between the scab's "right" to break a strike and the workers' right to live, is also settled on the course of struggle—in favor of those who plan better, organize better, and fight better.
Same Rule Applies on Broader Scene
The same rule applies in the struggle against the much bigger scab movement that Fascism represents.The workers who spend all their time and energy in the abstract discussion of the Nazis' "democratic rights"—to say nothing of working themselves into a lather in defense of these "rights"—will end their discussion under a Fascist club in a concentration camp.
The workers who delude themselves and waste their time begging the capitalist Democrats in office to "act" against the Fascists, will end up in the same place, just as the workers of Italy, Germany and Austria did.
The workers have more vital concerns. They are and should be interested in defending and expanding their democratic rights. But not in any abstract sense. These rights are the concrete rights of free speech, assembly, press, the right to organize, strike and picket, without which an independent working class simply cannot exist.
A decaying capitalism—of which Fascism is only a natural product—seeks constantly to restrict and destroy these rights, which are not truly genuine even in "normal" times. These rights can only be defended from the assaults of capitalism and its ugly offspring, Fascism, in the same way in which they were first acquired: by the tireless, aggressive, unbending, inde¬pendent struggle of the working class.
The wailing and weeping about the Nazis' "rights" can safely be left to the prissy Liberals and the phoney Democrats.
The self-preservation of the working class demands that it cut through all abstract chatter and smash the Fascist gangs by decisive and relentless action.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
Should Fascists Be Allowed the Right of Free Speech?
A Working Class Point of View on the Question That Was
Brought to the Fore Again by the Professional Democrats
When the Nazis Mobilized at the Garden
_
-Reprinted from the Socialist Appeal, 3 March 1939
It seems that the only point of importance that the Professional Liberals and Democrats could see in the big mobilization of the Nazis at Madison Square Garden last week, was their "right of free speech and assembly."
Mayor LaGuardia kept reiterating emphatically that his attachment to Democracy compelled him to grant the Fascists the right to hold their meeting and provide them with extraordinary police protection.
The American Civil Liberties Union rushed into print to insist that the right of free speech be extended to the Hitlerites.
One of the numerous committees of the Jewish bourgeoisie, anxious to demonstrate that it loves fairness above all else, did likewise.
Even the wretched little Jewish anarchist weekly published in New York indignantly reproached the Trotskyists for the lack of sense in "demanding the right of free speech and assembly for oneself and at the same time trying to prevent the freedom of speech of our opponents..."
Freedom for Nazis But Not for Pickets
Before going further into the consideration of the question
of "free speech for Fascists," it is interesting and important
to record the fact that all the above-mentioned who showed
such touching concern for the "democratic rights" of the Nazis,
are entirely unconcerned with the brutal police suppression
of the picketing rights of the workers who assembled outside
the Garden.
The Mayor simply refused to see a delegation which came to protest against the violence of the police who rode down and slugged the picketers.
The American Civil Liberties Union, apparently exhausted by its noble efforts in behalf of the Nazis, didn't utter a peep about the democratic rights of free speech, assembly and picketing being denied the 50,000 anti-Fascists who came to protest the Nazi rally. Ditto for the Jewish committee.
As for the anarchist Freie Arbeiter Stimme, it says not a word about the police assaults, but villainously insinuates that the Terrible Trotskyists were really at fault because, Mr. Police Commissioner, they planned a violent attack on the Nazis who were innocently celebrating Washington's Birthday. Unbelievable, but here are its exact words: "But there are times when people who endeavor to do social work, must reflect ten times, a hundred times, before they come out with an appeal for acts of violence."
What the Problem Really Involves
The question of "democratic rights for the Nazis" cannot be resolved on the basis of Liberal phrasemongers. All such a discussion can produce is a bewildering tangle of words and abstractions. At a more decisive stage, as all recent experience has proved, it produces a first class disaster not only for the working class but also for the Professional Liberals and Democrats themselves.
How many of them, indeed, are there in concentration camps, in prison and in exile who are continuing the thoroughly futile and abstract discussion over whether or not the Fascist gangsters should be granted the "democratic rights of free speech and assembly"!
And what is most decisive—this is the point which leads us directly to a solution of the problem that seems to agitate so many people—is the fact that in Italy, in Germany, in Austria, in Czechoslovakia, in Spain, the Democrats were so concerned with preserving the "rights" of the Fascists that they concentrated all their attacks and repressive measures upon those workers and those labor organization which sought to conduct a militant struggle against the Fascists and for the preservation and extension of their truly democratic rights and institutions.
It is when the bourgeois "democrats" like Giolitti in Italy and Bruening in Germany, had done all in their power to smash' the most progressive and active sections of the working class—as LaGuardia and his police tried to do on a smaller scale in New York last week—that the Fascists concluded successfully their march to totalitarian power. Whoever forgets this important lesson from abroad, is a fool. Whoever tries to keep others ignorant of this lesson, is a rogue.
A Simple Example
Let us take a simple example which every worker has ex¬perienced dozens of times.
A strike is called. The authorities promptly jump into the situation in order to protect the "democratic rights" of the scabs and the company gunmen who guard them. The "right to work" of the scab, which is guaranteed by the capitalist govern¬ment, amounts in reality to his "right" to starve out the striking workers and reduce them to helpless pawns of the employers.
Millons of workers have learned the futility and deceptiveness of the academic discussion of the scab's "democratic rights," as well as of appealing to the government and its police to "arbitrate" the dispute involved. They try to solve the question, as they must, in the course of struggle. The workers throw their picket-lines around the struck plant. The conflict between the scab's "right" to break a strike and the workers' right to live, is also settled on the course of struggle—in favor of those who plan better, organize better, and fight better.
Same Rule Applies on Broader Scene
The same rule applies in the struggle against the much bigger scab movement that Fascism represents.The workers who spend all their time and energy in the abstract discussion of the Nazis' "democratic rights"—to say nothing of working themselves into a lather in defense of these "rights"—will end their discussion under a Fascist club in a concentration camp.
The workers who delude themselves and waste their time begging the capitalist Democrats in office to "act" against the Fascists, will end up in the same place, just as the workers of Italy, Germany and Austria did.
The workers have more vital concerns. They are and should be interested in defending and expanding their democratic rights. But not in any abstract sense. These rights are the concrete rights of free speech, assembly, press, the right to organize, strike and picket, without which an independent working class simply cannot exist.
A decaying capitalism—of which Fascism is only a natural product—seeks constantly to restrict and destroy these rights, which are not truly genuine even in "normal" times. These rights can only be defended from the assaults of capitalism and its ugly offspring, Fascism, in the same way in which they were first acquired: by the tireless, aggressive, unbending, inde¬pendent struggle of the working class.
The wailing and weeping about the Nazis' "rights" can safely be left to the prissy Liberals and the phoney Democrats.
The self-preservation of the working class demands that it cut through all abstract chatter and smash the Fascist gangs by decisive and relentless action.
On The Anniversary Of The Greensboro Massacre 1979- Never Forget
Click on title to link to a YouTube film clip of some of the events of that day in 1979 when various right-wing paramilitary thugs murdered five communist workers.
Commentary
This is the 33rd Anniversary of the heinous crimes of 1979 against communist workers in Greensboro, North Carolina
This is a repost of last year's commemorative commentary. The struggle remains the same. As does the message- Never Forget!
REMEMBER SLAIN LABOR MILITANTS-CESAR CAUCE, MICHAEL NATHAN, BILL SAMPSON, SANDI SMITH AND JIM WALLER
For those too young to remember or who unfortunately have forgotten the incident commemorated here this is a capsule summary of what occurred on that bloody day:
On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, five anti-racist activists and union organizers, supporters of the Communist Workers Party (CWP), were fatally gunned down by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi fascists. Nine carloads of Klansmen and Nazis drove up to a black housing project-the gathering place for an anti-Klan march organized by the CWP. In broad daylight, the fascists pulled out their weapons and unleashed an 88-second fusillade that was captured on television cameras. They then drove off, leaving the dead and dying in pools of blood. From the outset, the Klan/Nazi killers were aided and abetted by the government, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who helped train the killers and plot the assassination to the "former" FBI informer who rode shotgun in the motorcade of death and the Greensboro cop who brought up the rear. The five militants listed above died as a result. The Greensboro Klan/Nazis literally got away with murder, acquitted twice by all-white juries.
This writer has recently been raked over the coals by some leftists who were appalled that he called for a no free speech platform for Nazis and fascists (see below) and argued that labor should mobilize its forces and run these vermin off the streets whenever they raise their heads. Despite recent efforts to blur the lines of the heinous nature of and political motivation for these murders in Greensboro by some kind of truth and reconciliation process militant leftists should etch in their brains the reality of the Klan/Nazis. There is nothing to debate with this kind. The niceties of parliamentary democracy have no place in a strategy to defeat these bastards. The Greensboro massacre is prime evidence that any other way is suicidal for militants. No more Germany, 1933's. No more Greensboro, 1979's. Never Forget Greensboro.
REPOST FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2006
In a recent blog (dated, September 4, 2006) this writer mentioned that one of the Klan groups in this country held a demonstration at the Gettysburg National Cemetery over the Labor Day 2006 weekend around a list of demands that included bringing the troops home from Iraq in order to patrol the borders. Symbols mean a lot in politics and the notion that Klansmen were permitted to demonstrate at a key symbol in the fight to end slavery and preserve the union raised my temperature more than a little. As I said then Gettysburg is hallowed ground fought and paid for in great struggle and much blood. At that time the writer posed the question of what, if any, opposition to the demonstration leftists had put together to run these hooded fools out of town. In response, this writer was raked over the coals for calling for an organized fight by labor to nip these elements in the bud. Why? Apparently some people believe that running the fools out of town would have violated the Klan's free speech rights. Something is desperately wrong here about both the nature of free speech and the nature of the Klan/fascist menace.
First, let us be clear, militant leftists defend every democratic right as best we can. I have often argued in this space that to a great extend militant leftists are the only active defenders of such rights- on the streets where it counts. That said, the parameters of such rights, as all democratic rights, cannot trump the needs of the class struggle. In short, militant leftist have no interest in defending or extending the rights of fascists to fill the air with gibberish. Now that may offend some American Civil Liberties Union-types but any self-respecting militant knows that such a position is right is his or her 'gut'.
In the final analysis we will be fighting the Klan-types on the streets and the issue will no be rights of free expression (except maybe in defense of ours) but the survival of our organizations. A short glance at history is to the point.
One of the great tragedies of the Western labor movement was the defeat and destruction of the German labor movement in the wake of the fascist Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In the final analysis that destruction was brought on by the fatally erroneous policies of both the German Social Democratic and Communists parties. Neither party, willfully, saw the danger in time and compounded that error when refused to call for or establish a united front of all labor organizations to confront and destroy Hitler and his storm troopers. We know the result. And it was not necessary. Moreover, Hitler's organization at one time (in the mid-1920's) was small and unimportant like today's Klan/Nazi threat. But that does not mean that under certain circumstances that could not change. And that, my friends, is exactly the point.
Commentary
This is the 33rd Anniversary of the heinous crimes of 1979 against communist workers in Greensboro, North Carolina
This is a repost of last year's commemorative commentary. The struggle remains the same. As does the message- Never Forget!
REMEMBER SLAIN LABOR MILITANTS-CESAR CAUCE, MICHAEL NATHAN, BILL SAMPSON, SANDI SMITH AND JIM WALLER
For those too young to remember or who unfortunately have forgotten the incident commemorated here this is a capsule summary of what occurred on that bloody day:
On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, five anti-racist activists and union organizers, supporters of the Communist Workers Party (CWP), were fatally gunned down by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi fascists. Nine carloads of Klansmen and Nazis drove up to a black housing project-the gathering place for an anti-Klan march organized by the CWP. In broad daylight, the fascists pulled out their weapons and unleashed an 88-second fusillade that was captured on television cameras. They then drove off, leaving the dead and dying in pools of blood. From the outset, the Klan/Nazi killers were aided and abetted by the government, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who helped train the killers and plot the assassination to the "former" FBI informer who rode shotgun in the motorcade of death and the Greensboro cop who brought up the rear. The five militants listed above died as a result. The Greensboro Klan/Nazis literally got away with murder, acquitted twice by all-white juries.
This writer has recently been raked over the coals by some leftists who were appalled that he called for a no free speech platform for Nazis and fascists (see below) and argued that labor should mobilize its forces and run these vermin off the streets whenever they raise their heads. Despite recent efforts to blur the lines of the heinous nature of and political motivation for these murders in Greensboro by some kind of truth and reconciliation process militant leftists should etch in their brains the reality of the Klan/Nazis. There is nothing to debate with this kind. The niceties of parliamentary democracy have no place in a strategy to defeat these bastards. The Greensboro massacre is prime evidence that any other way is suicidal for militants. No more Germany, 1933's. No more Greensboro, 1979's. Never Forget Greensboro.
REPOST FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2006
In a recent blog (dated, September 4, 2006) this writer mentioned that one of the Klan groups in this country held a demonstration at the Gettysburg National Cemetery over the Labor Day 2006 weekend around a list of demands that included bringing the troops home from Iraq in order to patrol the borders. Symbols mean a lot in politics and the notion that Klansmen were permitted to demonstrate at a key symbol in the fight to end slavery and preserve the union raised my temperature more than a little. As I said then Gettysburg is hallowed ground fought and paid for in great struggle and much blood. At that time the writer posed the question of what, if any, opposition to the demonstration leftists had put together to run these hooded fools out of town. In response, this writer was raked over the coals for calling for an organized fight by labor to nip these elements in the bud. Why? Apparently some people believe that running the fools out of town would have violated the Klan's free speech rights. Something is desperately wrong here about both the nature of free speech and the nature of the Klan/fascist menace.
First, let us be clear, militant leftists defend every democratic right as best we can. I have often argued in this space that to a great extend militant leftists are the only active defenders of such rights- on the streets where it counts. That said, the parameters of such rights, as all democratic rights, cannot trump the needs of the class struggle. In short, militant leftist have no interest in defending or extending the rights of fascists to fill the air with gibberish. Now that may offend some American Civil Liberties Union-types but any self-respecting militant knows that such a position is right is his or her 'gut'.
In the final analysis we will be fighting the Klan-types on the streets and the issue will no be rights of free expression (except maybe in defense of ours) but the survival of our organizations. A short glance at history is to the point.
One of the great tragedies of the Western labor movement was the defeat and destruction of the German labor movement in the wake of the fascist Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In the final analysis that destruction was brought on by the fatally erroneous policies of both the German Social Democratic and Communists parties. Neither party, willfully, saw the danger in time and compounded that error when refused to call for or establish a united front of all labor organizations to confront and destroy Hitler and his storm troopers. We know the result. And it was not necessary. Moreover, Hitler's organization at one time (in the mid-1920's) was small and unimportant like today's Klan/Nazi threat. But that does not mean that under certain circumstances that could not change. And that, my friends, is exactly the point.
From The Marxist Archives-On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-From The Pages Of "Young Spartacus" December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
From The Marxist Archives-On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-From The Pages Of "Young Spartacus" December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-Never Forget-From The Marxist Archives-Fascism:How to Fight It And How Not To Fight It
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
*******
LEON TROTSKY ON FIGHTING FASCISTS:
"In this period it is very important to distinguish between the fascists and the state. The state is not yet ready to subordinate itself to the fascists: it wants to ‘arbitrate.’ ... .Our strategic task is to increase these hesitations and apprehensions on the part of the 'arbiter,' its army and its police. How? By showing that we are stronger than the fascists, that is, by giving them a good beating in full view of this arbiter without, as long as we are not absolutely forced to directly taking on the state itself. That is the whole point." —reprinted in Intercontinental Press, 2 December 1974
**********
On 15 June 1974 London's Red Lion Square witnessed one of the bloodiest confrontations between police and left-wing forces in recent British history. Countless demonstrators were beaten with police truncheons, a number were trampled under mounted patrols, and one young man, Kevin Gately, was killed by the cops, his head so brutally battered that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The occasion was a protest against a rally scheduled by the fascist-inspired National Front.
The NF is one of many extreme-rightist organizations that have been surfacing and spreading in Europe during recent months. Their breeding ground is the fear of economic ruin, in particular an intensified competition for jobs in the wake of a worldwide capitalist economic slump.
As in the past, one of the common fascist themes is race hatred against Jews, blacks and now immigrant workers. Former National Front fuehrer John Tyndall was quoted in 1969 as saying: "the Jew is a poisonous maggot feeding on a body in an advanced state of decay" (Sunday Times, 30 March 1969). Along with NF national organizer Martin Webster and others in the group's leadership, Tyndall was during the early 1960's a member of the now-defunct British National Socialist* Movement, which called for "deportation of all non-Aryans" from Britain.
While many of these groups seek to put on respectable airs, their aim is to recruit petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements for the purpose of brutally smashing "the reds" and organized labor. As the history of the rise of Nazism tragically demonstrated, it is literally a life-and-death matter for the workers movement to crush such reactionary paramilitary organizations while they are still weak.
With the growth of the NF in recent years (it polled 113,000 votes in last October's parliamentary elections), many leftists and labor militants have understood the need to stop this racialist anti-communist outfit. The occasion for their protest last June was a National Front meeting against the Labour Party government's decision to grant amnesty to persons deemed “illegal immigrants" under the discriminatory 1971 Immigration Act.
Police Riot at Red Lion Square
On the day of the rally, the 1,500 NF marchers drew up in military formation, drums beating and Union Jacks Flying. Many of the flags were mounted on steel-pointed poles, some of the marchers were dressed in black shirts while others wore army surplus uniforms. A counterdemonstration of about 1,000 was organized by the Communist Party (CP) and Liberation, with contingents of the International Socialists (13) and International Marxist Group (IMG).
Trouble began as the anti-fascist demonstrators approached Red Lion Square, occupied (according to the IS account) by about 500 police including mounted patrols. The bourgeois press and police claim the marchers were told in advance to make a right turn as they entered the square, moving away from the meeting hall where the NF rally was to take place. The left organizations say they were told no such thing. In any case it is clear that a section of the march, with the IMG toward the front, sought to break through the police lines to get to Conway Hall.
The police thereupon launched a baton charge, kicking and punching their way into the crowd. As the momentum of the march carried more people into the square, units of the elite Special Patrol Group, notorious for smashing workers' picket lines, were brought in. They formed a wedge and drove through the crowd, splitting it in two.
The fighting intensified as they cornered one section of the ^marchers in a side street. Then the arrests began. Blood-soaked demonstrators were dragged by their hair to waiting "'police vans and several bodies were left lying in the square, among them Kevin Gately. Some of the remaining protesters regrouped on the side street and jeered the NF marchers, who were now approaching from a different direction. After a pause of about ten minutes, the police suddenly launched a mounted charge against the leftists, a savage and totally unprovoked attack. The National Front column looked on jubilantly, then paraded triumphantly into Red Lion Square cheering the police and chanting, "We got to get the reds'."
The cops' vicious attack, including an unprovoked horse charge and the death of Kevin Gately, are the responsibility of the Wilson government. Gately's funeral drew thousands of angry marchers and the wanton police assault has been vigorously condemned by numerous socialist and union organizations. Yet, incredibly, the government has sought to blame the left, particularly the IMG, for the violence! The recently published Scarman Tribunal report rejected most charges police brutality and denied any responsibility of the cops in: Gately's death. This is in spite of the fact that the demonstrators used no weapons, only the police had instruments which could have caused the head wounds (truncheons and horses' hooves), and there were witnesses to the beating. This "report" is a shameless whitewash of what was in fact a police riot.
However, our proletarian solidarity with the victims of bourgeois "law and order" must not be an excuse to cover up serious errors committed by some leaders of the antifascist demonstration at Red Lion Square. It is not enough to want to fight fascists—one must know how to do it. A New Left policy of confrontation with police who obviously intended to defend the National Front is not the way.
There is no doubt that the IMG sought to break through police lines in order to arrive in front of the meeting hall. Jackie Stevens, a member of the IMG, gave this report: "We came across a line of police, and behind them were mounted police. When we tried to get through to Conway Hall, the police drew their batons and charged..." (Intercontinental Press, 24 June 1974).
It is less clear why the IMG took this dangerously mistaken step. But whatever the prior arrangements with the police; whether demonstrators had made plans beforehand or simply fell into a police trap; if it was bravado or confusion—in any case, the decision to try to push through the police lines was a disastrous move. The fact that the demonstrators lacked any means to defend themselves from the cops' murderous onslaught, while it refutes police theories of a conspiracy to attack the police, only makes this move all the more grievously wrong.
Marxists do not uphold a spurious "right" of fascists to freedom of speech; we call on the labor movement to mobilize to prevent the reactionary terror gangs from spewing out their race-hate poison in mass rallies and by provocations such as their marches in military uniform. But to prevent them from speaking through militant mass action requires a favorable balance of forces—something that was obviously not present in Red Lion Square.
Yes, 20,000 workers could, and should, have prevented the NF from holding its racist meeting. The failure of the unions to mobilize against these anti-labor scum is criminal. But this betrayal cannot be corrected by false heroics, sending several score demonstrators against well-equipped riot police. Not only was one militant killed and many injured, but the National Front scored a significant publicity victory as a result.
"Far Left" Battles Cops in Paris
Unfortunately, such confrontationism is not an isolated phenomenon. In France, while the Stalinists and social democrats systematically abstain from mobilizing the working class ^against the fascists, the fake "Trotskyists" of the United Secretariat (of which the IMG is the British affiliate) have taken a different approach: adventurist clashes with police protecting the fascists. The classic case of this substitutionism occurred on June 21, 1973.
On that date the Ligue Communiste (now Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire), French section of the USec, organized a counterdemonstration against a rally by the fascist Ordre Nouveau ("New Order"). The ON had for some time been campaigning against "wildcat immigration" with virulently racist rhetoric, and had succeeded in provoking assaults on immigrant workers. They planned to highlight this campaign nationally with a mass rally at the Mutuality meeting hall in Paris.
While traditionally the Paris police had not mobilized heavily in conflicts between the right and left, this time they clearly were preparing to defend Ordre Nouveau. First they looked on as the ON turned the meeting hall into an armed camp, moving in van loads of iron pipes, clubs and other assorted weaponry. Then, by the Ligue Communiste's own report, the Mutuality was surrounded by 2,000 police, a veritable army to protect the fascists, waiting for the "far left" demonstrators to make the slightest move.
The LC, which early in the day realized that the police were ready to break up the anti-fascist demonstration, encouraged people to come to the march prepared for a confrontation. The leftists were heavily armed with clubs and molotov cocktails. Thus it was clear from the beginning that the Ligue fully expected a bash with the cops—a battle which, however, they could not possibly win without massive contingents of workers and left militants from all quarters.
When the police cordoned off the area around the hall they were bombarded by incendiaries. The anti-fascist demonstrators then broke up into small groups and long into the night isolated clashes continued throughout the area. While there was no clear military defeat of the leftists, they were unable to do more than harass the -cops and did not stop the fascists. The next day Ligue headquarters were occupied by the police, 25 of its supporters were arrested and the organization was outlawed.
The Spartacist League immediately and vigorously protested this viciously anti-democratic government attack and called for united defense of the Ligue. But we also criticized its adventurist tactics:
"The Trotskyist movement has a long history o£ resistance to fascist groups, including attacking and dispersing fascist meetings.... In this case, however, the presence of massive police force made the relation of forces unfavorable to the left. It would appear that the Ligue Communiste recklessly entered into an adventurist confrontation by attempting to take on the armed power of the state under circumstances which could lead only to the defeat of the left. The correct tactic, given the government's authorization of the meeting, was to mount a campaign calling on the mass workers organizations ... to mobilize tens of thousands of their members to prevent the fascist meeting. In their absence, the Ligue could certainly have organized a mass protest demonstration. This is not the same thing, however, as a futile attempt to overwhelm the police with 1,000 youths."
—"Repeal the Ban on the French Ligue Communiste," WV No. 25, 20 July 1973
I
Portugal: A Hair's Breadth from Disaster
Another instance of stupid guerrillaist confrontation tactics occurred earlier this year in Portugal, where it could easily have had disastrous consequences in an explosive pre-revolutionary situation. On the night of January 25-26 several thousand youth and workers in the northern city of Porto surrounded a meeting hall where the rightist Social Democratic Center (CDS) was holding its national congress. This party's leaders include numerous former officials of the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship.
Four leftist organizations-LUAR, MES, PRP, and LCI-called a demonstration in front of the meeting hall. Their joint communique' merely announced a protest action. After an hour, however, a second demonstration arrived on the scene, this one led by the OCMLP (Portuguese Communist Organization Marxist-Leninist, a left-Maoist group), which in an attempt to stop the congress proceedings attacked the paramilitary police who were protecting the building (Esquerda Socialista, 28 January).
This infantile "heroic" gesture led to baton charges by the special police and a tear gas barrage followed by shots, leaving a dozen demonstrators injured, some seriously. The leftists' only means of defense was to hurl bricks. Then beginning around 8 p.m. the regional military commander sent in several army units. The officer in charge asked the CDS to end the meeting (which it did), while the ranks outside fraternized with the demonstrators.
Due to the hostile attitude of the troops, rightist politicians in the Crystal Palace were afraid to leave the building, however, and during the early morning hours a second paramilitary police unit attacked on horse and in personnel carriers. Soldiers reportedly resisted the police assault. Finally, at 7 a.m. parachutists from a base commanded by conservative officers managed to extract the besieged reactionaries (Luta Popular, 2 February; Revolucao, 7 February).
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
*******
LEON TROTSKY ON FIGHTING FASCISTS:
"In this period it is very important to distinguish between the fascists and the state. The state is not yet ready to subordinate itself to the fascists: it wants to ‘arbitrate.’ ... .Our strategic task is to increase these hesitations and apprehensions on the part of the 'arbiter,' its army and its police. How? By showing that we are stronger than the fascists, that is, by giving them a good beating in full view of this arbiter without, as long as we are not absolutely forced to directly taking on the state itself. That is the whole point." —reprinted in Intercontinental Press, 2 December 1974
**********
On 15 June 1974 London's Red Lion Square witnessed one of the bloodiest confrontations between police and left-wing forces in recent British history. Countless demonstrators were beaten with police truncheons, a number were trampled under mounted patrols, and one young man, Kevin Gately, was killed by the cops, his head so brutally battered that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The occasion was a protest against a rally scheduled by the fascist-inspired National Front.
The NF is one of many extreme-rightist organizations that have been surfacing and spreading in Europe during recent months. Their breeding ground is the fear of economic ruin, in particular an intensified competition for jobs in the wake of a worldwide capitalist economic slump.
As in the past, one of the common fascist themes is race hatred against Jews, blacks and now immigrant workers. Former National Front fuehrer John Tyndall was quoted in 1969 as saying: "the Jew is a poisonous maggot feeding on a body in an advanced state of decay" (Sunday Times, 30 March 1969). Along with NF national organizer Martin Webster and others in the group's leadership, Tyndall was during the early 1960's a member of the now-defunct British National Socialist* Movement, which called for "deportation of all non-Aryans" from Britain.
While many of these groups seek to put on respectable airs, their aim is to recruit petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements for the purpose of brutally smashing "the reds" and organized labor. As the history of the rise of Nazism tragically demonstrated, it is literally a life-and-death matter for the workers movement to crush such reactionary paramilitary organizations while they are still weak.
With the growth of the NF in recent years (it polled 113,000 votes in last October's parliamentary elections), many leftists and labor militants have understood the need to stop this racialist anti-communist outfit. The occasion for their protest last June was a National Front meeting against the Labour Party government's decision to grant amnesty to persons deemed “illegal immigrants" under the discriminatory 1971 Immigration Act.
Police Riot at Red Lion Square
On the day of the rally, the 1,500 NF marchers drew up in military formation, drums beating and Union Jacks Flying. Many of the flags were mounted on steel-pointed poles, some of the marchers were dressed in black shirts while others wore army surplus uniforms. A counterdemonstration of about 1,000 was organized by the Communist Party (CP) and Liberation, with contingents of the International Socialists (13) and International Marxist Group (IMG).
Trouble began as the anti-fascist demonstrators approached Red Lion Square, occupied (according to the IS account) by about 500 police including mounted patrols. The bourgeois press and police claim the marchers were told in advance to make a right turn as they entered the square, moving away from the meeting hall where the NF rally was to take place. The left organizations say they were told no such thing. In any case it is clear that a section of the march, with the IMG toward the front, sought to break through the police lines to get to Conway Hall.
The police thereupon launched a baton charge, kicking and punching their way into the crowd. As the momentum of the march carried more people into the square, units of the elite Special Patrol Group, notorious for smashing workers' picket lines, were brought in. They formed a wedge and drove through the crowd, splitting it in two.
The fighting intensified as they cornered one section of the ^marchers in a side street. Then the arrests began. Blood-soaked demonstrators were dragged by their hair to waiting "'police vans and several bodies were left lying in the square, among them Kevin Gately. Some of the remaining protesters regrouped on the side street and jeered the NF marchers, who were now approaching from a different direction. After a pause of about ten minutes, the police suddenly launched a mounted charge against the leftists, a savage and totally unprovoked attack. The National Front column looked on jubilantly, then paraded triumphantly into Red Lion Square cheering the police and chanting, "We got to get the reds'."
The cops' vicious attack, including an unprovoked horse charge and the death of Kevin Gately, are the responsibility of the Wilson government. Gately's funeral drew thousands of angry marchers and the wanton police assault has been vigorously condemned by numerous socialist and union organizations. Yet, incredibly, the government has sought to blame the left, particularly the IMG, for the violence! The recently published Scarman Tribunal report rejected most charges police brutality and denied any responsibility of the cops in: Gately's death. This is in spite of the fact that the demonstrators used no weapons, only the police had instruments which could have caused the head wounds (truncheons and horses' hooves), and there were witnesses to the beating. This "report" is a shameless whitewash of what was in fact a police riot.
However, our proletarian solidarity with the victims of bourgeois "law and order" must not be an excuse to cover up serious errors committed by some leaders of the antifascist demonstration at Red Lion Square. It is not enough to want to fight fascists—one must know how to do it. A New Left policy of confrontation with police who obviously intended to defend the National Front is not the way.
There is no doubt that the IMG sought to break through police lines in order to arrive in front of the meeting hall. Jackie Stevens, a member of the IMG, gave this report: "We came across a line of police, and behind them were mounted police. When we tried to get through to Conway Hall, the police drew their batons and charged..." (Intercontinental Press, 24 June 1974).
It is less clear why the IMG took this dangerously mistaken step. But whatever the prior arrangements with the police; whether demonstrators had made plans beforehand or simply fell into a police trap; if it was bravado or confusion—in any case, the decision to try to push through the police lines was a disastrous move. The fact that the demonstrators lacked any means to defend themselves from the cops' murderous onslaught, while it refutes police theories of a conspiracy to attack the police, only makes this move all the more grievously wrong.
Marxists do not uphold a spurious "right" of fascists to freedom of speech; we call on the labor movement to mobilize to prevent the reactionary terror gangs from spewing out their race-hate poison in mass rallies and by provocations such as their marches in military uniform. But to prevent them from speaking through militant mass action requires a favorable balance of forces—something that was obviously not present in Red Lion Square.
Yes, 20,000 workers could, and should, have prevented the NF from holding its racist meeting. The failure of the unions to mobilize against these anti-labor scum is criminal. But this betrayal cannot be corrected by false heroics, sending several score demonstrators against well-equipped riot police. Not only was one militant killed and many injured, but the National Front scored a significant publicity victory as a result.
"Far Left" Battles Cops in Paris
Unfortunately, such confrontationism is not an isolated phenomenon. In France, while the Stalinists and social democrats systematically abstain from mobilizing the working class ^against the fascists, the fake "Trotskyists" of the United Secretariat (of which the IMG is the British affiliate) have taken a different approach: adventurist clashes with police protecting the fascists. The classic case of this substitutionism occurred on June 21, 1973.
On that date the Ligue Communiste (now Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire), French section of the USec, organized a counterdemonstration against a rally by the fascist Ordre Nouveau ("New Order"). The ON had for some time been campaigning against "wildcat immigration" with virulently racist rhetoric, and had succeeded in provoking assaults on immigrant workers. They planned to highlight this campaign nationally with a mass rally at the Mutuality meeting hall in Paris.
While traditionally the Paris police had not mobilized heavily in conflicts between the right and left, this time they clearly were preparing to defend Ordre Nouveau. First they looked on as the ON turned the meeting hall into an armed camp, moving in van loads of iron pipes, clubs and other assorted weaponry. Then, by the Ligue Communiste's own report, the Mutuality was surrounded by 2,000 police, a veritable army to protect the fascists, waiting for the "far left" demonstrators to make the slightest move.
The LC, which early in the day realized that the police were ready to break up the anti-fascist demonstration, encouraged people to come to the march prepared for a confrontation. The leftists were heavily armed with clubs and molotov cocktails. Thus it was clear from the beginning that the Ligue fully expected a bash with the cops—a battle which, however, they could not possibly win without massive contingents of workers and left militants from all quarters.
When the police cordoned off the area around the hall they were bombarded by incendiaries. The anti-fascist demonstrators then broke up into small groups and long into the night isolated clashes continued throughout the area. While there was no clear military defeat of the leftists, they were unable to do more than harass the -cops and did not stop the fascists. The next day Ligue headquarters were occupied by the police, 25 of its supporters were arrested and the organization was outlawed.
The Spartacist League immediately and vigorously protested this viciously anti-democratic government attack and called for united defense of the Ligue. But we also criticized its adventurist tactics:
"The Trotskyist movement has a long history o£ resistance to fascist groups, including attacking and dispersing fascist meetings.... In this case, however, the presence of massive police force made the relation of forces unfavorable to the left. It would appear that the Ligue Communiste recklessly entered into an adventurist confrontation by attempting to take on the armed power of the state under circumstances which could lead only to the defeat of the left. The correct tactic, given the government's authorization of the meeting, was to mount a campaign calling on the mass workers organizations ... to mobilize tens of thousands of their members to prevent the fascist meeting. In their absence, the Ligue could certainly have organized a mass protest demonstration. This is not the same thing, however, as a futile attempt to overwhelm the police with 1,000 youths."
—"Repeal the Ban on the French Ligue Communiste," WV No. 25, 20 July 1973
I
Portugal: A Hair's Breadth from Disaster
Another instance of stupid guerrillaist confrontation tactics occurred earlier this year in Portugal, where it could easily have had disastrous consequences in an explosive pre-revolutionary situation. On the night of January 25-26 several thousand youth and workers in the northern city of Porto surrounded a meeting hall where the rightist Social Democratic Center (CDS) was holding its national congress. This party's leaders include numerous former officials of the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship.
Four leftist organizations-LUAR, MES, PRP, and LCI-called a demonstration in front of the meeting hall. Their joint communique' merely announced a protest action. After an hour, however, a second demonstration arrived on the scene, this one led by the OCMLP (Portuguese Communist Organization Marxist-Leninist, a left-Maoist group), which in an attempt to stop the congress proceedings attacked the paramilitary police who were protecting the building (Esquerda Socialista, 28 January).
This infantile "heroic" gesture led to baton charges by the special police and a tear gas barrage followed by shots, leaving a dozen demonstrators injured, some seriously. The leftists' only means of defense was to hurl bricks. Then beginning around 8 p.m. the regional military commander sent in several army units. The officer in charge asked the CDS to end the meeting (which it did), while the ranks outside fraternized with the demonstrators.
Due to the hostile attitude of the troops, rightist politicians in the Crystal Palace were afraid to leave the building, however, and during the early morning hours a second paramilitary police unit attacked on horse and in personnel carriers. Soldiers reportedly resisted the police assault. Finally, at 7 a.m. parachutists from a base commanded by conservative officers managed to extract the besieged reactionaries (Luta Popular, 2 February; Revolucao, 7 February).
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