“Occupy” as a tactic

How to beat the 1%
Written by Socialist Appeal (United States)
Wednesday, 03 October 2012

One year ago, Occupy Wall Street burst into the public consciousness. Similar actions had been tried just months earlier, but failed to take root. Up until its second week, OWS itself seemed to be yet another localized action that would fail to make a real splash. But when images of the NYPD’s netting and pepper spraying of a number of Occupy protesters found their way onto televisions and Facebook feeds across the country, the “straw broke the camel’s back.” The occupation of Zuccotti Park showed millions of Americans that they were not alone in their frustration at the stagnation and decay of the country’s economy, political setup, and society generally.

“Occupy” as a tactic was inspired in large part by the Egyptian Revolution, which unfolded live on televisions worldwide in the form of the occupation of Tahrir Square. Tens of thousands in Wisconsin had used a similar tactic when they occupied the state capitol to protest Governor Walker’s anti-union laws. However, despite the symbolic significance of the mass concentration in Tahrir Square, this wasn’t enough to bring down Mubarak. Just as the movement was about to run out of gas, when it seemed Mubarak might be able to eke out a victory and wear out the movement, the Egyptian working class decisively entered the scene of history. It was the strikes of the Egyptian workers, in particular those at the Mahalla textile mills and the Suez Canal that were the decisive blows, forcing the military to remove Mubarak or face the prospect of losing control of the situation altogether.

In Wisconsin, no strikes were organized, and the mass movement was derailed into a demoralizing and demobilizing recall election that failed to inspire and failed to kick out Walker. In New York, and in the hundreds of cities where occupations spontaneously sprung up, the labor leaders likewise did far too little to actually lead the movement to victory. The steam eventually ran out. Repression, cold weather, infighting and tiredness took their toll, and today, Occupy continues mostly in name only, or in small, atomized “affinity groups.” Whether or not the anniversary of Occupy will lead to a renewed wave of occupations remains to be seen. We certainly hope it will. However, what is needed is a strategy to actually win. How can movements like Occupy actually bring about the change the majority so urgently needs?

The key is the role of the working class. While protests against the status quo can raise awareness, they cannot in and of themselves bring about fundamental change. The working class is in a unique position to do this. Due to its relationship to the key levers of the economy, the working class has the capacity to actually bring capitalist society to a halt. After all, whether in Egypt or in the USA, not a wheel turns, not a light shines, and not a single product is made without the bones, brains, nerves, and muscles of the workers! The Fortune 500 CEOs and boards of directors are utterly incapable of running society without the workers. But we can run society just fine with out them. This is the real meaning of the “1%” vs. the “99%.” It is a recognition that while a handful of parasites currently run society in their interests, the majority have the capacity to run things differently.

There was an important collaboration between the labor movement and Occupy, especially in NYC and in the Bay Area. From offering office and storage space, to paying for the publication of the OWS newspaper, organized labor lent essential support to the movement. However, this alone was never going to be enough to stop business as usual. There are hundreds of thousands of organized workers in NYC. Just imagine if the labor leaders had called a general strike and an all-out occupation of lower Manhattan by New York’s powerful working class. Without transportation, telecommunications, electricity, hotel, restaurant, and janitorial services, etc., the Wall Street “banksters” would be left suspended in mid-air. This would have sent shock waves throughout the country, and would have been enthusiastically supported by millions.

After decades of attacks, the labor movement is like an army ready and willing to fight, but receiving no orders to do so from the leadership. There has been a political and organizational void when it comes to organizing a fightback against the austerity being imposed by Democrats and Republicans alike. It is therefore no wonder that a “spark” such as OWS attracted the attention of millions and transformed the national political dialogue. It had an electrifying effect on the rank and file of the labor movement, who would have eagerly mobilized to show their real power and support those braving the cold and police in Zuccotti Park.

But even a mass occupation and the shutting down of Wall Street would not suffice. The labor movement also requires bold leadership,  greater organization, majority-rule direct democracy, a political program, and perspectives for changing society for the better. To coordinate all of this on a national scale we need a political party with elected officials that will truly fight in our interests. We need a labor party, under the direct and democratic control of the membership, accountable only to the unions and the working class majority, not Wall Street. Armed with a socialist program, such a party would rapidly transform the American political landscape and decisively defeat the 1%.

http://www.marxist.com/how-to-beat-the-one-percent.htm

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Slavoj Žižek. The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism. 2012

Marxism and World Economy

Internationalism and the Theory of "Exceptionalism"
Preface to the American Edition of The Permanent Revolution
L.D. Trotsky
(1930)

Written: 1930.
Source: The Militant, vol. III No. 19, 10 May 1930, p. 5.

As this book goes to press in the English language, the whole thinking part of the international working class and in a sense – the whole of "civilized" humanity, listens with particularly keen interest to the resoundings of the economic turn taking place on the major part of the former czarist empire. The greatest attention in this connection is aroused by the problem of collectivizing the peasant holdings. And no wonder: in this sphere the break with the past assumes a particularly absorbing character. But a correct evaluation of collectivization is unthinkable without a general conception of the socialist revolution. And here again, but already on a higher stage, we convince ourselves that in the sphere of Marxian theory there is nothing unrelated to practical activity. The most remote, and it would seem, "abstract" disagreements, if they are thought out to the end, will sooner or later always appear in practice, and this latter will not forgive a single theoretical mistake.

The collectivization of peasant holdings is, it is understood, a necessary and essential part of the socialist transformation of society. The volume and tempo of collectivization, however, is not only determined by the government's will but, in the final analysis by the economic factors: by the height) of the country's economic level, the correlation between industry and agriculture and consequently by the technical resources of industry itself.
 
Industrialization and Socialism

Industrialization is the moving factor of the whole newest culture and, by that itself, the single plausible basis of socialism. In the conditions of the Soviet Union industrialization means first of all the strengthening of the base of the proletariat as a ruling class. Simultaneously it creates the material-technical pre-condition for the collectivization of agriculture. The tempos of both these processes are interdependent. The proletariat is interested in the highest tempo for both processes, in so far as the new society that is being created can thus guard itself best from external danger, and at the same time create a source for the systematic raising of the material level of the toiling masses.

However, the tempos that can be accomplished are limited by the general material and cultural level of the country, by the mutual relationship between the city and village and in the pressing needs of the masses, who can sacrifice their today for the sake of tomorrow, only within certain limits, The optimum, that is the best, most advantageous tempos are those that give swift development to industry not only for the given moment, but secure the necessary stability of the social order of the dictatorship, that is, first of all the strengthening of the unity of the workers and peasants, preparing by that itself the possibility of further successes.

From this point of view the general historical criterion from the angle of which the party and government leadership directs the economic development in a planned order is of decisive significance. Here two basic variations are possible:

    the course described above of economic strengthening of the proletarian dictatorship in a single country until further victories of the international proletarian revolution (the viewpoint of the Left Opposition);
    
    the course of constructing an isolated national socialist society, and that "in the shortest historical time" (the present official viewpoint).

These are two absolutely different, and in the final analysis, contrary theoretical conceptions of socialism. From them flow a different strategy and different tactics.

In the limits of this preface we cannot consider anew the question of building socialism in one country. Others of our works are devoted to this, particularly The Criticism of the Draft Program of the Comintern. [1] Here we limit ourselves to the most basic elements of the question. Let us recall, first of all, that the theory of socialism in one country was first formulated by Stalin in the Fall of 1924, in complete contradiction not only to the whole tradition of Marxism and the school of Lenin, but even to what Stalin wrote in the Spring of that same year, 1924. From the standpoint of principle the abandonment of Marxism by the Stalinist "school" in the question of socialist construction is no less significant than, for example, the break of the German Social Democracy with Marxism in the question of war and patriotism, in the Fall of 1914, that is exactly ten years before the Stalinist turn. This comparison has no accidental character. Stalin's "mistake," as well as the "mistake" of the German Social-Democracy is national-socialism.
 
Marxism and World Economy

Marxism follows from world economy, not as a sum of national parts, but as a mighty independent reality, which is created by the international division of labor and by the world market, dominating powerfully in the present epoch over national markets. The productive forces of capitalist society have long ago outgrown national limits. The imperialist war was one of the expressions of this fact. In the productive-technical respect socialist society must represent a higher stage compared to capitalism. To aim at the construction of a nationally-enclosed socialist society would mean, in spite of all temporary successes, to pull the productive forces backward even as compared to capitalism. To attempt independent of geographic cultural and historical conditions of the country's development, making up a part of the world's whole, to realize a self-sufficient proportionality of all the branches of economy in a national frame, means to pursue a reactionary utopia. If the heralds and supporters of this theory nevertheless participate in the international revolutionary struggle (with what success – is a different question), it is because as hopeless eclectics, they mechanically combine abstract internationalism with reactionary-utopian-socialism. The most finished expression of this eclecticism is the program of the Comintern adopted at the Sixth Congress.

To expose completely one of the main theoretical mistakes, lying at the base of the national-socialist conception, we can do nothing better than to quote the recently published speech of Stalin, devoted to the internal questions of American Communism. [2]

"It would be wrong," says Stalin against one of the American factions, "not to take into consideration the specific peculiarities of American capitalism. The Communist Party must consider them in its work. But it would be still more wrong to base the activity of the Communist Party on these specific features, for the foundation of activity of every Communist Party, the American included, on which it must base itself, are the common features of capitalism the same basically for all countries, and not the specific features in the given country. It is not on this that the internationalism of the Communist Parties exists. The specific features are merely supplementary to the general features." (Bolshevik, Number 1, 1930, page 8, emphasis ours.)

These lines leave nothing to be desired in the way of clarity. Under the guise of giving an economic foundation to internationalism, Stalin gives in reality the foundation of national-socialism. It is false that the specific features are "merely supplementary to the general features" like a wart in a face. In reality the national peculiarities are an original unity of the basic features of the world process. This originality may have a decisive significance for the revolutionary strategy for years. It is sufficient to recall the fact that the proletariat of a backward country has come to power many years before the proletariat of the advanced countries. This one historic lesson shows that in spite of Stalin, it is absolutely wrong to base the activity of the Communist Parties on some "common features", that is on the abstract type of national capitalism. It is false to the roots that it is on this "that the internationalism of the Communist Parties exists." In reality it exists on the inconsistency of a national state, which has long outlived Itself, and acts as a brake on the development of the productive forces. National capitalism not only cannot be reconstructed, but cannot even be conceived of as anything but a part of world economy. The economic peculiarities of different countries is [sic!] not of a secondary character: It is enough to compare England and India, the United States and Brazil. But the specific features of national economy, no matter how big, enter, and that in an increasing measure with their component parts into the higher reality, which is called world economy, and on which, in the final analysis, the internationalism of the Communist Parties is founded.
 
The Law of Uneven Development

Stalin's characterization of the national peculiarities, as a simple "supplement" to the common type, is in crying and by no means accidental contradiction to Stalin's understanding (that is, his lack of understanding) of the law of the uneven development of capitalism. This law, as is known, is declared by Stalin as basic, most important and universal. With the help of the law of uneven development, turned by him into an abstraction, Stalin attempts to solve all the riddles of existence. But it is shocking: he does not notice that national originality is the most common and, so to say, summed-up product of the uneven historic development. It is only necessary to understand this unevenness correctly, to take it in its full measure, extending, it also to the pre-capitalist past. A faster or slower development of productive forces; an extended or, on the contrary, a contracted character of whole historic epochs, for example, of the middle ages, the guild system, enlightened absolutism, parliamentarism; the uneven development of the different branches of economy, different classes, different social institutions, different sides of culture – all these lie at the basis of national "peculiarities". Originality of a national-social type is the cryszallization of the unevenness of its formation. The October revolution arose, as one of the grandest manifestations of the unevenness of the historic process. The theory of the permanent revolution, which gave the prognosis of the October overturn, supported itself, by that alone, on the law of uneven historic development, not in its abstract form, but in its material crystallization, in the form of the social and political originality of Russia.

Stalin introduced the law of uneven development not in order opportunely to foresee the seizure of power by the proletariat of a backward country, but in order after the fact, in 1924 to hang on to the victorious proletariat the task of constructing a national socialist society. But it is precisely here that the law of uneven development has nothing to do with the matter, for it does not substitute and does not remove the laws of world economy; on the contrary, it is subordinated to them.

Fetishizing the law of uneven development, Stalin declares it sufficient as a basis for national-socialism, not as a type that is common to all countries, but exceptional, Messianic, purely Russian. To construct an independent socialist society is possible, according to Stalin, only in Russia. By this alone he puts the national peculiarities of Russia not only above the "common features" of all the capitalist nations, but also above world economy as a whole. Here is where the fatal gap opens in the whole of Stalin's conception. The originality of the U.S.S.R. is so mighty that it makes possible the construction of its own socialism within its limits, independent of what may happen with the rest of humanity. As for other countries to which the Messianic seal has not been affixed, their originality is only "supplementary" to the common features, only a wart on the face. "It would be wrong," Stalin teaches, "to base the activities of the Communist Parties on these specific features." This moral holds good for the American Communist Party, the British South African and Serbian, but ... not for the Russian, whose activity is based not on the "common features", but precisely on the "peculiarities". From here flows the dual strategy of the Comintern throughout: while the U.S.S.R. "liquidates the classes" and constructs national socialism, the proletariat of all the other countries, completely independent of actual national conditions, is obligated to simultaneous action according to the calendar (First of August, March Sixth, etc.). Messianic nationalism is supplemented by bureaucratically-abstract internationalism. This duality runs through the whole program of the Comintern, depriving it of any kind of principled significance.

If we take England and India as two different poles of capitalist types, we must state that the internationalism of the British and Hindu proletariat does not all all rest on the sameness of conditions, tasks and methods, but on their unbreakable mutual dependence. The successes of the liberation movement in India require a revolutionary movement in England, and the other way around. Neither in India, nor in England is it possible to construct an independent socialist society. Both of them will have to enter as parts into a higher whole. In this and only in this is the uncrushable foundation of Marxian internationalism.

Footnotes

1. [No note is printed in the source. – Note by MIA]
2. This speech was delivered on May 6, 1929, was first published all the beginning of 1930, and under such circumstances that it acquires a "programmatic" significance.

(Continued from last issue)

Only recently, March 8 1930, Pravda expounded Stalin's unfortunate theory anew, in the sense that "socialism, as a social-economic formation", that is, as a definite order of productive relations, can be fully realized "on the national scale of the U.S.S.R." Quite another matter is "the complete victory of socialism in the sense of guaranteeing it from intervention of; capitalist encirclement" – such a complete victory of socialism "actually demands the triumph of the proletarian revolution in several advanced countries". What abysmal decay of theoretical thought was needed for such sorry scholasticism to be expounded in a learned form on the pages of the central organ of Lenin's party! If we should assume for a minute the possibility of realizing socialism as a finished social system in the isolated frame of the U.S.S.R., then that would be the "complete victory" – what intervention could be talked of then? The socialist order presupposes high technique, high culture and high solidarity of the population. Since the U.S.S.R. at the moment of complete construction of socialism will have, it must be assumed, not less than 200, or perhaps even 250 million in population, then we ask: what intervention could be talked of then? What capitalist country, or coalition of countries would dare think of intervention under these circumstances? The only conceivable intervention could be on the part of the U.S.S.R. But would it be needed? It is doubtful. The example of a backward country which in the course of several "five year plans" constructed a mighty socialist society with independent forces would mean a death blow to world capitalism, and would reduce to a minimum, if not to zero, the costs of the world proletarian revolution. This is why the whole Stalinist conception leads in essence to the liquidation of the Communist International. And really, what could its historic significance be, if the fate of socialism is to he decided in the last resort ... by the Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the U.S.S.R.? In such a case the Comintern has as its task along with the illustrious "Friends of the Soviet Union", to guard the construction of socialism from interventions, that is, in essence, it is reduced to the role of a frontier guard.

The already mentioned [1] recent article attempts to prove the correctness of the Stalinist conception with the newest and freshest economic arguments:

"... precisely now," the Pravda says, "when the socialist type of productive relations, besides industry, begins to take deeper root in agriculture through the growing Sokhoz (Soviet farms), through the gigantic growth in quantity and quality of the Kolkoz (collective farm) movement,and the liquidation of the Kulak as a class based on complete collectivization, it shows more clearly the sorry bankruptcy of Trotsky-Zinoviev defeatism, which has meant in essence 'the Menshevist denial of the legitimacy of the October revolution' (Stalin)." (Pravda, March 8, 1930)

These lines are really remarkable, and not merely for their glib tone which covers a complete confusion of thought. Together with Stalin the author of the Pravda article condemns the "Trotskyist" conception "for denying the legitimacy of the October Revolution". But it was exactly on the basis of this conception, that is the theory of the permanent revolution, that the writer of these lines foretold the inevitability of the October Revolution 13 years before it occurred. But Stalin? Already after the February Revolution, that is seven and eight months prior to the October overturn, he came forward as a vulgar revolutionary democrat. It was necessary that Lenin should arrive in Petrograd (April 3, 1917), with his merciless struggle and ridicule of the self-conceited "Old Bolsheviks", for Stalin carefully and noiselessly to climb over from his democratic to a socialist position. This inner "re-growth" of Stalin, which by the way has never been completed, took place, at any rate, not earlier than 12 years after we gave the basis tor the "legitimacy" of the seizure of power by the working class of. Russia before the beginning of the proletarian revolution in the West.
 
National Revolution and World Economics

But working out the theoretical prognosis of the October Revolution, we did not at all expect that, winning state power, the Russian proletariat would exclude the former empire of the czars from the world economic sphere. We Marxists know the role and significance of state power. It is not at all a passive reflection of economic processes, as the social-democratic servants of the bourgeois state fatalistically describe it. Power can have a gigantic significance, reactionary, as well as progressive, depending upon which class holds it in its hands. But the state power is nevertheless a weapon of superstructural order. The passing of power from the hands of czarism and the bourgeoisie into the hands of the proletariat, does not remove the processes, nor the laws of world economy. It is true that for a certain time after the October overturn the economic ties of the Soviet Union with the world market weakened. But it would be a monstrous mistake to generalize a phenomenon which was merely a short stage of the dialectical process. The world division of labor and the supra-national character of modern productive forces, not only retain, but will increase twofold and tenfold their significance for the Soviet Union, depending on the degree of its economic rise.

Each backward country adapting itself to capitalism, has gone through diverse stages of decreasing or increasing dependence on the other capitalist countries, but in general the tendency of capitalist development leads towards a colossal growth of world ties, which expresses itself in the growth of foreign trade, including, of course, trade with their capital as well. The dependence of England upon India has, of course, a qualitatively different character than the dependence of India upon England. But this difference is basically determined by the difference in the level of development of their productive forces, and not at all by the degree of their economic self-sufficiency. India is a colony, England a – metropolis. But if today England should be subjected to an economic blockade, it would perish sooner than India. This is one of the convincing illustrations of the reality of world economy.

Capitalist development – not in the abstract formulae of the second volume of Capital which retain all their significance as a stage in analysis, but in historic reality – capitalist development took place and could only take place, by means of systematically widening its base. Consequently, in the process of its development, in the struggle with its internal contradictions, each national capitalism turns in a growing degree to the reserves of the "external market", that is, of world economy. The inevitable expansion growing out of the permanent internal crisis of capitalism is its progressive force until it becomes fatal to it.

The October Revolution inherited from old Russia, besides the internal contradictions of capitalism, no less deep contradictions between capitalism as a whole and the pre-capitalist forms of production. These contradictions had and still have a material character, that is, they are hidden in the material relations between the city and the village in definite proportions or disproportions of various branches of industry and the economy of the people in general, etc. Some of these contradictions are rooted directly in the geographic and demographic conditions of the country, that is, they breed on the surplus, or the lack of one or another natural resources, and the historically created distribution of the masses of the people, etc. The strength of Soviet economy is in the nationalization of the means of production, and their planned direction. The weakness of Soviet economy, besides the weaknesses inherited from the past – is in its present post-October isolation, that is, in its inability to utilize the resources of world economy not only on a socialist, but even on a capitalist basis – in the form of normal international credits, and generally "financing", which plays such a determining role for backward countries. In the meantime the contradictions of the capitalist and pre-capitalist past not only do not disappear of themselves, but, on the contrary, rise out of the accumulations of the years of decline and destruction, revive and sharpen together with the growth of Soviet economy, and for their removal, or even softening they demand at every step the bringing into circulation of the resources of the world market.
 
The Growth of Contradictions

To understand what is now happening in the gigantic territory which the October overturn aroused to new life, we must always picture to ourselves clearly that to the old contradictions which were recently revived by the economic successes, was added a new one, the mightiest contradiction: between the concentrated character of Soviet industry, which opens the possibility of hitherto unheard of tempos of development, and isolated Soviet economy, which excludes the possibility of a normal utilization of the reserves of world economy. The new contradiction added to the old ones, lends to the fact that, alongside of the exceptional successes, painful difficulties grow up. The latter find their most immediate and painful expression, felt daily by every worker and peasant, in the fact that the conditions of the toiling masses not only do not rise in relation to the rise of economy, but even worsen now as a result of the growing food difficulties. The sharp crises of Soviet economy are a reminder that the productive forces created by capitalism, are not adapted to a national framework and can be socialistically coordinated and harmonized only on an international scale. In other words, the crises of Soviet economy are not merely sicknesses of growth, a sort of illness of childhood but something immeasurably more significant, precisely the rigorous pull of the world market, that same one, "to which," according to Lenin's words, "we are subordinated to which we are tied, from which we cannot break away" (at the XI congress of the Party, March 27, 1922).

From this, however, the denial of the historical "legitimacy" of the October Revolution does not at all follow, a conclusion which smells of shameful philistinism. The seizure of power by the proletariat cannot be a simultaneous act. The political superstructure – and a revolution is related to "superstructure" – has it own dialectic, which breaks powerfully into the world economic process, but does not remove its deeper laws. The October Revolution is "legitimate" as the first stage in the world revolution, which inevitably drags out for decades. The interval between the first stage and the second turned out to be considerably longer than we expected. But it nevertheless remains an interval, and does not at all turn into a self-sufficient epoch of constructing a national socialist society.

Out of the two conceptions of the revolution have grown two leading lines on economic questions. The first rapid successes, which were completely unexpected by him, inspired Stalin in the Fall of 1924 with the theory of socialism in one country as the crowning of a practical perspective for an isolated national economy. In the same period, Bucharin gave his famous formula that by fencing ourselves off from the world economy by a foreign trade monopoly, we can construct socialism "even at a snail's pace". This was the common formula of the Centrist-Right bloc. Stalin was then tirelessly expounding the idea that the tempo of our industrialization is our "internal business", having no relation to the world economy. Such a sort of national self-contentment, however, could not last long, for it was reflecting the first, very brief stage of economic revival, which inevitably revived our dependence on the world market The first shocks of intra-state dependence, unexpected by the national socialists, created an alarm, which in the next stage turned into a panic. To gain economic "independence" speedily with the aid of the fastest possible tempos of industrialization and collectivization! – this is the change that has taken place in the economic policy of national socialism during the past two years. Crawling was substituted all along the line by adventurism. The theoretical base under both is the same: a national socialist conception.

The basic difficulties, as was shown above, result from the objective situation, first of all from the isolation of the Soviet Union. We shall not stop here to consider to what degree this objective situation is itself a result of the subjective mistakes of the leadership (the false policy in Germany in 1923, in Bulgaria and Esthonia – in 1924, in England and Poland – in 1926, in China – in 1925–27, the present false strategy of the "third period", etc., etc.). But the sharpest convulsions in the U.S.S.R. are created by the fact that the present leadership tries to turn necessity into good fortune, and, from the political isolation of the workers' state, produces a program of an economically isolated socialist society. From this has resulted the attempt of complete socialist collectivization of peasant holdings on the basis of the pre-capitalist inventory – a most dangerous adventure which threatens to undermine the very possibility of collaboration between the proletariat and the peasantry.
 
The "Mad Gallop" and the Panicky Retreat

And it is remarkable: just at the moment when this began to appear in all its sharpness, Bucharin, yesterday's theoretician of the "snail's pace", composed a pathetic hymn to the present "mad gallop" of industrialization and collectivization. It is to be feared that this hymn will soon be declared the greatest heresy. For there are already new melodies in the air. Under the influence of the economic material, Stalin has been compelled to beat a retreat. Now the danger is that the adventurous offensive dictated by panic of yesterday will turn into a panic-stricken retreat. This sort of alternating stages result inevitably from the nature of national socialism.

A realistic program of an isolated workers' state, cannot set itself the aim of accomplishing "independence" from world economy, or even more, to construct it national socialist society in the "shortest time." The task is not to accomplish the abstract-maximum, but the optimum tempos, that is such that flow from the internal and world economic conditions, strengthen the positions of the proletariat, prepare the national elements of the future international socialist society and at the same time, and before all systematically improve the living level of the proletariat, strengthening its union with the non-exploiting masses of the village. This perspective remains in force for the whole preparatory period, that is until the victorious revolution in the advanced countries will bring the Soviet Union out of its present isolated position.

Some of the thoughts expressed here are developed with greater detail in other works of the author, particularly in the Criticism of the Draft Program of the Comintern. [2] In the nearest future we hope to publish a pamphlet especially devoted to an evaluation of the present stage of economic development in the U.S.S.R. To these works we are obliged to direct the reader who seeks a closer acquaintance with the way in which the problems of the permanent revolution are posed today. But the considerations brought out above are sufficient let us hope, to reveal the whole significance of the struggle of principles that was carried on in recent years, and is carried on now in the form of counterposing two theories: socialism in one country and the permanent revolution. Only this timely significance of the question justified the fact that we present here to foreign readers a book, which is largely devoted to a critical re-establishment of pre-revolutionary prognoses and theoretical disputes among the Russian Marxists. We could, of course, have selected a different form of expounding the questions that interest us. But this form was never created, by the author, and was not selected by him voluntarily. It was imposed upon him partly by opponents, and partly by the very course of political development. Even the truths of mathematics, the most abstract of the sciences can best of all be learned in connection with the history of their discoveries. This holds all the more truly of more concrete, that is, historically conditioned truths of Marxist policy. The history of the origin and development of the prognoses of the revolution in the conditions of pre-revolutionary Russia will, we think bring the reader much nearer and far more concretely to the essence of the revolutionary tasks of the world proletariat [than a] school-like and pedantic exposition [of these] political ideas, torn out of the [historical] circumstances that gave birth to [them].

Footnotes
1. See the Militant, May 10, 1930.
2. This book is for sale by the The Militant at 35 cents a copy.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/xx/exception2.htm

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Max Shachtman on Leon Trotsky

A Visit to the Island of Prinkipo
Max Shachtman
(May 1930)

From The Militant, Vol. III No. 19, 10 May 1930, pp. 4-5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for the Marxists' Internet Archive.

Prinkipo is the old Greek name for the Isle of Princes, about two hours by boat from Constantinople. It was given this name because princes of the ancient realm who incurred the displeasure of the ruling autocrat were dispatched to the tiny island in the See of Marmora as exiles and prisoners. The nationalistic Turks, having overthrown the yoke of' Greek domination, proceeded to remove all relics of that hated regime even to the extent of changing the old Greek names: Constantinople has become Stambul, and the Isle of Princes has become Euyuk-Ada, or Grand Island.

The name of the island has been changed but it remains a place of exile. There is no longer a single prince imprisoned on it. But for that the island is now reserved for a different kind of exile, for the Bolshevik who has incurred the displeasure of the ruling regime in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. By gentlemanly arrangement between Stalin and Kemal Pasha, Buyuk-Ada has become the fourth place of exile for Leon Trotsky, his wife and son.
 
Trotsky's Health

We did not visit comrade Trotsky as a newspaper correspondent seeking sensations and so we have no journalistic sensations to report. As it is, there are plenty of reporters and writers who knock on the door every other day to ask: "May I see M. Trotsky about his views on religion?" or "What does M. Trotsky think of modern art?" or "Will M. Trotsky write A reply for us to Floyd Gibbons' Red Napoleon?" or "Can we get a statement here on the report that M. Trotsky is on his death bed?" or any number of similar questions. Yet, out of all these personal questions, so to say, the one about his health recurs most frequently; there have been so many conflicting reports on this point that it will be worth while to state matters accurately.

Comrade Trotsky is not on his death bed, that goes without saying. He is usually quite vigorous and works with customary diligence. Unfortunately, the accumulation of certain maladies, made more acute by his exile in Alma-Ata and the absence of proper medical attention, makes him subject from time to time to malarial attacks and headaches of some severity, gout, and most alarming of all, to trouble with his heart. What is needed is treatment by a specialist as well as a climate and environment for a cure. Thus far, every effort has been made to prevent him from obtaining the necessary attention. It has been a concerted effort of Stalin and Kemal Pasha, on the one hand, and all the bourgeois countries of Europe "democracies" and dictatorships, on the other. The much-advertized right of asylum is obviously extended to the Bessodovskys but not to Bolsheviks.

During our brief stay, we talked at some length about the situation in Russia and about the movement in the United States. Trotsky had just finished writing his articles on the new course in Soviet economy and the prospects for the Five Year plan. Just about the same time, the news began to arrive from Russia reporting the latest turn begun by Stalin towards the moderation of the Plan. The question arose: How is it that Stalin, and even Bucharin of late, after having conducted a furious campaign for years against the Opposition by accusing it of being "super-industrialist", finally adopted and began to carry out a plan for industrialization and collectivization which, at least on the face of it, was far more radical than any previously proposed by the Opposition? Comrade Trotsky explained it in this way:
 
Stalin and the Five Year Plan

The requirements of the economic situation that developed in the country after the presentation of the Platform and Counter theses of the Opposition, and the latter's subsequent expulsion from the Party, soon demanded the formulation of a much more radical and far-reaching program than had originally been conceived. The Centrist faction of Stalin, which had first adopted the timid and worthless plan of Rykov, rejected it under the pressure of the situation and proceeded with a Five Year plan of considerably greater breadth. The startling successes of the first year – startling to the Centrists who never really believed such a rapid tempo possible – not only demonstrated the enormous latent possibilities for industrial development under a proletarian dictatorship (nationalization of industry, banks, etc., etc.), but immediately produced, an extreme boldness born precisely out of Centrism's previous timidity. Almost overnight, the initial successes of the Plan gave rise to the wildest kind of exaggerations. The Kulak was going to be liquidated as a class. The Five Year Plan was to be realized in four years – or three and a half, or three as some said. Agrarian collectivization was now definitely accomplished in half of Russia. The N.E.P. was to be abolished. Socialism was being completed in isolated Russia. These were only a few – and among the mildest – exaggerations contained in the Soviet press, and repeated in the official Communist press abroad. The achievements of the first year were utilized to "prove" that the entire Opposition platform was bankrupt, the previous accusations of "super-industrialism" were converted into "Trotskyist pessimism", and on these foundations, a number of capitulations were realized out of the ranks of the Left.

But the very first signs of difficulties transformed the cocksure braggarts of Centrism back again into timid, cautious bureaucrats. The rapid pace of collectivization and industrialization ran its head into the brick wall of a proletarian state isolated in a sea of capitalist world economy, proving not in abstract theory but in cold practise, the absolutely untenable position of Stalin's and Bucharin's theory of national socialism. A crisis began to develop in agriculture, exactly along the lines indicated by the Opposition. Stalin forthwith sounded the retreat. So long as uninterrupted progress had been made, Stalin sedulously cultivated what he now, when obstacles Were encountered, sought to unburden responsibility for: "Dizziness of success".
 
The Danger of a Retreat

That a retreat was necessary was already evident. It was already proposed by comrade Trotsky to ward off an impending crisis in the country, the danger of which is by no means averted yet. At the same time he raised a warning against the retreat going too far. It now becomes increasingly clear that Stalin who is on the road leading away from the recent ultra-Left zig-zag in Russia will not come to a halt until he has reached the other extreme and accepted the original program of the Right wing. That is now the great danger in the Russian situation.

It is equally clear that Stalin will not be able to gain the support of the whole Party for this new bureaucratic turn about face. In the zig-zag to the Left, mass forces were of necessity unleashed which it will not be easily possible to put in chains again. The proletarian core of the Party will resist the sharp turn to the Right which has already begun. That is why comrade Trotsky spoke with the greatest confidence of the re-formation of a strong Left Opposition inside the Communist Party.

It is in connection with the big journalistic bluff and exaggerations about the Five Year Plan and the capitulation of many Oppositionists who pleaded the "successes of socialist construction" as their pretext for leaving the Opposition, that a humorous but pointed conversation took place. A copy of the New York Nation had arrived one morning, containing an article, Russia's New Revolution, written by Louis Fischer, one of the innumerable liberal journalists commuting between New York and Moscow and earning a livelihood by writing publicity for the Stalin faction.

We showed Trotsky a passage in the article which read:

"Stalin's ultra-radical, revolutionary policy has won the hearts of the Trotskyists, and they have come rushing back from Siberian, Caucasian and Volgan exile to participate in the pressing business of reconstruction. They have come back humbly, with clipped wings, acknowledging Stalin's talents and Trotsky's mistakes … Stalin, my ex-Trotskyist friends tell me, had done more than they wanted of him, and more even than they expected of Trotsky."

"You see," we say jokingly while Trotsky was scanning the paragraph, "everybody is saying that Stalin has gone much further than you ever proposed."

"That's true," he replied immediately. "When a man has a boil on his neck, a capable surgeon will simply lance the boil. A shoemaker will go much further and sever the man's head from his shoulders. Yes, there is no doubt that Stalin has also gone 'much further' than I proposed!"

– And the capitulators? Would they play any considerable role in the resurgence of the Opposition within the Party? Comrade Trotsky does not believe they will.

"The revolution is a great devourer of people," he said. "It has burned out these men, used them up, exhausted them. They cannot even play an important part in the Centrist faction. It must not be forgotten that these men are not newcomers in the movement. On the contrary. Many of them have gone through two, three revolutions. They spent a large part of their lives in czarist prisons and exiles. They were the militants who organized and led the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and for years afterwards. They passed through the rigorous years of the civil war and intervention; then through the period of reaction after the death of Lenin, and finally through prison or exile under Stalin. They have lived through the intensest years of history. Very few have come out of them unscathed to one degree or another. The others have been burned out or the revolutionary fires in them quenched."
 
The "Old Bolsheviks"

Of course this phenomenon is chiefly noticeable and widespread in the ranks of the ruling apparatus. Trotsky mentioned one name after another of comrades in the most prominent Party and Soviet positions, all of them imbued with the profoundest hatred for the "permanent revolution". That formula runs against the grain of every self-contented bureaucrat who has squeezed his bottom firmly into a chair after the consolidation of the revolution's initial victories. All of them have sought to put themselves beyond criticism by the religious title of "Old Bolsheviks" or the "Old Guard". Yet the overwhelming majority of the members of the present Central Committee of the Russian Party are men who, inside or outside of Lenin's Party before the revolution, never went beyond the conception of revolutionary democrats or Mensheviks. Trotsky recounted an incident which adequately characterizes the "Old Bolshevism" of nine-tenths of the present Party spokesmen.

It was during a meeting of the Party Central Control Commission, where Trotsky was being "tried" and his "non-Bolshevik past" brought out against him. During his speech, he quoted from an issue of the Social Democrat, a journal edited and published in Yakutsk jointly by the Mensheviks and a number of now prominent "Old Bolsheviks": Ordjonikidze, Petrovsky (of the Ukraine), and the peerless Yaroslavsky. This paper was issued not in 1905, nor in 1912 or 1914, but in 1917, after the Kerensky revolution and on the eve of the October uprising!

He read from some of the articles written by these "old Guardsmen", all of which were penetrated by the most vulgar kind of bourgeois democratic notions conceivable. The Kerensky revolution – if only it would introduce a few reforms – was hailed as the great people's democratic government. When Trotsky mentioned the trio of "Bolsheviks" who wrote these articles, there was a sensation even in the Control Commission. Yaroslavsky tried to bluster and bluff it out, but the blunter Ordjonikidze simply replied: "Well, what of that? We wrote lots of stupid things in those days."

"Yes," said Trotsky, "but I would let my arms and legs be cut off and my head taken from my shoulders if in all of my writings you could find anything half so bad as this!" A little while later, the copy of the paper from which Trotsky had quoted, which he had found after considerable effort, was stolen from his room. The Yaroslavskies, so meticulous about the literary records, real and forged, of comrade Trotsky, had no intention of letting their own shameful records lie around where Oppositionists could make use of them. Fortunately, the protocol of the Control Commission still records the damning excerpts – unless that too has been put into the furnace reserved for everything embarrassing to the Stalinist regime! It is precisely such types that are now doing the job of corrupting a whole generation of revolutionists with their shoddy substitute for Leninism.
* * *

A considerable part of our conversation was devoted to the situation in the United States and the perspectives for the movement here. He asked about very detail of our work, our numerical strength, the circulation of the Militant, our work in the trade unions, the influence of the Party, the strength of the Lovestone faction, etc., etc. The establishment of the weekly Militant, which he follows closely, he considers the greatest achievement of the American Opposition. When we spoke of the difficulties of the paper, to which every labor and revolutionary journal is subject, he even wrote to the American comrades urging that the greatest efforts be exerted to maintain and strengthen the weekly.
 
On the "Farmer-Labor Party"

Trotsky does not know the American situation as well as he does, let us say, the Russian, or even the French, but he is very far from being unacquainted with it. Of the American Party leaders, he is "best" acquainted with Pepper. He told of how Pepper came to him during the days of the great "farmer-labor party boom" in the United States, and tried to convince him that the revolution in this country would come about by winning over the revolutionary farmers, allying the Communist Party with the petty bourgeoisie and neutralizing the working class! The question of a farmer-labor party (i.e., a party of two classes) had come up then for the first time in the Political Bureau of the Party in Moscow. Everybody spoke hesitantly or tentatively about it. Stalin even said: "I am sure that if Vladimir Ilyitch were present he would be for it." Trotsky intervened immediately and spoke sharply and at length against the whole idea. Kamenev who has a flair for the Left in a theoretical discussion, picked up the thread right away and as a result of the subsequent decision, the American Party was, in part at least, dragged by the hair out of the opportunist swamp into which Pepper had led it.

Trotsky outlined – we repeat them here briefly - his ideas of the perspectives for developments in this country.

"In my work on the Russian revolution of 1905," he said, "I remarked on the fact that Marx had written that capitalism passes from feudalism to the guild system to the factory. In Russia, however, we never knew the guild system, with the possible exception of the 'kustari'. Or one might compare the development of the working class in England and Germany with that in Russia. In the first two countries, the proletariat has gone through a long period of parliamentary experience. In Russia on the other hand, there was very little of a parliamentary system for the workers. That is the Russian proletariat learned its parliamentary history from an abridged handbook.

"In many respects, the history of the development of the United States is akin to that of the Russian working class. It is nowhere written, and theoretically it cannot be substantiated, that the American workers will perforce have to pass through the school of reformism for a long period of time. They live and develop in another period, their coming to maturity is taking place under different circumstances than that of the English working class, for instance. That is, the stage of a labor party or a powerful socialist party is by no means inevitable. The rapidity of the development of the American workers, of course also depends to a large extent upon the degree of preparedness of the Communist movement and its clarity. The socialist party in the United States need by no means and will by no means ever reach the position of the British Labor Party or the German social democracy.

"It is not at all permanently established that the United States will be last in the order of revolutionary primacy, condemned to reach its proletarian revolution only after the countries of Europe and Asia. A situation, a combination of forces is possible in which the order is changed and the tempo of development in the United States enormously accelerated. But for that it is necessary to prepare."

It is the task of the Left Opposition to aid in this preparation, to set the revolutionary movement in the United States upon the path indicated by the guide we already have in Marxist thought, enriched and verified by the experiences of modern history.
* * *

In the train leaving Paris, after the conclusion of the international conference of the Opposition we unexpectedly came face to face with an American comrade still a member of the Party, who was returning to the States. We spoke of the trip to Turkey and he told us confidentially of a conversation he had had a little while ago with Eisenstein, the well-known Russian movie director who was then in Paris, Eisenstein had directed the film Ten Days That Shook the World, a record of the October uprising in Russia. As is quite natural, Lenin and Trotsky – that is, actors taking their parts – featured prominently in most of the scenes. When the film was shown in the United States, many comrades will recall that while Lenin was to be seen, there was not a sign of Trotsky throughout the picture. To all the intents and purposes of that picture, Trotsky might have been in South Africa when the Russian revolution took place. What had happened between the time of the original production and its public showings? Eisenstein told my friend the story:

He was called in to the office of the Sovkino (the Russian film trust) and the chairman said to him: "Eisenstein, art is art, but politics is politics. And you'll have to cut Trotsky out of the picture!" That is how Ten Days That Shook the World was saved from the menace of Trotskyism.

That is another task of the Opposition, a task which is part and parcel of the work of preparing the revolutionary Marxists not only in the United States but everywhere else: To re-tell the true history of the Russian revolution, to excavate the truth from under the garbage of filthy lies with which the apparatus men have covered it for without an accurate knowledge of the past and what it has to teach us, there will never be an adequate preparation for our future.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1930/05/prinkipo.htm

Alan Woods on Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal: a belated obituary
Written by In Defence of Marxism
Monday, 01 October 2012

On 31 July Gore Vidal died at his home in Los Angeles from complications arising from pneumonia. He was 86 and had been ill for some time. As I was away on holiday at the time, I did not find out about this till later. The comrades in charge of Marxist.com decided to republish an article I had written in July 2002 with the title The decline and fall of the American empire, based on a television interview with the American writer.

Having re-read the article, I think it provides a fairly good general idea of Gore Vidal and his ideas. But I think it would be appropriate at this time to pay tribute to a man who, apart from being probably the greatest American writer of his day, was also a rebel who did a lot to expose the evils of what many people now call the Empire. Who was Gore Vidal, and what did he really stand for?

Early life

Born in 1925, Eugene Luther Vidal was the scion of one of America's grandest political dynasties. His grandfather, TP Gore, was a senator and his father a one-time Secretary of Aviation under President Franklin D Roosevelt. For reasons best known to himself he took his mother's maiden name Gore and used it as his first name. In his own words: "My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country." (Gore Vidal – Sexually Speaking, 1999)

His maternal grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, a commanding figure in Washington politics for many decades. His mother, Nina Gore Vidal, divorced his father in 1935, then married the financier Hugh D Auchincloss, who in turn divorced her and married Jacqueline Kennedy's mother, thus establishing a connection between Vidal and the Kennedy clan that persisted through the presidency of John F Kennedy. He was also a distant cousin of former Vice President Al Gore.

Gore Vidal's public career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics (more than 200), a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, including the screenplay for Ben Hur (1959). He wrote his first book aged 19 and later went on to become one of America's most distinguished authors.

In 1940, he entered the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he seems to have been rather a poor student. After leaving in 1943, he joined the Army Transportation Corps as an officer, whereupon he was sent to the Aleutian Islands. In December 1944 he began his first novel, Williwaw, based on his wartime experiences. Suffering a bad case of frostbite, Vidal was invalided back to the US, where he finished the novel in less than a year. It was well received.

1946 Gore Vidal at the age of 211946 - Gore Vidal at the age of 21The success of Williwaw encouraged him to continue his literary work. He published eight novels between 1946 and 1954, including The City and the Pillar (1948), an explicitly gay novel that challenged the homophobia in American culture. It was a bestseller, but the consequences for the young author were severe.

These were the years of the Cold War and reaction was hardening in the USA. Vidal's literary career was brought to an abrupt halt. His next five novels had a hostile reception in the mainstream press. The critic John W Aldridge was typical: "His writing after Williwaw is one long record of stylistic breakdown and spiritual exhaustion. It is confused and fragmentary, pulled in every direction by the shifting winds of impressionism. It is always reacting, always feeling and seeing; but it never signifies because it never believes."

In the years of McCarthyite reaction everybody was supposed to believe... in the joys of American capitalism. There was no room for doubters and sceptics. But Gore Vidal was always the sceptic par excellence. Ignored by book critics for the next several years, he turned his attention to television writing dramas, often under a pseudonym. His name did not even appear in the credits of Ben Hur. In this way the dead hand of McCarthyism blighted the careers and blotted out the names of America's best and most talented intellectuals.
Politics and literature

"My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general 'They tell lies,' he used to say with wonder, 'even when they don't have to'". (On Flying, 1985)

Gore Vidal said he had always really wanted to be a politician. He ran for a seat in Congress in 1960 and again in 1982, but lost both times. Since he stood as a Democrat in New York's traditionally Republican 29th District, advocating, among other things, the recognition of China, a reduction of the Pentagon's budget and increasing federal aid to education, this was perhaps not surprising. After these setbacks he seems to have given up any idea of life as a professional politician, dedicating himself wholly to his writing.

Vidal left the USA for Italy, where he would spend most of his time until 2003, when he moved to a large home in the Hollywood Hills. It was in Rome, where he wrote Julian (1964), a bestselling novel about the Roman emperor who rejected Christianity and embraced paganism. This novel showed a remarkable talent for bringing history alive in the form of a novel. The same talent was revealed in another great novel set in the ancient world, Creation, written in 1981.

Steeped in classical learning, Vidal had a profound sense of history and was able to project this into his novels. Part of the reason why his writings about the ancient world are so vivid is that he treats the ancient world not as one would a lifeless fossil, but as a reflection of the modern world, an anticipation of later developments, including the class struggle. In an essay about the fall of Constantinople, he writes:

"For it was at Thessalonica in the 1340's that the first recognizable class war of our era took place between aristocrats on the one hand and a well-organized communist-minded working class on the other, while a divided but powerful middle class representing 'democratic' virtues vacillated between extremes. Significantly, the Palaeologi sided with the middle class, put down the revolution, and so maintained their dynasty for another century." (Gore Vidal, Byzantium's Fall in Homage to Daniel Shays. Collected Essays 1952-1972, p.208)

Gore Vidal was to become a writer of global stature. But he was in permanent conflict with the literary and political establishment in the USA. This made him into a virtual outcast in his native land. A ferocious critic of the Bush administration, he was an outspoken opponent of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

One way or another, politics always entered into his work – whether that was essays on the contemporary political scene or American history. This fact permeates his prose, his historical novels and especially in his political essays. He was the author of a series of blistering pamphlets and articles attacking what he called the Empire.

His waspishness was particularly harmful to right-wing reactionaries like Ronald Reagan whom he memorably described as "a triumph of the embalmer's art", and George W Bush, for whom he entertained a particular loathing. He once referred to the "silent majority" – a phrase beloved of the American Right – thus: "a phrase which that underestimated wit Richard Nixon took from Homer who used it to describe the dead."

He was also famous for his controversial interviews. I remember one interview on British television, where he was asked by the interviewer if he could name anybody who would be a better President. With a look of mingled scorn and disbelief he retorted: "Could I name anybody that would be better? Why, you would be better. I would be better. The hall-porter of this studio would be better!"

Gore Vidal's humour

Gore Vidal had a waspish sense of humour and a great gift for epigrams that remind one of the barbed witticisms of Oscar Wilde. Here are a few examples:

On freedom of the press: "The media in America exist only to serve the financial interests of their owners. That is the way things are and have always been." (An American Press Lord, April 9, 1970)

"The alternative to a planned society is no society." (Manifesto and Dialogue, Esquire, October, 1968)

"Our poor, needless to say, are quite as enslaved as they were when their ancestors built the pyramids." (ibid.)

Women: "It is certainly true that women are half-citizens even in the relatively liberated West. From birth they are programmed by the tribalists to serve men, raise children, and be [...] geishas." (Doc Reuben, June 4, 1970)

Marriage: "as long as marriage [is] central to our capitalism (and its depressing Soviet counterpart) neither man nor woman can be regarded as free to be human." (July 22, 1971)

Drugs: "The American people are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as they are to making money – and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as pushing them. Since the combination of sin and money is irresistible (particularly to the professional politicians), the situation will only grow worse." Drugs, September 26, 1970)

Rich and poor: "The right wing in America has always believed that those who have money are good people and those who lack it are bad people. At a deeper lever, our conservatives are true Darwinians and think that the weak and the poor ought to die off, leaving the spoils to the fit." (Eleanor Roosevelt, November, 1971)

Politics in the USA: "If you want to rise in politics in the United States, there is one subject you must stay away from, and that is politics."

Politicians: "Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either."

The police: "We must always remember that the police are recruited from the criminal classes."

One time, he remarked: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies." When he was informed of the death of Truman Capote, a novelist he did not hold in high regard, his response was: "A smart career move." Needless to say, this kind of thing did not win him many friends, but this did not seem to have bothered him in the slightest degree.

One of the things that aroused the greatest controversy was his attitude to religion ("I'm a born-again atheist"). In a scathing remark about the prohibition of birth control by the Catholic Church, he wrote: "But now that half the world lives with famine – and all the world by the year 2000, if Pope Paul's as yet unborn guests are allowed to attend (in this unhappy phrase) the 'banquet of life', the old equation has been changed to read: man plus woman equals baby equals famine." (Pornography, March 1966)

In the course of the aforementioned interview, the TV presenter raised the question of the writer's well-known hostility to religion. He asked him whether he really thought that Christianity had never contributed anything to human progress. By way of reply, Gore Vidal recalled that the emperor Nero had ordered Christians to be burned as torches in the streets of Rome. "That was the only time in 2,000 years Christianity ever illuminated anything," he said, leaving the interviewer visibly aghast.

Needless to say, such statements did not win him many friends among the religious Right in the USA – or among respectable liberals either, for that matter. But it reflected his view that in an interview, "one should speak one's mind and don't give a damn."

His criticism of American society, its values and politics, was equally uncompromising. Let us quote one example, from an article entitled Edmund Wilson, tax-dodger. Written in November 1961, the article is a defence of the progressive writer Edmund Wilson, who justified his non-payment of taxes on the grounds that the US government misused taxpayers' money.

    "Mr. Wilson then asks a simple question: Why must we pay so much? He notes the conventional answer: Since the cold war, foreign aid, and defense account for seventy-nine per cent of all Federal expenditures, putting the nation in permanent hock to that economic military complex President Eisenhower so movingly warned us against after a lifetime's loyal service to it. There is of course some consolation in the fact that we are not wasting our billions weakening the moral fiber of the American yeoman by building him roads and schools, or by giving him medical care and decent housing. In public services, we lag behind all the industrialized nations of the West, preferring that the public money go not to the people but to big business. The result is a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich." (Gore Vidal, Homage to Daniel Shays. Collected Essays 1952-1972, p.153.)

These words were written long before the US government developed a habit of handing out trillions of taxpayers' money to bail out private banks, while wealthy congressmen and women squabble over a bill to provide healthcare to the sick.

Despite his controversial pronouncements, eventually, his colossal talent had to be recognised – however grudgingly – by the US literary establishment. In 1993, his volume Essays, United States 1951-91, received the National Book award. But he was always looked upon with suspicion and treated at best as an eccentric, at worst as a traitor to his class and his country. Vidal was an insider as a result of his family background and connections in Washington, Hollywood and literary salons around the world. But he behaved as the ultimate outsider and was treated as such by the US literary and political establishment.

History as a novel

Although Vidal was in the line of descent of older American authors, notably Mark Twain, he was a genuinely original writer. His unique literary achievement was his series of historical novels based on the lives of US figures such as Abraham Lincoln. I would go so far as to say that for anyone who wishes to understand American history these books are obligatory reading.

This remarkable series of novels began when he published Washington, DC (1967), which deals with politics during the era of FD Roosevelt. The series contains vivid pen-portraits of the main dramatis personae, which reappear in subsequent novels as the plots and sub-plots of American history are seamlessly woven together with the skill of a Persian carpet-maker. On the eve of America's centennial year in 1976 the next novel 1876 was published.

Already in the Roosevelt era, Vidal was on the scene as a young man in Washington. Six years later Vidal's American chronicle began to unfold in all its glory. His personal experience and family connections provided him with a unique insight into American history, its characters, their psychology and motivations.

The series begins, chronologically, with Burr, based on the events of the American Revolution and its aftermath. He portrays George Washington (accurately) as an incompetent general who lost most of his battles. By contrast, Gore presents Aaron Burr as an honourable gentleman and a tragic figure. Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804 and who, two years later, initiated a secessionist conspiracy.

It was John L. O'Sullivan, the editor of the "Democratic Review", who coined the phrase manifest destiny, stating that it must be "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." In his novels, Vidal traces the development of America's "manifest destiny", its thrust towards foreign conquest, beginning with the seizure of territory from Mexico.

Burr includes an imaginary conversation between the narrator and a colonel Williamson concerning plans to annex Mexican territory:

    "I was cautious. 'You know my interest in the liberation of Mexico. Everybody's interest. I think I can even speak for the President when I say that he, too, would like Mexico liberated...

    'So I've heard! Williamson was as impressed as I had intended him to be.

    'But one cannot make such a move unless there is war between Spain and the United States'.

    'There is always trouble....'

    'Not trouble – war.'

    'War might be arranged. General Wilkinson...'

    He did not need to finish. We both knew that Wilkinson could arrange a border incident with the Spanish whenever he chose." (Burr p. 370).

This scenario was later implemented in 1846-8, when the USA annexed a big chunk of Mexican territory. But the USA had designs on Mexican lands (Texas, California) long before that. He mentions John Adair, a hero of the American Revolution and famous Indian fighter from Kentucky:

    "'Adair assured me of Kentucky's good will because: "Our folks are as greedy as the old Romans when it comes to conquest: we want Mexico.'

    'We shall have it.'

    'But there must be war with Spain before we can move...'" (Burr, p. 403)

He further reveals the plot hatched by Andrew Jackson to further this end: "A harmless little republic of Texas would lay claim to the Pacific Coast of our continent. After a decent interval, that republic would join the United States, which would then claim all of Spanish California..." (Burr, p. 432)

In 1834, General Antonio López de Santa Anna became the centralist dictator of Mexico, abandoning the federal system. He decided to quash the semi-independence of Texas, having succeeded in doing so in Coahuila (in 1824, Mexico had merged Texas and Coahuila into the massive state of Coahuila y Tejas). Finally, Stephen F. Austin called Texans to arms; they declared independence from Mexico in 1836, and after Santa Anna defeated the Texans at the Alamo, he was defeated by the Texan Army commanded by General Sam Houston and captured at the Battle of San Jacinto and signed a treaty recognizing Texas' independence.

Texas consolidated its status as an independent republic and received official recognition from Britain, France, and the U.S., which all advised Mexico not to try to reconquer the new nation. Most Texans wanted to join the U.S. but annexation of Texas was contentious in the U.S. Congress, where Whigs were largely opposed. In 1845 Texas agreed to the offer of annexation by the U.S. Congress. Texas became the 28th state on December 29, 1845.

The last three instalments in the sequence are Empire (1987), Hollywood (1990) and The Golden Age. But it was Lincoln (1984) that perhaps represents his greatest masterpiece. It was a major bestseller. This was not merely an imaginative description of a period of titanic events but a compelling reconstruction of the character of Lincoln, his wife Mary and other major protagonists, even Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. It is this marriage between the particular and the universal, showing how the workings of history are realised in and through real human beings, which makes Lincoln such a compelling and moving document.

Gore Vidal's political criticism

Vidal's caustic criticism of the US ruling class and its political system was so devastating precisely because he was an insider – a man who understood the US establishment and how it worked. He knew the ruling class intimately and his opinion of them is summed up in his own words: he believed that "the more money an American accumulates the less interesting he himself becomes." (H. Hughes, April 20, 1972)

As a result of his intimate relationships with the US political elite, he understood very well the fraudulent, hypocritical and corrupt nature of so-called democracy in the USA. He concludes: "It is plain that only the very wealthy or those allied to the very wealthy can afford the top prizes." This could have been written yesterday. In the recent primaries to decide the Republican candidate for the next presidential elections, loser Newt Gingrich explained the success of Romney thus:

"In the end, he [Romney] had, I think, sixteen billionaires and we had one." In an uncharacteristic display of altruism, Gingrich encouraged his lone billionaire Las Vegas casino owner to donate to the campaign of his rival Romney (whom he has described as a liar and a "Massachusetts moderate "). The casino mogul recently did just that, giving $10 million to the pro-Romney group Restore Our Future – the single largest contribution, by far, to the group.

Among Vidal's personal friends was Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of the former President, FD Roosevelt. He knew both FD Roosevelt and John F Kennedy personally and among his relatives were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Al Gore. In an article ironically entitled The Holy Family (published in Esquire, April 1967), he laid bare the mechanism whereby the multi-millionaire founder of the Kennedy dynasty got his sons elected to the highest office in the land.

Joseph Kennedy was an extreme right winger and a Nazi sympathiser. He also had a lot of money, which he invested in promoting his sons, as Vidal was bold enough to expose, even after the assassination of his son had given rise to the myth of  JF Kennedy the "liberal". Gore Vidal wrote:

    "It will probably never be known how much money Joe Kennedy has spent for the political promotion of his sons. At the moment, an estimated million dollars a year is being spent on Bobby's behalf and this sum can be matched year after year until 1972, and longer. Needless to say, the sons are sensitive to the charge that their elections are bought. As JFK said of his 1952 election to the Senate, 'People say "Kennedy bought the election. Kennedy could never have been elected if his father hadn't been a millionaire. Well, it wasn't the Kennedy name and the Kennedy money that won that election. I beat Lodge because I hustled for three years" (quoted in The founding Father). But of course without the Kennedy name and the Kennedy money, he would not even have been a contender. Not only was a vast amount of money spent for his election in the usual ways, but a great deal was spent in not so usual ways. For instance, according to Richard J. Whalen, right after the pro-Lodge Boston Post unexpectedly endorsed Jack Kennedy for the Senate, Joe Kennedy loaned the paper's publisher $500,000."

Gore Vidal wrote in the 1970s:

    "There is only one party in the United States, the Property party… and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt – until recently… and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties." (Matters of fact and fiction)

That conveys very well the essence of the "two party system" in the USA, and over three decades later there is very little one could add to it. As he observed in a British television interview: "Everything is decided by the one percent of the population who own America. One percent owns everything." The emptiness of American politics today reflects the fact that the two main parties are both bourgeois parties representing the interests of the one percent.

Since there is no real difference between Republicans and Democrats, politics is reduced to a vacuous contest between "personalities". Genuine political debate is replaced by empty "sound bites" on television. Writing about a Republican Party Convention in 1968, Gore Vidal describes the appearance of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller:

    "Beside him stands his handsome wife, holding a large straw hat and looking as if she would like to be somewhere else, no loving Nancy Reagan or loyal Pat Nixon she. The convention is full of talk that there has been trouble between them. Apparently... One of the pleasures of American political life is that, finally, only personalities matter. Is he a nice man? Is she happy with him? What else should concern a sovereign people?" (Gore Vidal, Homage to Daniel Shays. Collected Essays 1952-1972, p.310)

It is only necessary to substitute Michele Obama for the above-named President's wives to see that nothing much has changed.

Vidal pointed to the erosion of democracy and the U.S. Bill of Rights. He denounced the federal attack on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, when more than 80 cult members were killed, of whom 27 were children. But despite his generally sound political instinct, Gore Vidal occasionally made some bad errors of judgement. One of his most controversial actions was his defence of the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001, apparently in retribution for the Waco massacre. This mistake provided more ammunition to his critics.

Such lapses of judgement should not surprise us, since Gore Vidal, despite his great insight and implacable honesty did not possess a consistent ideology. His conclusions were the result of a keen observation, made with an artist's eye. But his analysis lacked a solid, scientific basis. He saw very clearly that a small group of super-rich people owned the United States, and manipulated its economic and foreign policies. He saw how members of Congress are bought, how presidential candidates are selected and financed. But to all of this he lacked a coherent response.

In his essay Eleanor Roosevelt, written on November 18, 1971, he wrote: "Now we live in a society which none of us much likes, all would like to change, but no-one knows how." This is the central dilemma in the writings of Gore Vidal. He resembles a doctor who has arrived at a correct diagnosis, but is unable to prescribe a remedy. Yet at times he comes close to a revolutionary conclusion.

Long before the Occupy Movement raised the slogan "We are the 99 Percent" Vidal wrote:"The not-so-poor do outnumber the poor but if the not-so-poor who are nicked heavily by taxes were to join with the poor they would outnumber the elite by 99 to 1. The politician who can forge that alliance will find himself, at best, the maker of a new society; at worst, in a hole at Arlington." (Homage to Daniel Shays 1972)

In 2002 in one of his inimitable TV interviews, Gore Vidal said, with remarkable prescience:  "Our liberation from this system will come about as a result of an economic collapse... This is inevitable, on the basis of the colossal debts we have been building up. This must lead to monetary breakdown at some stage. The writing is on the wall."

Nobody else, except the Marxists, was saying these things in 2002. And yet, despite all his brilliance and insight, Gore Vidal offers no real solution. His voice is that of a doomed class, ruminating over the inevitability of the fall: a latter-day Cassandra uttering prophetic words to which nobody listened.

http://www.marxist.com/gore-vidal-belated-obituary.htm

Lal Khan on Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh's revolutionary legacy
Written by Lal Khan
Monday, 01 October 2012

Bhagat Singh was a fervent torchbearer of the proletarian struggle. He rejected the prejudices of caste, creed, nationality, race, gender, and, of course, religion.

This September 28 marked the 105th birth anniversary of one of South Asia's iconic revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh. His heroic struggle for a revolutionary change and overthrow of the British Raj through a militant struggle has been a source of inspiration for generations. Bhagat was executed by the imperialist despots in the wee hours of March 23, 1931 at the tender age of 23, but he had left a mark in the annals of history of the class struggle in the region. His urge to understand Marxist theory and passionately educate his comrades in prison and during intense activities to develop as revolutionary cadres is a hallmark of his relentless struggle.

Although he has been dubbed as a nationalist and anarchist by historians and analysts of the elite and the reformists, Bhagat was none of that at the end of his short but eventful life. Even when he was called from his death cell for the gallows, he was reading Lenin's State and Revolution. The sort of independence that was achieved after a bloody partition, in which 2.7 million innocent souls perished, would have repulsed Bhagat Singh. The independence sought by him and his comrades of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) was spelt out in one of his epic speeches during the peak of their struggle. It has been portrayed superbly in Raj Kumar Santoshi's brilliant film, The Legend of Bhagat Singh. He says, "We don't want independence! We don't want independence where the English rulers are replaced by the local elites. We don't want freedom where this wretched system of exploitation and slavery continues. We are striving for an independence that would transform the whole system thorough revolutionary socialism."

Bhagat Singh, who was initially a diehard follower of Mohandas Gandhi, had revolted against him when the latter had called off agitation against the British after the killing of some policemen in a clash with a procession of youth and workers demanding the eviction of the imperialist rulers from India. Bhagat was deeply influenced by the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in the Soviet Union and he diligently studied the works of Marxism and contemporary revolutionaries. Through his experience, he came to the conclusion that Gandhi's politics was to preserve the system imposed by the British colonialists rather than its overthrow. He had also read The Programme of the Communist International, which was adopted at the second congress and published in September 1920. On the Indian situation the Programme stated, "Tendencies like Gandhi's in India, thoroughly imbued with religious conceptions, idealise the most backward and economically most reactionary forms of social life. They see the solution of the social problem not in proletarian socialism, but in a reversion to these backward forms, preaching passivity and repudiating the class struggle, and in the process of the development of the revolution, they become transformed into an openly reactionary force. Gandhi's, more and more, is becoming an ideology directed against mass revolution. It must be strongly combated by communism."

Gandhi later came out in his true colours, revealing on the side of which class he really was. On January 15, 1948, he stressed the ownership of the capitalists and the landlords: "I will never be a participant in snatching away the properties from their owners and you should know that I will use all my influence and authority against the class war." Bhagat, on the other hand, was a fervent torchbearer of the proletarian struggle. He rejected the prejudices of caste, creed, nationality, race, gender, and, of course, religion. One of his most celebrated works is his pamphlet: Why I am an atheist. There is an intense and controversial debate going on, especially in India, on Gandhi's role in the conviction and execution of Bhagat Singh along with his comrades Raj Guru and Sukhdev. However, on Bhagat's execution, Gandhi remarked in his characteristic hypocrisy, "The government certainly had the right to hang these men. However, there are some rights which do credit to those who possess them only if they are enjoyed in name only." Gandhi and the British viceroy Lord Irwin signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact on March 5, 1931, and yet the executions were carried out just weeks after the signing of the pact. There was immense anger and sorrow throughout the subcontinent at these executions. Just after this brutality, the annual convention of the Congress at Karachi resulted in Subhash Chandra Bose and the left taking over the leadership of the Congress despite Gandhi's efforts. There were violent demonstrations against Gandhi at the convention. The New York Times reported at the time, "A reign of terror in the city of Cawnpore in the United Provinces and an attack on Gandhi by the youth outside Karachi was amongst the answers of the Indian extremists today to the hanging of Bhagat Singh and two fellow assassins." Revolutionaries are always pronounced by the imperialist media as extremists and assassins.

But Bhagat Singh was extremely popular in the subcontinent. Sir Horace Williamson, Director of the Intelligence Bureau, wrote about Bhagat's popularity years after the executions, "His photograph was on sale in every city and township and for a time (Bhagat Singh) rivalled in popularity of Mr Gandhi himself." Although the aims, objective, ideology and ideals of his struggle have been distorted, tarnished and caricatured by the intelligentsia of the capitalist status quo, the truth cannot be concealed forever. At a seminar organised by the Punjabi University Research Scholars Association (PURSA) at the Patiala University on September 25, 2012, the main speaker, Professor Balkar Singh said, "Bhagat Singh sacrificed everything for socialist revolution...His thinking was relevant today as it was during his lifetime and he qualified to be placed among people like Lenin and Che Guevara." After 65 years of so-called independence, the masses of the subcontinent are worse off. There is excruciating misery and deprivation through which the vast majority of the population is made to suffer by capitalist exploitation and repression. The system the British Raj imposed is very much there. Without its overthrow the emancipation of the oppressed massed can never be achieved. Bhagat Singh's revolutionary legacy is a beacon of light for the revolutionary workers and youth of the region in struggle today. This revolutionary mission can ultimately be accomplished by the creation of a voluntary socialist federation of South Asia.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com - This article was first broght in the Daily Times of Pakistan

http://www.marxist.com/baghat-singhs-revolutionary-legacy-2012.htm