Shakespeare and the cash nexus

[I've just started reading through the 1980 issues of The Militant. The article below is by Paul Seigel, who wrote important works on Shakespeare and religion.]

Shakespeare and working people

The Old Vic company of London is touring China, putting on Shakespearean performances . This could not have happened during the time of Mao Zedong, when Shakespeare was banned.

Shakespearean drama, with its kings and queens, its lords and ladies, is "feudal," it was alleged, and not fit for workers and peasants. Shakespeare, who was re-read by Marx every year, was not allowed to be performed in order to guard the masses from reactionary influences.

Leon Trotsky, however, had ·no such fears. "It is childish," he wrote, "to think that bourgeois belles lettres can make a breach in class solidarity." On the contrary, "the worker will be richer" by what he gains from Shakespeare and other literary masters.

Under capitalism, to be sure, Shakespeare is often a means of repression. He is crammed down the throats of high school and college students who find his language, the conventions of his art, and his dramatic universe utterly alien to their experience.

Instead of teachers clearing away these initialobstacles, they all too frequently blame the students.

In the high schools Shakespeare is generally given a superficial reading that lauds his universality without explaining how that universality speaks through dramas shaped by the ideas of his time. In the colleges these ideas are generally presented as without relevance for us today.

We must know the Elizabethan Shakespeare if we are to do justice to him, but knowing the Elizabethan Shakespeare is not to be construed as an exercise in antiquarianism. Through our knowledge of the Elizabethan Shakespeare we can know ourselves and our times better.

Living in an age of transition between feudalism and capitalism, Shakespeare was critical of both the old feudalism and the capitalism which was coming into being.

In his plays he shows the consequences of the feudal conflicts which had to be overcome by Tudor absolutism if England was to progress . But Shakespeare saw the Tudor order as threatened not only by the old nobility but by the most aggressive section of the bourgeoisie.

The latter was beginning to challenge the monarchy and to transform his world into one · in which what Marx called the "cash nexus" was the only tie between human beings. 

In The Merchant of Venice and Timon of Athens the "cash nexus" is portrayed as working against the sense of humanity.

Shylock's bond is the business contract which takes precedence over human compassion. What is most essential about him is not that he is a Jew but that he is typical of the capitalist who recognizes only the "cash nexus."

Although Shakespeare used the traditional medieval anti-Semitic stereotype, derived from the Jews' position as marginal traders and usurers in feudal society, there is considerable evidence that the contemporary significance Shylock had for Elizabethans was his resemblance to the Puritan usurers in their midst.

Timon's creditors belong to the world of the "cash nexus." The diatribes against gold which Timon delivers illuminate this world. Marx wrote of these passages, "Shakespeare portrays the essence of money excellently."

So too the evil members of the younger generationbin King Lear are governed by the new capitalist values, making use of business language to express their self-seeking. The words of Edmund, "Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit," might have served as a motto for the acquisitive bourgeoisie, which was buying up estates from the older landowners.

Shakespeare was not a Marxist living beforeMarx. His ideal was a hierarchical society governed by a humanistic aristocracy. But by entering into the experience he provides us, we can be more fully conscious of the potentialities of life. These potentialties are thwarted today, as he was presciently aware, by the egoism and alienation characteristicof bourgeois society . 

-Paul Siegel

THE MILITANT/FEBRUARY 22, 1980

http://www.themilitant.com/1980/4406/MIL4406.pdf

Excellent biography of Paul Siegel here:

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/393.html

If this be conservatism, make the most of it

From Chapter 10 of The Struggle for a Proletarian Party by James P. Cannon.

....From Chapter 10

....all of us, including the majority, have shown insufficient energy, initiative, etc. By that we acknowledge that we are not Bolsheviks in our habits and practice, but only striving to become such; slovenliness and slackness are Menshevik traits. But our theory, Marxism, is the only revolutionary theory in the world; there is nothing conservative about it. Can we be justly indicted for conservatism in our politics, that is, in the application of our theoretical principles? I do not believe our record justifies such an indictment. The essence of politics is to understand the realities of a given situation, to know what is possible and what is excluded; above all, to know what to do next—and to do it.

....The opposition, following Burnham, began to designate us as conservative only when we refused to accept a revision of the program of the Fourth International on the Russian question after the signing of the Soviet-Nazi pact, and instead, reaffirmed our fundamental position. Their whole case rests on this. From it they construe a conservative tendency in our whole past record. They also rail at our stick-in-the-mud attitude toward the fundamental concepts of Marxism—the class theory of the state, the class criterion in the appraisal of all political questions, the conception of politics, including war, as the expression of class interests, and so forth and so on. From all of this they conclude that we are “conservative” by nature, and extend that epithet to cover everything we have done in the past.

Such “conservatism,” which they consider a fault, we hold to be a virtue. We aim to “hold on” firmly to these principles which have been verified in the test of the greatest historic events, and which in our view constitute the only program of proletarian liberation. We have carefully examined the substitutes offered to us by Burnham. They are not the products of his own manufacture. He is not the inventor or originator of anything. The offerings of Burnham are shoddy stuff, and if you inspect them closely you will see on every item the trade mark of another class. Burnham is merely the broker of shopworn merchandise that has been palmed off on the workers time and again by bourgeois ideologists and always to the detriment of their struggle. We will have none of it. We stick to our own program. We accept no substitutes. If this be conservatism, make the most of it.

Renewing class solidarity and consciousness

Concluding paragraphs to a statement opposing U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem:

....Prospects for sustained and effective struggle led by working people in Palestine or elsewhere in the Middle East against Washington’s policies, and against their own local exploiting classes, are hobbled by political exhaustion in face of decades of setbacks and defeats due to anti-working-class misleadership, whether Stalinist, bourgeois nationalist or Islamist.

In the United States and other imperialist countries, organizations of middle class radicals claiming to be communist or socialist have taken to the streets in opposition to the Trump administration statement. These organizations explicitly disavow any course to advance class solidarity among Palestinian, Jewish and other working people, often raising the reactionary cry, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" This course to drive Jews out of the region disqualifies such groups from any moral or political legitimacy to speak as what Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin more than a century ago called "tribune[s] of the people … able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects."

In opposition to Washington, to bourgeois governments and political organizations across the Middle East, and to the middle class left here in the United States, the Socialist Workers Party has a different starting point: the class interests and solidarity of workers and toiling farmers across the Middle East — be they Palestinian, Jewish, Arab, Kurdish, Turkish, Persian or otherwise, and whatever their religious or other beliefs — as well as working people in the United States and around the world.

We are for whatever helps working people organize and act together to advance our demands and struggles against the capitalist governments and ruling classes that exploit and oppress us and their petty bourgeois political servants and media apologists.

We are for whatever renews our class solidarity and self-confidence, advancing us along a revolutionary course toward a united struggle for workers power.

This is the proletarian internationalist course of action, part of our communist program, that members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party are discussing with workers as we campaign door to door in their neighborhoods, with co-workers on the job and their friends and family members, and with those we join in protests against Washington’s anti-working-class policies at home and abroad.  

http://www.themilitant.com/2017/8147/814761.html

Why do the literati hate Marx (and Engels)?

Note on Facebook from a UK comrade:

Why do the literati hate Marx (and Engels)?

Last week the National Theatre screened a live performance of “The Young Marx” from the newly opened Bridge theatre in London. Sir Nicholas Hytner previously the Artistic Director of the National Theatre in London directs the play. It is a farce whose aim, it is claimed, is to present the ”human” side of Marx. Why would they want to do this, especially as the first production in Hytner’s new multi-million pound theatre? Basically, to discredit Marx’s theoretical and political legacy by portraying him - and Marxism - as farcical. As the Financial Times put it: ‘Been and Coleman (the play’s authors) find comedy as well as pathos in an extraordinarily accurate account of the thirtysomething Karl Marx’s debaucheries and predations in 1850s Soho.’ It is claimed that everything in the play is based on fact. What these people so hate – and are fearful of - is Marx (and Engels) scientific analysis of the workings of capitalism, his revolutionary commitment and involvement in working class struggle, and his explanation why the very workings of capitalism would produce its own gravedigger, the working class. And that all this is pertinent in today’s world.

There isn’t anything sacrosanct about Marx’s life. Placed in some serious context it might be fun to devise a plot involving Marx and Engel’s pub-crawls up the Tottenham Court Road and other foibles (the FTs so-called “debauchery) - if you are that way inclined. Moreover, radical groups and individuals, to this day, involve themselves in perennial inanities, and Marx had to put up with all sorts of cranks and misfits. Indeed, Marx was not amiss to using comedy to make serious points. In this regard, he wrote a satire of many such individuals in his “Heroes of the Exiles” and their ‘venomous internecine struggles, … petty personality conflicts, complicated intrigues, pretentious political manoeuvres and sordid compromises with the realities of living in exile with "dubious sources of income"’ (Rodney Livingston, translator). Our authors choose instead to trivialise everything, sneering at, and dismissive of Marx’s world historic achievements. A whole chunk of the play is focused on Marx and Engels sexual relationships, hypocritically inviting the audience to judge their morality. Hytner wants us to laugh knowingly at something he self-admittedly knows nothing at all about. In the Q&A session after the performance that I attended, Hytner claimed disingenuously to have read the first 5 pages of Capital, only to give up, he said, because he found it unintelligible (he didn't say which volume). You see: science is useless if it takes a little effort to understand, especially if it defies common sense. So much for quantum mechanics!

Little wonder that the writers and director prefer to facetiously counter-pose the perceived iniquities of the man rather than encouraging the audience to think about his thoughts. So, the plot has Marx climbing up and down chimneys, hiding in cupboards to avoid creditors and running across rooftops to escape the secret police – presented as harmless Keystone cops. A potentially amusing scene has Marx in a pawnshop explaining the difference between use value and exchange vale. But that is immediately undercut by portraying him as being so stupid to be outwitted into giving away his wife’s family silver, rather than raising money. What a laugh! He is depicted as fighting a duel out of jealousy against a supposed would-be seducer of his wife. Marx did indeed fight a duel, except it took place when a student youth long before he became in any way political, let alone a communist. It had nothing to do with his love life. What is also true is that Marx applied for a job on the railways – to the laughter of nine tenths of the audience - but in 1862, not 1850. In another “statement of fact” the playwrights have Marx engaged in a brawl in the British Museum, thereby belittling the long hours of intensive study he engaged in there. Charles Darwin is drawn into the carnage. Whilst Marx greatly admired Darwin, the two never met. Jenny Marx, for her part, is presented as the long-suffering housewife, fending off suitors, rather than the political activist she was, who, alongside Marx, willingly subordinated her lifestyle to revolutionary activity. Moreover, she was fully involved in Marx’s theoretical and political work. She joined the “League of the Just” – a precursor of the Communist League – before either Marx or Engels. Then, towards the end, they have the nerve to portray Engels attacking Marx for being too academic and self-centred, and implying that Marx’s identification of the working class as the agency for overthrowing capitalism was purely theoretical. This is just at the time they are writing the articles mentioned earlier that later made up the pamphlet “Class Struggles in France” - in which they were fully immersed - and when the perspective of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is enunciated for the first time and de facto counter-posed to the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” aka capitalist democracy. Poetic license? I don’t think so.

Anything is considered good for a laugh. But what exactly is so funny about a political refugee hounded by the secret police, arrested, briefly imprisoned, and deported from first this country, then that, then another, as he strove to be centrally involved in the revolutionary upheavals of that period – much to the consternation of the powers that be? As they fled arrest to London, most of his and Jenny’s belongings had to be abandoned (they were given 24 hours to leave France), and, funnily enough, when they arrived they had no money or steady source of income. For many years, they lived on the breadline, given some financial support by friends (especially Engels) but having to avoid creditors and landlords when unable to pay their rent and other debts (ring a bell?). They couldn’t even pay the medical fees to try to save their dying son. Even Marx’s ill health is a subject of mirth. He suffered especially painful boils which often prevented him from sitting down whilst willy nilly continuing his voluminous research. Boils? What a joke. Is it appropriate to poke fun at all this? Is it all just good humour to present refugees as “scroungers”? Where have we heard that one before? And whilst we are at it, what exactly is so hilarious about being a rail worker?

For some unfathomable reason, 1850 is chosen as the year of the “young” Marx. This is a bit of a mystery as he was already 32 years old and by this time had basically settled accounts with the utopian socialists and had more or less put together the basic planks of his overall theory. In another statement of fact, the authors claimed that Marx was demoralised by the outcome of the defeats of the 1848-49 European revolutions, and moreover was suffering from a ‘writers block’. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact Marx (and Engels) were, incorrectly, expecting a new uprising. As to a writers block, at the start of 1850, he and Engels prepared a long report to the Communist League drawing the lessons of these revolutions. This was elaborated in a series of articles by Marx published during the course of 1850 in the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung: Politisch-ökonomische Revue”. These articles needed time-consuming research, involving extensive interviews with activists in the revolutions, also based in London. As Engels testified ‘after the spring of 1850 Marx once again found leisure for economic studies, and first of all took up the economic history of the last ten years.’ Further, intensive discussion must also have taken place between Marx and Engels during this period, because by the time the fourth and last article was published as a double issue in the Autumn of 1850, co-authored with Engels, they had revised their views as to whether a new outbreak of revolution was imminent. In fact, they now thought that objective conditions did not exist for a victorious revolution in Europe (economic crisis) and, crucially, what the course and character of these revolutions showed was that the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie had been exhausted.

This said, however, there is a second good joke: the suggestion in the Q&A session that John McDonell, shadow Labour Chancellor (Finance minster), and even Jeremy Corbyn, are Marxists. Hence the play’s purported relevance. One is reminded of Marx’s remark in relation to the proclivities of some self proclaimed Marxists: if their politics are Marxist, he said “ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” (“what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”). It is in relation to the on goings in the Labour Party that the star speaker was a one Tristram Hunt, previously a member of Labour’s shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband. He resigned as MP shortly after Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the leadership election and became director of the Victoria & Albert Museum (salary and perks circa £250,000). His other qualification was being the author of a biography of Engels. The play was clearly inspired by this work, in particular, its central theme that the personal and the political must be combined in order to judge the worth of any theory – as the title of his biography makes clear (“The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels”). Tell that to Albert Einstein.

Despite some generally good acting, unless you’re into Xmas pantomimes don’t waste your time and money. Wait instead for a serious treatment of the “young Marx” in a film of that name directed by Raoul Peck, the Haitian filmmaker who won critical acclaim earlier this year for his James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro”. Whilst already released in most of the world, the film has yet to find a UK distributor. But one lives in hope. Find a review of the film here:

(In Review)

‘Young Karl Marx’ portrays birth of

communist movement

The Young Karl Marx, 2017 film, directed by Raoul Peck.

BY JOHN STEELE

Acclaimed Haitian director Raoul Peck’s new film, “The Young Karl Marx,” is an inspiring and historically accurate portrayal of the 1847 formation of the first international revolutionary working-class party — the Communist League. Peck has also directed the films “Lumumba” and “I Am Not Your Negro.”

The League`s goal was to win workers to its program, the Communist Manifesto, drafted by two young fighters, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and published the following year. The two revolutionaries were 29 and 27 years old at the time.

The film — based on correspondence between Marx and Engels, with free-flowing English, French and German dialogue and distributed with subtitles in 20 languages — vividly transports viewers back to this turning point in history. The 1848 bourgeois revolutions in Europe would break out shortly, with the rising industrial bourgeoisie struggling for political supremacy against the declining feudal landowners and their monarchies, but at the same time more and more fearful of the growing industrial working class.

These momentous changes in social and economic relations were reflected in radical challenges to traditional philosophical and political thought in the halls of academia in Germany and elsewhere, and among a vanguard layer of revolutionary factory workers and artisans in cities like Paris; London; Manchester, England; and Cologne, Germany.

Harassed by the Prussian police for writing newspaper articles criticizing the rulers’ treatment of workers and peasants and challenging the philosophical justifications for the established order, Marx and his aristocratically born but highly political wife Jenny Marx and their children are forced to flee to Paris.

Here, the film shows how Marx met Engels in 1844. Engels was born into wealth, unlike Marx who lives in poverty. His father is a German industrial capitalist and co-owner of a cotton spinning mill in Manchester. Engels works there as a skilled clerk in the office with a bird’s-eye view of the class struggle on the factory floor, realistically presented by Peck. Mary Burns, a militant mill worker in the plant, becomes Engels’ wife and introduces him to the conditions faced by Irish workers in England.

Marx and Engels find they’re on the same political wavelength. The meeting is the beginning of a lifelong political collaboration between the two.

We are with them as they begin to wage a struggle against their political opponents and clarify their own ideas in the debate. They explain the capitalists are class enemies and that the working class is destined to lead a revolutionary movement to abolish the capitalist system. Polemics they wrote that helped shape revolutionary Marxism come to life as we see them take on Pierre Proudhon, known as the founder of anarchism, and others.

Over the course of the film, as they did in life, Marx and Engels are increasingly attracted to a group of workers organized in the League of the Just as they seek to convince them of their materialist and scientific views. This culminates in a dramatic scene where Marx and Engels are accepted into the organization by the group’s leaders in London, who ask them to help draft a new program and organizational structure to present to the next congress of the League.

Communist League founded

In a rousing scene at the congress, Engels makes a speech explaining that all men are in fact not brothers. Capitalist factory owners are enemies of the working class. Finally a programmatic document prepared by Marx and Engels is adopted by majority vote with much cheering and shouting. The old League slogan “All men are brothers” is transformed into “Workingmen of all countries unite!” The name of the organization becomes the Communist League, a public organization proudly proclaiming its revolutionary program.

The film concludes with Marx and Engels drafting the Communist Manifesto, reading aloud as they write.

Just before the credits roll Peck presents a striking photomontage of world events today. It is effective in getting across the idea, which Peck expressed in a question and answer session I participated in following the screening of the film in Montreal, that the Communist Manifesto is as relevant today as it was when it was published by the League 169 years ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Peck’s minor conflations in the story — like his decision, for time reasons, to present the League’s first two congresses with Marx and Engels participating as one — don’t weaken the credibility or impact of the film.

Those looking for a way out of the deepening, economic, social, political, and moral crisis of the capitalist system should see this film. It shows the birth of the movement that the Socialist Workers Party and Communist Leagues in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. trace their continuity to.

I recommend you contact these parties to learn what you can do today to advance the fight to overthrow capitalist rule and open the door to the construction of a socialist world. 

Source:

http://www.themilitant.com/2017/8144/814454.html

Into the country of the Kurds

Chapter 4 of Geoffrey Household's translation The Exploits of Xenophon.

*

4. Kurdestan

The Greeks were now north of Mosul, near the present frontier between Iraq and Turkey. They had no maps, and the country ahead of them was utterly unknown and inhabited by wild, unconquerable mountain tribes.

In the world of that time no people but the Greeks would ever have attempted such a march. They alone had the discipline—and the intelligence. Their quick minds could learn by experience. Xenophon and his fellow-generals had imitated the Persian cavalry charge. And they were beginning to use light infantry, which had never had any importance in Greece, just as a modern commander would. The lessons they learned made it possible, seventy years later, for Alexander to conquer the whole Middle East and to change human history.

When Cheirisophus and the main body of the army had come down from the hills, they found themselves again in the valley of the Tigris. Parties at once set off to lift cattle and supplies from the nearby villages, and were cut up by the Persian cavalry. Tissaphernes promptly set fire to the villages, so all their hopes of a decent meal were disappointed.

Cheirisophus had to march out in force to rescue his men, and I met his column as my mountain party and I were making our way down to the plain. They were pretty down-hearted and I did my best to cheer them up.

‘If Tissaphernes is burning the villages,’ I said, ‘it looks to me as if he has at last admitted that the country is ours, and not the King’s. What do you think, Cheirisophus? Shall we fight for it?’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘There’s a better trick than that. We’ll burn some villages ourselves. That’ll puzzle ’em! They’ll begin to wonder if we mean to starve them, too.’

In this country we seemed to have come to a dead end. We had either to cross the Tigris or march into unknown mountains or go back. We looked at the Tigris and sounded its depth with our spears. It couldn’t be crossed. One of our Rhodian soldiers had an ingenious idea of making a bridge of skins blown up into balloons. This might have worked, but Persian cavalry were in position on the opposite bank to stop us landing. So we decided to go back; but, before we did, we carried out Cheirisophus’ suggestion of burning all the villages in sight.

This bluff completely beat Tissaphernes who could not make out what our next move would be. When he saw that we had turned back towards Babylon, he continued his march to the west. We never set eyes on his army again.

What to do next we did not know, so the generals had all the prisoners brought up to headquarters to be questioned on the geography. We learned that if we marched east we should come to the highlands of Persia and the capitals of Ecbatana and Susa, where the Great King used to spend the summer. That was of no more use to us than the road south to Babylon.

The road to the west led to Asia Minor. But that was the route Tissaphernes had taken, and we had had quite enough of him. So the only possibility left was to march north into the country of the Kurds.

The prisoners told us that these Kurds were a very warlike people who had destroyed to the last man an army of 120,000 men which the King had sent against them. But if, they said, we could force our way through the mountains of Kurdestan, we should come to Armenia. This was a rich and prosperous province of the Empire with roads leading anywhere we might want to go.

The first of the mountain passes was close to us. We decided that it must be captured at once before the Kurds could defend it. So we told the men to turn in as they were and be ready to march after midnight.

After prayers and sacrifices, we crossed the plain under cover of darkness. At dawn we were in the pass. Cheirisophus led the advance with all our light infantry, and I took the rear guard as usual. Since there seemed to be no more danger of attacks on the tail of the column, I had only the heavy infantry of the line.

In the valleys and on the terraces of the mountains were many tiny villages. They were all deserted, for the Kurds with their women and children had fled to the high ground. We took what food we needed and were careful not to loot—though they had some fine bronze pots and pans—for we still hoped that the Kurds might let us through in peace. We called to them whenever we saw them, telling them that we, too, were enemies of the Great King, but they made no reply.

We were on the march for some sixteen hours, and it was dark again when we came out into kinder country. Just as my rear guard was emerging from the pass, we were smartly attacked by a small body of Kurds who surprised us and did a lot of damage. This was a nasty warning. If they had had time to concentrate a larger force, they could have wiped out half our army in the dark. We bivouacked in the valley, and we didn’t like it. All around us, in a circle on the mountains, were the watch fires of the Kurds.

The next morning, which was November 13th, the generals determined to abandon all prisoners, slaves and noncombatants, all unnecessary private property, and any of the transport animals that were weak. To see that our order was obeyed we posted ourselves at the narrowest part of the road and confiscated anything that we did not approve.

That day passed with only a little fighting, but on the next a great mountain storm swept over us. We could not camp because we were again short of food. With the storm came the Kurdish arrows, so we were continually trying to clear the pass and making very little progress. Again and again I would send a runner up to the head of the column, asking Cheirisophus to slow down. Usually he did, but once or twice he just told us to stop our counter attacks and hurry up. The march, at any rate in the rear guard, became uncommonly like a run. I lost two first-class men here—a Spartan shot through shield and leather jacket and an Arcadian shot clean through the helmet.

I have never seen anything like those Kurdish archers. Their bows were five feet long, and they drew the string with the left foot planted against the lower end of the bow. The arrows were a yard long and so heavy that we picked them up, fitted them to our throwing thongs and used them as javelins.

When at last we came into camp, I had it out with Cheirisophus. But as usual he was right.

‘Look at that path going straight up the mountain!’ he said. ‘And remember we have to follow it! That’s why I was in a hurry—to seize the pass before the Kurds could get there first. Well, they have—as you can see by that mass of men up there. The guides say there is no other way.’

The position was desperate. I had a couple of Kurdish prisoners whom we had taken in a counter attack, and I suggested to Cheirisophus that we should question them separately. The first denied and kept on denying that there was any other path, in spite of all we did to him. That one was killed, and when the other Kurd saw what had happened to him, he talked.

‘There is a way round,’ he told us, ‘and good enough for pack animals. My friend wouldn’t speak about it because he has a married daughter who lives along the road. But I will take you.’

We asked what difficulties we had to expect, and found out from him that there was a ridge which we must seize and hold if the army was to have any hope of getting through. So we called an officers’ conference, explained the situation and asked for volunteers.

Three Arcadian officers of the line stepped forward, as did a light infantry captain who had a fine record of gallantry. They collected an assault party of 2,000 men, had a quick bite to eat and set off at once with the prisoner as guide. The dusk was coming down and torrents of rain with it.

The rear guard under my command marched straight for the high pass which the enemy were holding in force. It was only a feigned attack to distract their attention, but we could not have driven it home even if we had wished. The Kurds began to roll down boulders, some of them weighing tons, which smashed and splintered on the rocks around us. It was just like being under heavy fire from slings. We kept on probing their position until it was dark, and then returned to camp. All night long the enemy went on rolling their great stones, and we could hear them booming and crashing in the ravine.

Meanwhile, the assault party surprised a strong enemy post near the top of the ridge. They assumed then that their job was done. In the morning they found it wasn’t, for they had captured merely an outpost. But fortunately dawn broke with a mist, and they were able to creep up on the Kurds who were holding the main mountain pass. They sounded their trumpets as a signal to us, who were waiting far below them, that they were going into action. Then they charged and swept the enemy off the mountain.

At the call of the trumpets Cheirisophus attacked straight up the road, and the other generals led their contingents at the steep hill-sides, the men hauling each other up with their spears. I, with the rear guard and all the transport animals, followed the side road over the ridge. The assault party had cleared it and gone on, but now the enemy had had time to reform. We had to storm three separate crests to get through. Coming down the last of them, I had a narrow escape. The enemy were hot on our tail; they rolled down rocks again, uttering terrifying yells. My orderly, who was carrying my shield, bolted. I was saved only because Eurylochus, an Arcadian, ran up and got me away under cover of his own shield.

The end of the day, with all the army reunited, was thoroughly satisfactory. We found ourselves in a district of really well-built houses, with plenty of provisions in the barns and big cemented cisterns full of wine. Cheirisophus and I arranged a short truce with the Kurds, and they gave us back our dead, whom we buried with the full military honours due to brave men. We released our guide.

The next day the Kurds defended one roadblock after another, and one after another we outflanked them. If Cheirisophus was held up, I took to the hills, got above the enemy and dislodged them. When the rear guard was attacked, he did the same. It was a model of co-operation. In spite of the weight of our shields and arms, we could climb as well as the Kurds, who carried nothing but their bows and slings—though we could never catch them when they ran away. Our Cretan archers, commanded by Stratocles, were invaluable.

On the evening of November 17th we saw below us at last the plain of the river Centrites. This was an enormous relief, and, as we had plenty of food, we passed a happy night swapping tales about the Kurds and sleeping well. The last seven days had been one long, continuous battle which had cost us more men and suffering than the whole of the fighting with Tissaphernes and the King.

It was just as well that we had time to rest, for the river Centrites did not look so inviting in the morning. On the far bank were cavalry, armoured from top to toe, to defend the crossing. There was only one way up from the water, and that was a real road, properly engineered, which showed that we were back in civilization again. Drawn up across this road, a hundred yards back from the river, was a powerful force of infantry. These were mostly Chaldean troops who were in the pay of the Imperial Governor of Armenia and were said to be a free, brave people.

We tried the ford, but it was out of the question for heavily armed men. The water was over our chests, and the river bed was of great slippery stones. We had not a hope of crossing under fire.

On the edge of the mountains, near our pleasant camp of the night before, the Kurds were massing, ready to fall on our rear as soon as we were in difficulties. We did not know what to do, so we camped where we were for thirty-six hours, feeling that our luck had run out.

That night I had another dream, which was undoubtedly sent from the gods. I dreamed that my legs were chained, that the chains fell off and that I could then stride across anything I wished. As soon as it was dawn, I told this to Cheirisophus, who at once saw the point of it and was delighted. All the generals offered sacrifices, and the appearance of the victims’ bodies promised us good fortune.

The troops then had breakfast. While I was eating mine, two young men came running up to me. Everyone knew that I never minded being woken up or having my meals interrupted if the business were military.

The two reported that they had been up the river to collect firewood. On the opposite bank they had seen an old man and some women and little girls storing away bundles of clothing in a hollow rock by the water’s edge. The river seemed to be shallow, so the two young fellows undressed and tried the crossing, carrying nothing but their axes. They expected to have to swim at some point; but, to their surprise, the water never quite covered their legs.

Opposite the crossing which they had found, the foothills of the Armenian mountains fell sharply into the river. On that sort of ground the enemy could not use their cavalry.

I poured out cups of wine for the young men and myself, and we drank to the gods who had saved us and gave them thanks. As soon as Cheirisophus heard the story, he ordered the army to strike camp and fall in for the march. While they were packing up, we generals discussed the coming operation. We decided that Cheirisophus should fight his way over the river with half the army, and that the transport should follow when he had established a bridgehead. Meanwhile, I was to hold our side of the river and watch the Kurds.

We had half a mile to go, and as we marched along the bank the enemy cavalry kept pace with us on the other side. When we arrived at the ford which the young men had discovered, the army halted and piled arms. Then the chaplains held a service and offered sacrifice to the spirit of the river Centrites. Cheirisophus put a ceremonial wreath on his head and threw off his red cloak. The soldiers sang the battle hymn, and the vanguard took to the water in column of companies with Cheirisophus in the centre.

As soon as they were on the way over, I called up the fastest troops in the rear guard and raced with them back along the river towards the deep ford with the good road on the other side of it. That drew off the enemy cavalry, who saw that they would be trapped between the hills and the river if both our parties got across.

The threat was quite enough for the Imperial troops, and they bolted. Cheirisophus, now safely over the river, did not pursue them, but swung left and attacked the Chaldean infantry. These were not going to face the Greek line without any cavalry, so they abandoned their position.

So far all had gone perfectly, but my rear guard was still on the wrong side of the river. Our problem was how to cross it with our defenceless backs exposed to the arrows of the Kurds. I split my force into two—one half to face the river and get the transport over, the other half to form line against the Kurds and attack. When at last this second half was all alone on the bank, it must have seemed to the Kurds a mere handful. They stormed down on us from the hills, chanting their barbarous songs.

Cheirisophus at once sent his archers and slingers to cover the crossing of the last of the rear guard. I ordered them to wait at the ford and hold their fire until we were actually in the water. Then we charged the Kurds and drove them back. At the call of the trumpets we broke off the attack and ran for the river. But the Kurds continued running in the opposite direction. They knew what our trumpets meant, and wanted no more of it. When at last some of them spotted the trick, turned and opened fire, we were in the middle of the river and under cover of our own archers. And so we arrived safely in Armenia, at the expense of only a few men wounded.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Exploits_of_Xenophon.html?id=zA46AgAAQBAJ

Zionism

From the article

"How Israel was founded:

Is Zionism national liberation?"

By August Nimtz

(fourth of a series)

....There was, however, a crucial difference between the Zionists and other movements for the liberation of oppressed nationalities. The Zionists did not direct their movement against their oppressors-the capitalist rulers.

Rather than fighting for a Jewish state or even

autonomous territory in Europe , the middle-class Zionist leaders sought to make a deal with the imperialist powers that controlled the remaining world territories. This orientation is the origin of what is an essential ingredient of Zionism to this day-its dependence on and support for imperialism.

Rather than seeking to build a Jewish state at the expense of the imperialists , the Zionists built their state in alliance with the imperialists and at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs, who were in no way responsible for the oppression of the Jews .

http://www.themilitant.com/1980/4401/MIL4401.pdf

The Bundys: Not Guilty

Tape shows Bundys acted to protect rights of all ranchers  

BY DENNIS RICHTER AND WILLIAM ARTH

LAS VEGAS — The government frame-up trial of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and supporter Ryan Payne entered day 12 in U.S. District Court here Nov. 27. Prosecutors put Bureau of Land Management agent Robert Shilaikis on the stand. The jury heard the secret government recording made by Shilaikis of a phone call between BLM agent Michael Johnson and Ryan Bundy on March 27, 2014. Johnson and Shilaikis were assigned to go to the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville to inform them the government planned to move in and seize their cattle.

Government prosecutors played 13 minutes of conversation, arguing that this was the only part relevant to the charges. Under pressure, prosecutors agreed later to play the full 46 minutes.

In response to threats by agent Johnson to enforce court orders to confiscate the Bundy family cattle, Ryan Bundy said, “We will do whatever it takes to stop your gathering of our cattle.” When Johnson pushes Bundy on what it would take to avoid a confrontation, he replied, “Don’t come to take the cattle. We have the right to defend ourselves if you are taking our property. We don’t claim ownership to the land, we claim ownership to water rights, grazing rights and the ranching improvements.”

Despite Johnson’s best efforts to get Bundy to say ranchers would respond with violence, he never does so.

Defense attorney Ryan Norwood reintroduced one segment from the BLM tape the next day, where Ryan Bundy says the Bundys met with hundreds of ranchers from throughout the region. “These ranchers believe that if we go down that they will be next. These ranchers will stand with us,” Bundy says. “People in Japan, China, all over the world are interested in the issue of how the Bundys’ rights will be handled.”  

http://www.themilitant.com/2017/8146/814652.html