There is much of value in any serious attempt to talk about the tasks of the left today, and what exactly the purpose of its existence is: Mike Macnair's new book, which carries the subtitle "Marxism and the challenge of left unity" is certainly this. The left sects are crying out for some ideas and some definition for their project: what we have at the moment is a maelstrom of sectarian and internally undemocratic groups, with philistine hostility towards discussion and utter disdain for ideas other than those quoted from the holy texts of Lenin and Trotsky.

Mike himself makes many apt criticisms of the left groups of today, for example in terms of their bureaucratism, their pretentious "internationals" and their fake "broad left" unity initiatives. He criticises statist ideas of workers' power. Clearly there is much to say on these matters, and this book is an important contribution to the debate: or, should I say, it is to the extent that there is any debate, since none of the left groups concerned are likely either to respond to the book or take stock of its arguments. Furthermore, as I shall describe, Mike's own vision for the strategy for communism is in several areas somewhat mechanical, and he says little about the tasks of communists in the workers' movement - as opposed to the arguments to be had among the organised far left - in the here and now.

Economy

Surely a central part of elaborating a strategy for revolution should be some analysis of what is happening in the world economy and the objective changes in the British, European and world working class. This should include both commentary on the current crisis, and on broader changes in class composition. If I were to write a piece on Marxism today, or how the left should organise and what its objectives and project should be, this would be the first thing I'd write. But Mike does very little of this, and draws most of his arguments and conclusions from debates had during the revolutionary wave of 1916-21, and to a lesser extent, the period of struggles between the general strike in France in May-June 1968 and the Portuguese revolution. But a lot has changed even in the last thirty years.

The working class is ever more international, and the number of people who have to sell their labour power has massively increased and now represents a majority of the world population; in the most developed capitalist countries there are increased numbers of migrant workers; significant technological advances as well as outsourcing have shrunk the industrial working class, while activities like manufacturing and mining are in sharp decline; welfarism and state capitalism, both in the former Eastern Bloc and in the West, are much weaker than thirty years ago; and many jobs have been casualised. All of these changes, allied with attacks on the workers' movement's rights to organise, have impacted on working-class consciousness to the extent that there is a wide current of opinion believing that the working class either barely exists or has disappeared altogether.

My point is emphatically not that economic changes have put revolution off the agenda, and neither does the changed world situation automatically disqualify past arguments about what tactics we need. Similarly, I am far from being an economic determinist: certainly I do not believe that large economic crises necessarily lead to heightened class struggle and revolutions even if the working class lacks confidence in itself and ideas for change. Such - economistic - views of "spontaneous combustion" have nothing to do with Marx's method.

Nevertheless, changes in class composition do mean that the workers' movement has to organise differently and alter its priorities. I am sure that one of the main subjects of discussion at the commune's upcoming series on class struggle in the 1970s will be what has changed since then, and in what ways it is possible to import lessons of that time to today. The only reference I could find in Revolutionary strategy to this subject was a paragraph (pp. 29-30) asserting that the "growing fragmentation of labour", i.e. smaller workplaces, means that "the means of struggle need to change: they need to shift from workplace collective organisation to district collective organisation". Mike writes that, in this vein, trade unions ought to organise the unemployed and furthermore "perform significant welfare and education functions rather than simply being an instrument of collective bargaining on wages and conditions".

But although community organising is all very well and good, Mike just sidesteps the question of organising workers in their workplaces too, and how to do that today. The recent - successful - London Underground cleaners' strike shows both the possibility and necessity of organising more diverse groups of workers than the 'classic' industrial working class. Indeed, to use a crude phrase, the Tube cleaners 'tick several boxes' in this regard, in that they work in small numbers, on shifts; they are almost exclusively migrant workers; they are mostly women; the job is badly paid and it is easy to get sacked, particularly when Tube bosses raise questions over their immigration status. Of course, despite the other political issues directly relating to the strike - activists from the Campaign Against Immigration Controls and Feminist Fightback were very much involved in organising and publicising it - it does not automatically lead to some sort of "revolutionary consciousness": but this sort of struggle is extremely important for breathing energy into trade unions and facilitating the recomposition of the workers' movement.

What is the left for?

Presumably the reason why Mike's book about strategies for revolution is largely about the debates of yesteryear is that the left today simply has no strategy for revolution all, and so there is nothing much to argue with. It is barely even true that the SWP envisage a mass strike followed by a seizure of power by themselves, since in fact they never talk about revolution or communism and have hardly any perspectives beyond their latest electoral manoeuvre or activist initiative designed to party-build and give their students 'something to do'.

Similarly, although the supporters of Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian revolution" can at least claim to have some engagement with reality, given that Chávez is in power and enacting some meaningful reforms, they do not have any idea of what their "revolution" is actually for. All that matters is that Chávez is in power. The problem is not just, as Mike comments, that Chávez "offers no real strategic lesson for the left" (p.9) but rather that the "Bolivarian revolution" does not have any variant of the objective of working-class power at all - in fact, Chávez's rule has not even seen expropriations and state commandism. The resurgence of the Venezuelan workers' movement owes much to the response to the 2002 attempted coup and lock-out, but that does not reflect working-class control over the "Bolivarian revolution". The way that Mike criticises Chávez - for not having a strategy - is off the point, and reminiscent of both the way in which Trotsky criticised Mao for not "participating actively in the front lines" of the Kuomintang and the way in which Mike has commented on that discussion in the Weekly Worker. In the WW article Mike does of course clearly assert his hostility towards Maoism and bureaucracy - much as Revolutionary strategy makes some apposite criticisms of bureaucratic ‘socialism’ - but the way he reads off tactical and military lessons from the Maoists is abstract and makes no attempt to differentiate between purely military tactics and the strategy for class struggle. Mao’s insistence on the independence of his forces is not parallel in any shape or form to third campism.

Indeed, a central difference between Mao’s ‘independent course’ and that of third camp class struggle politics is that, unlike a clique’s military efforts to seize control of government by force, which could take any number of forms and include any alliances, a working-class revolution necessarily relies on class independence (or at least vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie, if we assume that the petty bourgeoisie will just be pulled along by either the bourgeoisie or working class). If it is not an all-out class struggle, then it will not be able to abolish the state or reorganise the economy to overcome the law of value, but rather replace one set of rulers with another. As the Solidarity group once wrote in a different context, “Means and ends are mutually dependent. They constantly influence each other. The means are, in fact, a partial implementation of the end, whereas the end becomes modified by the means adopted.”

If Mao’s forces really had been a workers’ movement with a revolutionary project, then it would still have been wrong to ally with the Kuomintang - even regardless of military considerations - since it would have undermined the confidence of the working class in itself, derailed the objectives of the struggle, and the Kuomintang would have been able to ‘veto’ any manner of demands, most importantly the revolution itself. Indeed, this had more or less played out already, in 1927. But as we know, Mao was not leading a working-class or communist movement, and the problem with “surrounding the cities” was not its impractability, but that the objectives of the “people’s war” were reactionary! Obvious as it is that Mike Macnair is not a Maoist, he talks about Mao’s strategy with a somewhat detached air, and I find it hard to see any value in such discussion.

In his discussion of communist attitudes towards war, Mike writes as if a series of correct manoeuvres and alliances could bring the revolution to its conclusion. This is problematic since on the Trotskyist left undue stress is often laid on the idea that the problem with cross-class alliances is that they are inoperable and fail, as in the case of the Spanish civil war, rather than that they are unprincipled. In fact the problem here was not that popular fronts are inadmissible because the bourgeoisie will not consistently fight fascists - for sure they cannot be relied on, but may well do so, as in the case of World War II - but rather that the formation of the alliance is in itself puts the idea of fighting capital as such off the agenda. In the case of Spain, the working-class revolution was crushed thanks to the anarchist (CNT-FAI) and centrist (POUM) leaders’ participation in the popular front. Not only was there the problem that the bourgeois Republicans make tactical errors because of their class standpoint, for example their delay in arming the working class and their refusal to grant Morocco independence and thus curry favour with Arab troops, but also that to maintain alliance with them the far left had to demobilise the revolution.

The belief that we should not bloc with sections of the bourgeoisie to fight imperialism, fascism and so on just because they are inconsistent or vacillating lends itself to support for them when they are waging such struggles. The author writes that although Trotsky’s analysis of the USSR as a gain for the working class was wrong, and so a “revolutionary defencist” attitude towards its attacks on Finland, Poland and the Baltic States in autumn 1939 would be misplaced, he would take a revolutionary defencist attitude to the USSR “in some circumstances (like the 1941 German invasion)” (p.82). Quite why he would do so is not explained.

Without exception, support for bourgeois forces means a partial abandonment of class struggle. I will clarify that by saying that in some circumstances it may be temporarily useful to “point your guns in the same direction” as a section of the ruling class - it is interesting that Hal Draper specifically counterposes this to his idea of “military support” in the ABC of National Liberation movements. Doing this is not “support” though, in terms of propping up someone else's fight: it is merely a tactic used when fighting your own struggle for your own objectives. There is an article by the International Communist Current about Lenin’s supposed “alliance” with Kerensky against Kornilov which is quite useful on this score.

The state

Mike is right to point out flaws with the "mass strike" idea of revolution, particularly in that the unravelling of the economy does not necessarily mean that any alternative centre of authority is posed. This was most obviously the case in the general strike in France in 1968, which I debated Mike on at the CPGB summer school this month. However, although the term "workers' government" is abstract (indeed, the JCR, now the LCR, called for this in June 1968 while refusing to call for a vote for either major workers' party), Mike's alternative is not that far from it.

He criticises the left for its exaggerated interest in workers' councils (this is hardly the case in Britain today), and argues "Workers' councils and similar forms have appeared in many strike waves and revolutionary crises since 1917. In none have these forms been able to offer an alternative centre of authority, an alternative decision-making mechanism for the whole society. This role is unavoidably played by a government - either based on the existing military-bureaucratic state core, or on the existing organs of the workers' movement" (p.49).

This is quite a conclusion to draw from history, given that - of course - revolutions where parties based themselves on the existing state machinery, or the existing organisations of the workers' movement took power, have also all failed. And there is no evidence that revolutions with workers' councils failed because these organs are unable to assert their authority: despite enjoying high degrees of authority across Germany and Russia in their brief existence, these organs were crushed by counter-revolutions.  It is not the case that "it was Sovnarkom, the government formed by the Bolsheviks and initially including some of their allies, and its ability to reach out through the Bolshevik Party as a national organisation, which 'solved' the crisis of authority affecting Russia in 1917": this was an undemocratic manoeuvre against the soviets and grassroots power, and indeed within months - before the civil war - had bureaucratically centralised economic control and pulled the rug from underneath the factory committees.

The author has also elsewhere criticised workers' councils as undemocratic on the grounds that they do not represent working-class people who do not have jobs (students, pensioners, disabled people, the unemployed etc.): but in fact there is no reason why workers' councils should just be composed of workplace delegates, and in Russia such people as Mike mentions had every right to vote in soviet elections. The point about workers' councils is not some organisational fetish - indeed, "workers' council" would be a somewhat inaccurate characterisation of the 1871 Paris Commune, but it was still an organ of workers' power - but that they have in history arisen in struggle and proven to be armed organs of working-class power counterposed to the bourgeois state machinery.

Mike's alternative is only vaguely defined: he calls for a "democratic republic" with a "people's militia". He criticises those who hold both that a workers' government would incite class struggle and also that it would only be a workers' government if it was created on the basis of class struggle: but it is not clear whether the democratic republic is meant to be the product of the revolution, or whether it is a taking-over of the existing state bureaucracy. I am opposed to the state monopoly of gun control, but the idea of a "people's militia" has no particular relation to the working class or communism. We are not for popular sovereignty, but rather the smashing of the state machinery and of capital.

He says that "workers' control" cannot be imposed from above, and wants the working class "to lay its hands collectively on the means of production" (p.162), "this does not mean state ownership of the means of production, which is merely a legal form. Without democratic republicanism, the legal form of state ownership means private ownership by state bureaucrats". But the problem with state ownership in history has not just been a lack of democracy in the state, but the continuation of the law of value and wage labour. We do not just want the working class to "control" capital "democratically", but to uproot it. Indeed, although he says he is opposed to the rule of law, throughout the book Mike again and again refers to "democracy". 

Marx poses the question far better (I have lifted these quotes from Cyril Smith's Marx at the Millennium):

"The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society. ... It is only in an order of things in which there are no more classes that social evolutions will cease to be political revolutions." (Poverty of Philosophy)

"The Commune – the reabsorption of the state power by society as its own living forces instead of as forces controlling and subduing it, by the popular masses themselves, forming their own force instead of die organised force of their suppression – the political form of their social emancipation, instead of the artificial force (appropriated by their oppressors) (their own force opposed to and organised against them) of society wielded for their oppression by their enemies." (Civil War in France)

"All France organised into self-working and self-governing communes ... the suffrage for the national representation not a matter of sleight-of-hand for an all-powerful government, but the deliberate expression of organised communes, the state functions reduced to a few functions for general national purposes.

"Such is the Commune – the political form of the social emancipation, of the liberation of labour from the usurpations (slave-holding) of the monopolists of the means of labour, created by the labourers themselves or forming the gift of nature. As the state machinery and parliamentarism are not the real life of the ruling classes, but only the organised general organs of their dominion, so the Commune is not the social movement of the working class and therefore of a general regeneration of mankind, but the organised means of action." (Civil War in France)

Smith also quotes Bakunin writing "There are about 40 million Germans. Does this mean that all 40 million will be members of the government?", to which Marx responds "Certainly! For the system starts with the self-government of the communities... When class rule has disappeared, there will be no state in the present political sense." 

Indeed, nowhere in the Civil War in France does Marx refer to the idea of a workers' state, and for that matter doesn't criticise the communards for their lack of a revolutionary party, much unlike Trotsky's Lessons of the Commune which exaggeratedly fetishises the question.

Conclusion

A strategy for communism must not only be centred on a working-class struggle for power, but an understanding of what this power would consist of. The point is not to draw up blueprints - for example, it would be meaningless to draw up a grand plan for rule by workers' councils unless these organs actually arose in the revolutionary struggle itself - but rather to overcome the terrible failures of the past and restore the idea that working-class rule, and thus communism, is still both possible and desirable.

There will be no "spontaneous combustion" crisis-followed-by-revolution, and nor do parliamentary "enabling acts" and Chávez-style statism have anything to do with working-class self emancipation. Both of these scenarios are élitist and deny the working class, i.e. the participants in the revolution, any subjectivity of their own. Arguing against these left commonplaces is an enormous challenge, and Revolutionary strategy, in parts, goes some way towards doing that.

But the starting point for strategy cannot just be analysis of where the left is at now. The left has poor ideas and poor implantation in the working class, and there is very little prospect of changing its sectism and sectarianism any time soon. We should not in the slightest abstain from that struggle, but two other important tasks also impose themselves: first to outline our vision for society and what alternative we actually have to capitalism, and second to take part in a recomposition of the workers' movement which gives due attention to the changes in the working class that have taken place in recent decades.

I'll gladly run some McCain parody stuff as well if someone can send it in.

EASTERN EUROPE: BELARUS - UKRAINE - MOLDOVA

Russia has held a grudge against Ukraine since the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution. Belarus has kept particularly close ties with Moscow, while Russian troops are currently stationed in a semidetached Moldovan territory.

THE CAUCASUS: GEORGIA - ARMENIA - AZERBAIJAN

A vital region for the West, which has high hopes for an oil pipeline through Azerbaijan. George W. Bush visited ally Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia in 2005. Tiny Armenia, which borders Turkey and Iran, readily accepts Russian protection.

CENTRAL ASIA: KAZAKHSTAN - UZBEKISTAN - TURKMENISTAN - KYRGYZSTAN - TAJIKISTAN

These states are wedged between Russia and China. Several are resource-rich and endure varying levels of autocratic rule; a few have let NATO use land for bases.

THE BALTICS: ESTONIA - LATVIA - LITHUANIA

Thriving, technologically advanced democracies with prickly relationships with Russia. Estonia blames Moscow for major cyberattacks in 2007.

Republics of the Soviet Union  Armenian SSR  Azerbaijan SSR  Byelorussian SSR  Estonian SSR  Georgian SSR  Kazakh SSR  Kyrgyz SSR  Latvian SSR  Lithuanian SSR  Moldavian SSR  Russian SFSR  Tajik SSR  Turkmen SSR  Ukrainian SSR  Uzbek SSR

Independent nations  Armenia  Azerbaijan  Belarus  Estonia  Georgia  Kazakhstan  Kyrgyzstan  Latvia  Lithuania  Moldova  Russia  Tajikistan  Turkmenistan  Ukraine  Uzbekistan

]]> http://historicalresources.wordpress.com/?p=164 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:09:29 +0000 historicalresources http://historicalresources.wordpress.com/?p=164 Speech by Herr Hitler to the Reichstag on September 1, 1939.
 

FOR months we have been suffering under the torture of a problem which the Versailles Diktat created-a problem which has deteriorated until it becomes intolerable for us. Danzig was and is a German city. The Corridor was and is German. Both these territories owe their cultural development exclusively to the German people. Danzig was separated from us, the Corridor was annexed by Poland. As in other German territories of the East, all German minorities living there have been ill-treated in the most distressing manner. More than 1,000,000 people of German blood had in the years 1919-20 to leave their homeland.

As always, I attempted to bring about, by the peaceful method of making proposals for revision, an alteration of this intolerable position. It is a lie when the outside world says that we only tried to carry through our revisions by pressure. Fifteen years before the National Socialist Party came to power there was the opportunity of carrying out these revisions by peaceful settlements and understanding. On my own initiative I have, not once but several times, made proposals for the revision of intolerable conditions. All these proposals, as you know, have been rejected-proposals for limitation of armaments and ever, if necessary, disarmament, proposals for the limitation of war-making, proposals for the elimination of certain methods of modern warfare. You know the proposals that I have made to fulfil the necessity of restoring German sovereignty over German territories. You know the endless attempts I made for a peaceful clarification and understanding of the problem of Austria, and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia, and Moravia. It was all in vain.

It is impossible to demand that an impossible position should be cleared up by peaceful revision and at the same time constantly reject peaceful revision. It is also impossible to say that he who undertakes to carry out these revisions for himself transgresses a law, since the Versailles Diktat is not law to us. A signature was forced out of us with pistols at our head and with the threat of hunger for millions of people. And then this document, with our signature, obtained by force, was proclaimed as a solemn law.

In the same way, I have also tried to solve the problem of Danzig, the Corridor, &c., by proposing a peaceful discussion. That the problems had to be solved was clear. It is quite understandable to us that the time when the problem was to be solved had little interest for the Western Powers. But that time is not a matter of indifference to us. Moreover, it was not and could not be a matter of indifference to those who suffer most.

In my talks with Polish statesmen I discussed the ideas which you recognise from my last speech to the Reichstag. No one could say that this was in any way an inadmissible procedure or undue pressure. I then naturally formulated at last the German proposals, and I must once more repeat that there is nothing more modest or loyal than these proposals. I should like to say this to the world. I alone was in the position to make such proposals, for I know very well that in doing so I brought myself into opposition to millions of Germans. These proposals have been refused. Not only were they answered first with mobilisation, but with increased terror and pressure against our German compatriots and with a slow strangling of the Free City of Danzig-economically, politically, and in recent weeks by military and transport means.

Poland has directed its attacks against the Free City of Danzig. Moreover, Poland was not prepared to settle the Corridor question in a reasonable way which would be equitable to both parties, and she did not think of keeping her obligations to minorities.

I must here state something definitely; Germany has kept these obligations; the minorities who live in Germany are not persecuted. No Frenchman can stand up and say that any Frenchman living in the Saar territory is oppressed, tortured, or deprived of his rights. Nobody can say this.

For four months I have calmly watched developments, although I never ceased to give warnings. In the last few days I have increased these warnings. I informed the Polish Ambassador three weeks ago that if Poland continued to send to Danzig notes in the form of ultimata, if Poland continued its methods of oppression against the Germans, and if on the Polish side an end was not put to Customs measures destined to ruin Danzig's trade, then the Reich could not remain inactive. I left no doubt that people who wanted to compare the Germany of to-day with the former Germany would be deceiving themselves.

An attempt was made to justify the oppression of the Germans by claiming that they had committed acts of provocation. I do not know in what these provocations on the part of women and children consist, if they themselves are maltreated, in some cases killed. One thing I do know-that no great Power can with honour long stand by passively and watch such events.

I made one more final effort to accept a proposal for mediation on the part of the British Government. They proposed, not that they themselves should carry on the negotiations, but rather that Poland and Germany should come into direct contact and once more to pursue negotiations.

I must declare that I accepted this proposal, and I worked out a basis for these negotiations which are known to you. For two whole days I sat with my Government and waited to see whether it was convenient for the Polish Government to send a plenipotentiary or not. Last night they did not send us a plenipotentiary, but instead informed us through their Ambassador that they were still considering whether and to what extent they were in a position to go into the British proposals. The Polish Government also said that they would inform Britain of their decision.

Deputies, if the German Government and its Leader patiently endured such treatment Germany would deserve only to disappear from the political stage. But I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and my patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice. I, therefore, decided last night and informed the British Government that in these circumstances I can no longer find any willingness on the part of the Polish Government to conduct serious negotiations with us.

These proposals for mediation have failed because in the meanwhile there, first of all, came as an answer the sudden Polish general mobilisation, followed by more Polish atrocities. These were again repeated last night. Recently in one night there were as many as twenty-one frontier incidents; last night there were fourteen, of which three were quite serious. I have, therefore, resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used towards us. This attitude on the part of the Reich will not change.

The other European States understand in part our attitude. I should like here above all to thank Italy, which throughout has supported us, but you will understand that for the carrying on of this struggle we do not intend to appeal to foreign help. We will carry out this task ourselves. The neutral States have assured us of their neutrality, just as we had already guaranteed it to them.

When statesmen in the West declare that this affects their interests, I can only regret such a declaration. It cannot for a moment make me hesitate to fulfil my duty. What more is wanted? I have solemnly assured them, and I repeat it, that we ask nothing of these Western States and never will ask anything.

I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is a final one. I have repeatedly offered friendship and, if necessary, the closest co-operation to Britain, but this cannot be offered from one side only. It must find response on the other side. Germany has no interests in the West, and our western wall is for all time the frontier of the Reich on the west. Moreover, we have no aims of any kind there for the future. With this assurance we are in solemn earnest, and as long as others do not violate their neutrality we will likewise take every care to respect it.

I am happy particularly to be able to tell you of one event. You know that Russia and Germany are governed by two different doctrines. There was only one question that had to be cleared up. Germany has no intention of exporting its doctrine. Given the fact that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its doctrine to Germany, I no longer see any reason why we should still oppose one another. On both sides we are clear on that. Any struggle between our people would only be of advantage to others. We have, therefore, resolved to conclude a pact which rules out for ever any use of violence between us. It imposes the obligation on us to consult together in certain European questions. It makes possible for us economic co-operation, and above all it assures that the powers of both these powerful States are not wasted against one another. Every attempt of the West to bring about any change in this will fail.

At the same time I should like here to declare that this political decision means a tremendous departure for the future, and that it is a final one. Russia and Germany fought against one another in the World War. That shall and will not happen a second time. In Moscow, too, this pact was greeted exactly as you greet it. I can only endorse word for word the speech of the Russian Foreign Commissar, Molotov.

I am determined to solve (1) the Danzig question; (1) the question of the Corridor; and (3) to see to it that a change is made in the relationship between Germany and Poland that shall ensure a peaceful co-existence. In this I am resolved to continue to fight until either the present Polish Government is willing to bring about this change or until another Polish Government is ready to do so. I am resolved to remove from the German frontiers the element of uncertainty, the everlasting atmosphere of conditions resembling civil war. I will see to it that in the East there is, on the frontier, a peace precisely similar to that on our other frontiers.

In this I will take the necessary measures to see that they do not contradict the proposals I have already made known in the Reichstag itself to the rest of the world, that is to say, I will not war against women and children. I have ordered my air force to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives. If, however, the enemy thinks he can from that draw carte blanche on his side to fight by the other methods he will receive an answer that will deprive him of hearing and sight.

This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory. Since 5:45 a. m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met with bombs. Whoever fights with poison gas will be fought with poison gas. Whoever departs from the rules of humane warfare can only expect that we shall do the same. I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.

For six years now I have been working on the building up of the German defences. Over 90 milliards have in that time been spent on the building up of these defence forces. They are now the best equipped and are above all comparison with what they were in 1914. My trust in them is unshakable. When I called up these forces and when I now ask sacrifices of the German people and if necessary every sacrifice, then I have a right to do so, for I also am to-day absolutely ready, just as we were formerly, to make every personal sacrifice.

I am asking of no German man more than I myself was ready throughout four years at any time to do. There will be no hardships for Germans to which I myself will not submit. My whole life henceforth belongs more than ever to my people. I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me. I will not take it off again until victory is secured, or I will not survive the outcome.

Should anything happen to me in the struggle then my first successor is Party Comrade Goring; should anything happen to Party Comrade Goring my next successor is Party Comrade Hess.

You would then be under obligation to give to them as Fьhrer the same blind loyalty and obedience as to myself. Should anything happen to Party Comrade Hess, then by law the Senate will be called, and will choose from its midst the most worthy-that is to say the bravest-successor.

As a National Socialist and as German soldier I enter upon this struggle with a stout heart. My whole life has been nothing but one long struggle for my people, for its restoration, and for Germany. There was only one watchword for that struggle: faith in this people. One word I have never learned: that is, surrender.

If, however, anyone thinks that we are facing a hard time, I should ask him to remember that once a Prussian King, with a ridiculously small State, opposed a stronger coalition, and in three wars finally came out successful because that State had that stout heart that we need in these times. I would, therefore, like to assure all the world that a November 1918 will never be repeated in German history. Just as I myself am ready at any time to stake my life-anyone can take it for my people and for Germany-so I ask the same of all others.

Whoever, however, thinks he can oppose this national command, whether directly or indirectly, shall fall. We have nothing to do with traitors. We are all faithful to our old principle. It is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live, but it is essential that our people shall live, that Germany shall live. The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the sacrifice that many generations have made. If we form a community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, resolved never to surrender, then our will will master every hardship and difficulty. And I would like to close with the declaration that I once made when I began the struggle for power in the Reich. I then said: "If our will is so strong that no hardship and suffering can subdue it, then our will and our German might shall prevail."

Source: The Avalon Project

See also: Proclamation by Adolf Hitler - September 1,1939

See also: Treaty of Nonaggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

See also: Radio Address by Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, September 3, 1939.

According to The Independent, Britain seeks to expand its empire with 77,000 square miles of Atlantic seabed.

Splendid news. I propose Tony Blair as Governor General. We could give him a nice plumed helmet - and a pair of lead-soled boots to help his descent to this latest territory to be painted red on the map.

THE BLOGMASTER ADDS:-
This is actually a very important point raised here by Sean. If Libertarians care about property rights and what they are and what they are for, (and many of us do,) then there ought to be an agreed legal method, which everybody respects (that's the point of Law after all, no?) to define what entitiy or "corporate person" or individual, owns what parts of the seabed.

We ought to care about who's administering such "Law" - in case it is a bunch of "authoritarian-nationalists" (a great term, which I picked up on a newsgroup just this morning, as a description of the government of the USSR Russia today in 2008.)

MUCH MUCH better, than the crass, sad term "nazi" which gets liberals into so much trouble when used by them to describe ordinary socialists accurately.

We here do not care whether there is stuff on or under the seabed round Ascenscion Island or not. Naturally, the inhabitants, of which there are several thousand, will. It's their life, not ours. But we think that the general point that's being made in the article is a vital issue for the next 100-200 years, while the Earth is still the primary source of New Property Rights.

Comments please, pronto! (There will be a short written test on 31st August, to see who's paying attention.)

The Georgians are an ethnic group; they have their own culture and traditions. Numerous genocides have taken place in the region in the last century, mostly at the hands of the Russians. When the USSR annexed Georgia, at it became the Georgian SSR, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were part of it.

But the Abkhaz and the Ossetians are also unique ethnic groups, who apparently want independence, and probably never should've been part of an independent Georgia. They've wanted it since The USSR broke up and they just happened to be within the Georgian SSR's borders.

They've been mostly autonomous since then. As an American, I don't really understand why disparate ethnic groups need to have their own territories; but if Abkhazia and South Ossetia really want it, I say fine. Just don't come crying to the west when the Russians decide they want to annex them.

There's no reason to blow such a tiny little geopolitical dispute into a new cold war; that's ridiculous. That would require two superpowers, and superpower Russia is not; it's bark is decidedly larger than its bite.

If history repeats itself, like it always does, Russia is setting itself up for another major embarrassment that will further traumatize its already psychologically messed-up (and shrinking) population.

You should be. You lost the last one (at least that's what they say). Is this kinda like Germany after WWI. "They" feel betrayed. It's too bad we're going into this thing with a pansy like Obama. I say "bring it."

The previous is a classic with the honorable Governator of California himself.
The next is better viddy quality with Patrick Swayze sporting a pretty blond rug, staright from the studios of NBC.

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/pumping-up-with-hans-and-franz/2736/

Times Online: Pakistan coalition collapses over judge deal.
Belfast Telegraph: Pakistan in turmoil after collapse of ruling coalition.
al-Reuters: Talk of Russia-Cuba ties seen as warning to U.S..
American Thinker: Rollback Russian Expansionism.

Cross-posted @ Rosemary's Thoughts.

the solidarity group's pamphlet on the 1871 paris commune. this compares trotsky and tales' insistence that the communards failed because of their lack of a party unfavourably to karl marx's civil war in france, which makes no such argument; and furthermore celebrates this great display of working class insurgency from below.

we also feature an article by david broder on the organisation of education under capitalism and the alienation of students, and an essay by chris ford on the relevance of the theory of state capitalism in today's globalised capitalist economy.

the website is now accessible at www.thecommune.co.uk as well as the wordpress address.

1,469 Russian and/or Soviet propaganda and advert posters from between 1917-1991. Too awesome. Quite a diverse mix of graphic styles too.

Citizens of the Soviet Union:
The Soviet Government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement:

Today at 4 o'clock a.m., without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, killing and wounding over two hundred persons.

There were also enemy air raids and artillery shelling from Rumanian and Finnish territory.

This unheard of attack upon our country is perfidy unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was perpetrated despite the fact that a treaty of non-aggression had been signed between the U. S. S. R. and Germany and that the Soviet Government most faithfully abided by all provisions of this treaty.

The attack upon our country was perpetrated despite the fact that during the entire period of operation of this treaty, the German Government could not find grounds for a single complaint against the U.S.S.R. as regards observance of this treaty.

Entire responsibility for this predatory attack upon the Soviet Union falls fully and completely upon the German Fascist rulers.

At 5:30 a.m. -- that is, after the attack had already been perpetrated, Von der Schulenburg, the German Ambassador in Moscow, on behalf of his government made the statement to me as People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs to the effect that the German Government had decided to launch war against the U.S.S.R. in connection with the concentration of Red Army units near the eastern German frontier.

In reply to this I stated on behalf of the Soviet Government that, until the very last moment, the German Government had not presented any claims to the Soviet Government, that Germany attacked the U.S.S.R. despite the peaceable position of the Soviet Union, and that for this reason Fascist Germany is the aggressor.

On instruction of the government of the Soviet Union I also stated that at no point had our troops or our air force committed a violation of the frontier and therefore the statement made this morning by the Rumanian radio to the effect that Soviet aircraft allegedly had fired on Rumanian airdromes is a sheer lie and provocation.

Likewise a lie and provocation is the whole declaration made today by Hitler, who is trying belatedly to concoct accusations charging the Soviet Union with failure to observe the Soviet-German pact.

Now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already been committed, the Soviet Government has ordered our troops to repulse the predatory assault and to drive German troops from the territory of our country.

This war has been forced upon us, not by the German people, not by German workers, peasants and intellectuals, whose sufferings we well understand, but by the clique of bloodthirsty Fascist rulers of Germany who have enslaved Frenchmen, Czechs, Poles, Serbians, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece and other nations.

The government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakable confidence that our valiant army and navy and brave falcons of the Soviet Air Force will acquit themselves with honor in performing their duty to the fatherland and to the Soviet people, and will inflict a crushing blow upon the aggressor.

This is not the first time that our people have had to deal with an attack of an arrogant foe. At the time of Napoleon's invasion of Russia our people's reply was war for the fatherland, and Napoleon suffered defeat and met his doom.

It will be the same with Hitler, who in his arrogance has proclaimed a new crusade against our country. The Red Army and our whole people will again wage victorious war for the fatherland, for our country, for honor, for liberty.

The government of the Soviet Union expresses the firm conviction that the whole population of our country, all workers, peasants and intellectuals, men and women, will conscientiously perform their duties and do their work. Our entire people must now stand solid and united as never before.

Each one of us must demand of himself and of others discipline, organization and self-denial worthy of real Soviet patriots, in order to provide for all the needs of the Red Army, Navy and Air Force, to insure victory over the enemy.

The government calls upon you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally still more closely around our glorious Bolshevist party, around our Soviet Government, around our great leader and comrade, Stalin. Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours.

Vyacheslav Molotov - June 22, 1941

====================================================================
Vyacheslav Molotov (1889-1986), Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, had signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact on August 23, 1939. This bought the USSR two years in which to prepare for the Nazi attack, but in the meantime encouraged Hitler's aggression against Poland. By 1941 it was the Soviet Union's turn. For years, Hitler had claimed that Germany's future living space, or lebensraum, existed to Germany's east, namely Russia. He then turned his attention toward the Soviet Union and launched a massive attack on June 22, 1941. Above is the initial Soviet reaction, broadcast to the people by Molotov

Source: Internet Modern History Sourcebook
============================================================================
See also: The Führer to the German People: 22 June 1941

See also: Treaty of Nonaggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

See also: Statement by Joachim Von Ribbentrop, German Foreign Minister, on the Declaration of War on the Soviet Union

See also: Anti-Comintern Pact, November 25, 1936

Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact; Joachim von Ribbentrop and Josef Stalin stand behind him, Moscow, August 23, 1939 , Lenin is looking at them from the wall.

Few European Fascist movements went so far as to proclaim that 'God is a Fascist!' or that 'the ultimate goal of the Nation must be resurrection in Christ!' Romania was the exception. Romanian Fascists wanted 'a Romania in delirium' and they largely got one. The Legion of the Archangel Michael was founded in 1927 in honour of the archangel, who had allegedly visited Corneliu Codreanu, its chief ideologist, while he was in prison. It was the only European Fascist movement with religion (in this case Romanian Orthodoxy) at its core. In 1930 the Legion was renamed the Iron Guard. While rivalling only the Nazis in the ferocity of their hatred of Jews, these Romanian Fascists were sui generis in their fusion of political militancy with Orthodox mysticism into a truly lethal whole. One of the Legion's intellectual luminaries, the world-renowned anthropologist Mircea Eliade, described the legionary ideal as 'a harsh Christian spirituality'. Its four commandments were 'belief in God; faith in our mission; love for one another; son'. The goal of a 'new moral man' may have been a totalitarian commonplace, but the 'resurrection of the [Romanian] people in front of God's throne' was not routine in such circles. But then few European Fascists were inducted into an elite called the Brotherhood of Christ by sipping from a communal cup of blood filled from slashes in their own arms, or went around with little bags of soil tied around their necks. Nor did they do frenzied dances after chopping opponents into hundreds of pieces. Not for nothing was the prison massacre of Iron Guard leaders – including the captain Codreanu himself – by supporters of King Carol II known to local wits as 'the Night of the Vampires'. Although the Romanian elites emasculated the Guard's leadership, much of their furious potential was at that elite's disposal.

Hitler's conquests in western Europe in 1940 led Carol II to abandon his country's alignment with Britain and to seek a role for Romania within the all-conquering German 'new order'. That June, the Soviet Union took Bessarabia and Bukovina under the terms of the deal it had struck with Hitler. Three million Romanian Orthodox Christians languished under an alien and atheist regime, a state of affairs that outraged opinion in the Old Kingdom. In September 1940 Carol invited the military strongman, General Ion Antonescu, to form a government, which within a month deposed the king in favour of his son prince Michael, who is still the claimant to the throne of Romania. Because, like Franco, Antonescu lacked a political base, he revived the Legion so as to provide a basis for what became the 'National Legionnaire State'. The Iron Guard leader, Horia Sima, became vice-premier, and the Guard gained five ministerial portfolios. For the ensuing five months the Guard attempted a stealthy coup from within, even as their corruption and violence created chaos. Since sections of the Nazi leadership favoured the Guard, the wily Antonescu knew where to turn.

In January 1941, Antonescu flew to Germany for a meeting with Hitler , whose troops were massing in Romania for the projected invasion of the Soviet Union. The strong personal rapport between these two implacable haters of the Jews enabled Antonescu to provoke and crush a revolt by the Guard after he returned home; nine thousand were detained and eighteen hundred sentenced to imprisonment. The Guard was proscribed and the Legionnaire State abandoned. Antonescu assumed the title of 'conducator' used by the murdered Codreanu, while his son Mihai became vice-premier of a government largely consisting of antisemites of the National Christian Party, for in this respect the old elites were no different from the Fascists. Acting reflexively in its search for someone to blame, the Guard carried out a pogrom in Bucharest, killing 630 Jews, some of whose corpses hung in the capital's slaughterhouse as 'kosher meat'.

In 1983-84, we lived in an apartment at the north end of Parcul Tineretului within easy walking distance of both the main slaughterhouse and the main crematorium, the latter surrounded by huge cemeteries, including Cimitirul Israelit. (The crematorium features in Saul Bellow's novel The Dean's December, which we read that year.) Here's my translation of the paragraph on the history of the crematorium at the link above:

The crematorium "Cenusa" ['Ash'] is one of the few monuments in Bucharest that is closely tied to the recent history of Romania. The first person incinerated here after its inauguration in 1928 was Profira Fieraru, a woman who died at the age of 40. The opening of the crematorium was the subject of controversy between church and state, leading to discussion of the legitimacy of the burning of cadavers from the point of view of religious doctrine. Among those said to have been cremated in "Cenusa" are General Antonescu, several legionnaires from the interwar period, and Ana Pauker from the communist period. At the Revolution of 1989, those 43 people killed at Timisoara were brought to the crematorium and incinerated, but their ashes were thrown away.

Since I am nowhere near as eloquent as Dr. Paul, I will just put his column on this site in its entirety:

Freedom is Golden
By Ron Paul

Ron Paul is a Republican United States Congressman from Texas and a former 2008 U.S. presidential candidate.

first off is a piece on self-management in the struggle for socialism by michel raptis - also known as michel pablo and at one time a leading member of the trotskyist international secretariat of the fourth international - who in the late 1960s and early 1970s turned his focus towards workers' self-management.

tamás krausz describes the struggle for workers' self-management in action with his article on the workers' councils in hungary in 1956, where workers mounted a revolution against the stalinist bureaucracy and tried to take power, only to be crushed by russian tanks.

then we reproduce kevin anderson's essay on lenin's engagement with hegelian philosophy during world war one, and his little-read hegel notebooks.

and in state capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism? chris ford introduces the debate in the united states workers' party over the class character of the soviet union, and we republish speeches by raya dunayevskaya and max shachtman.

Allied Powers by jali_jali

Pure line. Amazing Art....Oh, and Feliciano uniform is so cool.

According to the media, a struggle was going on in Czechoslovakia between 'progressive democratic' forces — led by the 'good' Dubcek — and the old Stalinist apparatchiks working for the 'bad' Russian imperialists. Dubcek, we were told, was the 'authentic embodiment of the Czech people's desire for economic and political freedom'. Their aspirations, one would have to conclude, went no further than a society like our own. As for the Russian invasion it merely confirmed the beliefs of the 'iron persons' of this world that the Russians were intrinsically wicked and that more should be spent on the armed forces, the police, etc.

Such simplistic analyses won't stand up to close inspection. The people who made the Prague Spring did not see events through cold war blinkers. Nor did they blindly follow Dubcek's leadership throughout. While accepting the welcome relaxation of totalitarian rule they made demands which stretched to the limits what the authorities were prepared to grant. Finally, the motives of the leadership that Dubcek personified were something far more complex than liberalism. So were the forces that engendered these motives

After twenty years of systematic attempts to destroy its political autonomy (spearheaded by repeated waves of terror) — and despite many residual illusions — the working class in Czechoslovakia still had enough resilience and self-confidence to challenge the ruling group on the fundamental question of who controlled the state, and to what end. Amid the apathy and privatisation which surround us, this in itself is ground for hope. The Czech events confronted the Western way of life with a genuine alternative, both as flimsy and as real as what happened in France the same year. The official response to this challenge has been to ignore it or to distort it, when it has not been to reduce the Prague Spring to an affirmation of the merits of bourgeois life. In fact what happened was a potential threat to class society, both East and West.

Distortions did not, of course, come only from bourgeois sources. To many Communists in the West the Czech CP represented a new 'humane' variety of socialism, of a kind they themselves had recently taken to advocating. They identified with it and, for a while, were crestfallen when Russia invaded. But their despair was shortlived. Party after Party verbally condemned the invasion (a thing none had been prepared to do after the invasion of Hungary in 1956). Eurocommunism was born, loose-jointed and squinting. The various Communist Parties of Europe have ever since indulged in frantic twists and turns as they watched what was happening in two places simultaneously, and struggled to reconcile their twin allegiances to both the Russian and to the Dubcek style of leadership. Their commitment is to power, rather than to the aspirations of working people and that is the root of their problem.

The most skilled acrobatics have been performed by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). In the aftermath of the Russian invasion it afforded well publicised hospitality to Dubcekite refugees. Jiri Pelikan makes regular broadcasts, writes articles and is generally recognised as the PCI's 'pet dissident'. This didn't prevent the PCI from sending a delegation to Prague to take part in the 10th anniversary celebrations of the 'liberation' of the country by the Russians! "Just a fraternal gesture," explained the PCI spokesperson.

The Eurocommunists claim to represent 'communism with a human face'. Yet a close inspection of their human rights record, of the way they imposed their party line, or of their treatment of dissidents speaks louder than any of their rhetoric. It should be enough to convince even the most politically naive. Again the PCI's behaviour provides the most useful pointer of the kind of activities the Czech Party might have got up to had Dubcek managed to consolidate his power. For the PCI is one of the very few organisations anywhere in the world which has managed to imprison left-wing dissidents, while not actually in power. Italian magistrates who are also PCI members are opening up files, enquiries and procedures for arrest on anyone who has expressed dissent from the parliamentary road to socialism and has been skilled enough to have that opinion heard. Imagine what would have happened to people like Toni Negri,* or the many anarchists who have been arrested in Italy, if the PCI was in control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

What then did Dubcek stand for? In the simplest terms Dubcek was looking for a way out of the chaos of the Czech economy. His actions and those of his supporters in the period leading up to the Prague Spring can best be explained if we recognise that he was trying to extricate Czechoslovakia from difficulties such as beset the Russian economy. All Communist Parties in power have to resolve an extraordinarily delicate dilemma. To maintain itself in power the Party must monopolise all decisions and reduce to a minimum the channels of communication between ordinary people. But in order to coordinate anything, let alone a complex industrial economy, effective communication is essential. Modern industry cannot be run solely on the basis of decisions imposed from above — be they made in the boardroom or by the Central Committee.

In Russia, as far as the economy is concerned, the Party bosses have chosen the path of caution. They have kept tight control and paid the price in terms of inefficiency. In Czechoslovakia the rulers sought to make their economy more efficient, both in terms of information flow (i.e. through greater application of the price mechanism and profit motive) and in terms of a wider variety of finished goods — while simultaneously maintaining the Party's hegemony over political power. Various moves were made to allow the market to determine what was produced. Scientists and technologists started speaking their minds freely and making new proposals.

The Dubcek wing of the Czech CP hoped that things would stop there. But the Czech people saw their chance. It is impossible to grant freedom of speech to scientists and managers and not to others. And these 'others' proved more difficult to control. Each freedom granted led to huge pressure for yet other freedoms. People ceased asking for permission to be free. They simply ignored the old restrictions, acting as though they had never existed. For a while everything seemed possible as Dubcek feverishly struggled to keep control: the wildest hopes suddenly seemed realistic. If workers could gain control of Czechoslovakia, then why not in all of Eastern Europe? And even in Russia itself? And in the West, where the May events in France were in full swing?

But some people's hopes are threats to others. The Russians, learning from the different experiences of Yugoslavia and Hungary, knew that what was happening in Czechoslovakia had to be stopped. The revolution was put down before it had really got under way. And the leaders who had set off the experiment were being used to bring the people back to passivity.

After the invasion Dubcek became even more of a national hero. This man who had been loyal to the Russians all his life, this supreme representative of the 'new' method of controlling people's lives, was now the undoubted champion of those he was trying to control. He used their faith in him to bring them gradually, but inexorably, back into the fold.

The Rise of the Intelligentsia

In Czechoslovakia a clear mutation was taking place in the structure and ideology of the ruling stratum. Despite specific differences rather similar changes had taken place much earlier in Yugoslavia — and were to take place much later in China. The old hard-line apparatchiks, dogmatic and brutal, experts in the falsification of facts and in the manipulation of power, were gradually being pushed aside. Decisional authority was slipping into the hands of a technocratic elite which spoke the 'neutral' language of efficiency, rationality, science.

As the author of the pamphlet points out, the struggles within the Communist Party of Czechoslovkia were an attempt, in an advanced industrial country, 'to alter the legitimised sources of power'. Authority based on esoteric political knowledge and indoctrination was being replaced by authority derived from scientific managerial expertise. The author stresses the authoritarian nature of both tendencies, which he traces to a common leninist parentage.

But, if one is not afraid of asking awkward questions, one can go even further. Were the Czech events a contemporary manifestation of a much more fundamental tendency? Was the Russo-Polish revolutionary Machajski right when - at the turn of the century - he claimed that marxism was not the reflection of working class interests but the ideological vehicle for the accession to power of a new class, engendered by the rise of industrialism? Would the mass of the population, Machajski asked, again be enslaved by a new aristocracy of administrators, scientists, technical experts and politicians, whose 'capital' was - so to speak - education, and who would seek to gain office on the backs of working people? Was Machajski right when he predicted that the managers, engineers and 'radical' political office-holders would use marxist ideology as a new religion to befuddle the minds of the masses, perpetuating their ignorance and servitude?

And is the new elite wider than even Machajski supposed? Are its roots to be found in modern culture - as well as in industrialism? And how does all this in turn influence prevailing beliefs and patterns of behaviour?

One can only speculate what might have happened in Czechoslovakia, in 1968, if the situation had really got out of control and if the invasion had not saved the hierarchy by making heroes out of villains. But there are certain hints. Just as in 1956 in Hungary, Workers' Councils began to be formed and showed remarkable resilience in the struggle. The future might have been with them — with ordinary women and men making their own decisions about their own lives, in unrestricted and non-hierarchical ways. And when that happens all the various bureaucrats (East and West) will feel the chill threat of real freedom, whilst the rest of us rejoice.

Prague Spring

The bulk of this pamphlet is not history; it is a personal analysis of the nature of the Reform Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. For the libertarian, history is what people think and do. It is not the working out of some grand pre-ordained scheme, dominated by super heroes. The pamphlet says very little about what all those who were remote from the epicentre of political intrigue and bureaucratic string-pulling were feeling, saying and doing in 1968. Partly to rectify this omission and to give the reader an indication of how it felt to be an ordinary Czech citizen in a small town far from the capital both during the Prague spring and after the invasion, I have included a prologue and an epilogue.

The prologue is an extensively edited version of an article (The Revival Process in Semily), that appeared in the journal, Literarni Listy on June 27, 1968. It is by one of the outstanding journalists of that period Ludvik Vaculik, author of the Two Thousand Words.

The epilogue is a similarly edited version of another article by Vaculik, published on March 6, 1969 in the same journal, just two months before it was closed down. It was called The Process in Semily. The change in title is important, for in Czech, the word process means both process and trial. For instance Kafka's book The Trial is called Proces in Czech. If anyone wishes to read both articles in full, there is an excellent English translation in Czechoslovakia, The Party and the People. by Andrew Oxley, Alex Pravda and Andrew Ritchie (Penguin Press, 1973).

Prologue:

The Revival Process In Semily

On May 15, 1968 I discovered that Semily is a warm weary little town, where everyone goes slowly about his business. The strident slogans were strangely out of place on the asphalt square. "Dubcek, yes! Loskot, no! Freedom of speech! Svoboda for President! The Nation for Itself.' I asked Mr. Hadek, the pale, thin young man who had invited me to Semily, whether Loskot was the first Secretary of the District Committee of the Communist Party. Yes, he was.

Hadek had invited me to Semily to observe a meeting of the Youth Club. He told me that there would probably be about nine hundred people there who would put questions to the leading district officials and, if need be, ask them to resign. That day, Loskot had written that the Conference of Secretaries had decided that no one should attend the meeting. The police too had sent a letter of apology, signed by the local major:

"Members of the National Security Corps of the district fully support the revival process, as they have already expressed in a resolution sent to the Central Committee of the CP Cz. (Laughter in the hall, later). Members of the Police are not afraid to appear in public to defend their work (laughter) ..."

The police, however, would only turn up after they had received a proper invitation, from an official organisation.

According to Hadek, the police had been officially invited by the Youth Club. I asked if the Youth Club actually existed. It turned out that it didn't... just yet. Mr. Hadek wanted my help in drafting its statutes. In fact, the club did exist. It just didn't have any statutes.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Twenty-two."

"And how many people will come today?"

"About eight hundred."

Hadek had arrived at this figure because at a previous meeting, organised by the official Union of Youth, that many had turned up. The only trouble was that Loskot had parried every difficult question with the reply that it was an internal Party matter. People had laughed at him.

I worked at the statutes over coffee. Mr. Hadek wanted the Youth Club to be open to everybody, regardless of age or political affiliation. I worked this into the statutes. But I refused to work into them any statements that the Club would put up its own candidates in the elections.

"How many members do you have?"

Members were to be recruited at the meeting. I asked him what his father thought about it all.

"Nothing now. We've got this rebelliousness in our family. He's a communist. That's what he fought for."

At that moment Comrade Hadek came in.

"What do you think of what your son's doing?"

"Well, what should I say? I think we've got this rebelliousness in the family!"

"Father is partly to blame for what went on. He can't say anything to me now that I'm trying to put things right."

"Well, yes. What can I say to him now?" Comrade Hadek asked.

I wanted to know what Hadek and his friends hoped to achieve by their meeting. They wanted to force the resignation of the District Party Secretary, Loskot, and of the local Council Chairman, one Comrade Puturek.

As the sun was setting in a blaze of gold, cars arrived at the hall, which filled up with about eight hundred people. Workers and the local intelligentsia; men and women, old and young; parents with adolescent children; inquisitive people; guests from the neighbourhood. The lads got up on to the platform, where, at a long table, only two from the whole gamut of officials called to account were sitting: the District Prosecutor and the Secret Police Chief. Yes, they know their duty! Mr. Hadek, in a white sweater, stepped up to the microphone. The revival process in Semily had begun.

I was witness to a unique scene, for which history only provides the opportunity once every twenty years. I don't know if it wasn't rather a meeting in a Chinese Commune, or a happening. At times I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl under a chair. But then I would laugh it all off.

Mr. Hadek opened the meeting by inviting all those who wished Semily well to join the Youth Club. Then, if there were enough of them, the officials wouldn't be able to ignore them next time "even though perhaps it isn't very pleasant for them." Before any questions could be put, Hadek's friend, Pepik Dohnal spoke up. To get things going he read the draft of a resolution in which there were demands for the District Committee of the Party to declare itself immediately in favour of Dubcek, for Puturek to resign, and for an investigation into his activities to be initiated, because the  assembled citizens would not take part in any elections in which people like Puturek figured. The meeting was then supposed to vote for the draft resolution. But it didn't feel like it.

A candidate for the District Committee protested that the resolution was being submitted before the discussion. He apologised for various absences and then read the letter from the local police. People, meanwhile, kept on laughing.

Written questions from the floor were answered by Hadek. For instance:

"Why is the Communist Party in Semiiy at the tail end ol the revival process, while in Prague it is at its head?"

"Because in Semily someone else must start it."

"How was it possible for Puturek to officiate at the May Day rally?"

"He probably thought that as we seemed to have democracy now he could get away with it."

"How many secret policemen were there in the hall?"

"Well, none have been invited." The Secret Police Chief confirmed that he was the only one there.

"Good. Then we can all have a good old natter." Laughter.

Hadek then went on to opine that every dictatorship is filthy, and that it now depended on us whether we were to be a socialist or a bourgeois state. He personally inclined towards our remaining a socialist state, now that we already were one. But it was no longer possible for it to be under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. That could be seen very easily in Semily. We therefore have to found an opposition.

Thus the evening wore on. I was asked to speak — twice. Me? Not likely! This way it was immensely more valuable.

Complaints were made about the investigation methods of the Secret Police. Tales of victimisation were heard: difficulties in finding work after release from prison, charges of nepotism, and petty vindict-iveness by the local authorities. Party functionaries vainly tried to defend the Party against all this. Although they did it quite inadequately, the people were somehow not too prejudiced against them. The fact that they had come at all was, on the contrary, appreciated.

Given the mood and situation, if some official of the Party had gone there himself and dismissed the unloved dignitaries, the Party would have won a new authority in almost the same primitive way it had in 1945. Fortunately they have nowhere understood this at the District Secretariats. Fortunately they're defiant and resist, so that people are forced to reflect more deeply on how to make do with the Communist Party. If all the officials in all the Districts had quickly carried out as decent a putsch as the Central Committee of the Party had, this democratisation movement would never have got off the ground.

While the speeches were going on, people watched the Secret Police Chief. But, that whole evening, the person I watched most was the District Prosecutor, a small dark man, who constantly grinned into his sleeve as he enjoyed himself with his own thoughts.

The highlight for me came from Citizen Tomicek, a young worker, who in those cursed times hadn't got to university. His speech was a perfect rabble-rouser, as I remember them from pre-February times. (The reference Is to February, 1948, when the CP seized power, P.C.). Allow me to quote:

'Dear friends, dear fellow citizens! We have had our martyrs. We have torturers among us. Today we often learn of the lives of outstanding people, who have suffered a lot. The list of martyrs grows, their torturers remain unknown. Our dearest have gone from us. Murderers live among us. As if the Central Authorities knew nothing about them! And those who are known are being dealt with in an unbelievably slapdash way. We most certainly can't rely on the Security police, which for us means insecurity ... (applause) ... The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia must be seen as the criminal organisation it really has been. It must be excluded from public life, however prettily its present representatives get themselves up.

I looked at the prosecutor. He was completely enthralled. Besides the Communist Party, Citizen Tomicek condemned the other parties too, which had compromised themselves under the rule of terror. He expressed the view that the next elections too would be a farce, but a less brazen one. But anyone who considers all communists bad — or all communists good — was making a great mistake.

'He who is really good will be recognised as such when the Communist Party has been deprived of its privileged position in a democratic way'. Loud applause.

Other speakers followed. People began to drift away. A grey careworn old man stepped up to the microphone. He was the father of the school headmistress, who had been responsible for the sacking of an earlier speaker. In sad detail he began to explain what his daughter had done ... what the regulations were ... his daughter hadn't done anything wrong. More people slowly left the hall. "It doesn't interest any of you" he droned on into the tired microphone, "but I must explain that my daughter ..." He persisted, alone. Even the platform began to thin out.

At last, when Hadek again put the resolution to the vote about 17 citizens were left out of the original 800. It was embarrassing, all over again. Thus ended the meeting which someone had to convene.

According to the latest information, Mr. Tomicek was assaulted in the Park, and Comrade Puturek is suing Mr. Hadek.

Epilogue

The Process In Semily

Why did I eventually return? It occurred to me that I had my own, purely personal reasons for going back there to have a look. No one invited me this time, and therefore no one expected me either. I got there on February 13, 1969, and looked for Mr Hadek, as he was the only person I knew. I hardly recognised even him, because since August 21 he had been growing a beard.

It turned out that everything had gone dead. Puturek was still carrying on, although Loskot had gone. Hadek had been taken to court by Puturek, lost the case, but then won on appeal. He had written an open letter to Puturek, but the Town Hall had confiscated the notice board. When Hadek had gone to enquire about it, there was some trouble and he was charged with assault. But the authorities had charged him under the wrong section of the law. So it all came to nothing. The Youth Club had been denied permission to form, because they had refused to join the National Front.

"I still think you made a mistake" I said. "How can you possibly work if you don't have an organisation? Or is being dragged from court to court and arguing with the cops good enough for you? It may be thrilling but it's not political activity."

"Surely you don't think there's anybody here who still goes in for politics do you?" Hadek replied. "Nothing happened here, either on October 28, or on November 17. And when Jan Palach died it was only us who held a ceremony. But otherwise...what do you think? Everybody is afraid. It looks to me as if the fifties are back again."

"But you were only ten years old then." 

"I know. But I've heard about it from older people, and from my father as well. Hang on a tick. I'll just go and see if he's back yet."

Hadek returned almost shouting.

"What a fantastic chance! Tomorrow they're having an evening of friendship with the Russians! Expect that you won't be able to get in. It's by invitation only and reserved for strictly 'reliable' people."

I winced. I had a feeling that the evening would be extremely interesting.

The square was frosty, littered by high banks of swept-up snow. I went into a snack bar to have some soup. Not even the plain-clothes policeman knew me. Of course I didn't know him either, so neither of us knew who to watch out for. He couldn't have known who I was, because otherwise he would have seen that I was only killing time till the evening. Then the police major would never have got the almost mythical report that he did, on return from his holiday, after the incident was over. The Major told me later:

"When I got back from holiday, I was informed that you had been behind it all here."

When the tiny square suddenly grew empty and quiet it meant that everyone was in front of their television sets. Except that on February 14 they had a bad picture and one could hear Russian voices coming over the air. That's why a few people went out into the eleven degree frost to see if anything was happening. A crowd was gathering in front of the cinema.

I was worried. I had an invitation card but didn't know whether they would have a checking-in procedure. I saw that Hadek was also getting ready to set off. He had a roll of white paper under his arm. He promised me that he would only act within the bounds of the law.

The people attending the meeting were nearly all elderly. They preferred to stand hesitantly some distance from the cinema, rather than face the reception there. A voice called at them: "You haven't got much sense left either, have you granny?" Laughter around the square. I entered the cinema without too much trouble. Nobody was sitting. People, mostly old and in uniform, stood around chatting. More comrades arrived, apparently from distant places.

From outside came the sound of whistling. An air of anticipation filled the hall and we all took our seats. Opposite me were two policemen, a lieutenant and a second lieutenant. Next to me, an old civilian with a good natured, softish face. From outside: "Franta, don't go into the cinema, there's a stupid meeting there." It didn't have much effect inside, where it was still all smiles and epaulettes.

"There's a big happening in Semily, and a strange smell coming out of the cinema!"

The lieutenant shook his head in disgust. "It's terrible what one little bastard like that can do."

The civilian looked shocked. "Can't you see to them?"

"We could, but not just now."

From outside: "Every sod in the cinema is hugging the Russians."

The two police officers turned around angrily. The elder one asked me in exasperation "I ask you, is that polite?"

"No, it's rather vulgar."

"That little brat, that bastard" they thundered. "We should lie in wait for him and throw him into the river from the bridge." They raved on. "Or pour petrol over him and let him burn, like that idiot in Prague."

One of the civilians wanted to know if there would be any trouble.

"Don't worry" the lieutenant said. "There are lads here from other places. Just wait and see if they dare do anything. We've got things under control." He pulled the end of his truncheon out from under his coat.

The guests of honour arrived. The commander of the Soviet garrison, an employee of the Soviet Embassy, a member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Society, and a member of the Central Committee of the CPCz, who was also a Czech general.

Think back, friends, to your youth. You are sitting at a ceremonial meeting. All you have to do is just clap. Nothing to worry about, nothing can happen. There won't be any changes that might disturb the calm ... Then a rowdy demonstration in the streets interrupts things, provoking in you a feeling almost of being threatened. Are we in Czechoslovakia? My God, is the last fruitful achievement of the whole of last year's revival process going to be the excitement of the brawl now brewing?

The Chairman welcomes the guests, and hands over to the Czech general. He speaks for a very long time, with long pauses between his sentences, so we have to look to see if he is still there. He must have been tired. The assembled company listened in silence. Not so much an attentive silence, more of a disciplined one. They probably didn't even understand all he said. But the opposition in the streets somehow made them attach more importance to it. 'Our country has been through a tragic period ... begun with the post-January policies ... the leadership put the Party on the defensive ... it abandoned its position to forces that had been defeated once ... spies ... subversives ... criminal priests ... representatives of defeated classes ... Sik and Co just appealed to people's moods ... the intelligentsia just propagated existentialism and individualism ... the Soviets are not to blame ... it is the fault of the Party leadership ... it abandoned its class standpoint'. Etc, etc.

Outline of the Soviet speeches: 'October 1917, the Red Army, the fist of the working class, the struggle against intervention, the War against Fascism, the Liberation in 1945, why we are here, the imperialist threat'. Etc., etc.

I left before the Soviet music ensemble began to play. The crowd outside let me through to the streets with the words, "What's this, another worker? Be careful we don't take your glasses off you, comrade!"

As I was writing up my notes Hadek came in. I warned him not to go out again as they were preparing to get him. Three-quarters of an hour later Hadek came back with bloodshot eyes, a cut lip, a swollen face and a caustic sense of humour.

"I thought you'd be pleased to hear you were right."

A local factory worker in hospital, being treated for a broken nose:"Two civilians came out of the cinema, carrying a paper box. For a laugh I threw something in it. Suddenly two men dragged me inside... they pinioned my arms and the civilian carrying the box held me by the neck. A policeman rushed up and hit me twice in the face. Then I felt a third blow ... then the civilian holding me by the neck hit me. I was kept in a room in the cinema and I watched the police, uniformed and plain clothes, prepare to disperse the citizens. Later I saw Hadek being dragged inside by the legs. They held him under his armpits and dragged him to the stairs. I heard an officer shout: "We'll give you democracy!" and things like 'Kill him!'. Other plain clothes men threw some photographs of Dubcek and Jan Palach into a wastepaper basket.' A local boilerman: 'The plain clothes men suddenly appeared and squirted tear gas at me. I turned my back and they came and kept hitting me until I fell down.'

Another demonstrator: 'Before midnight some plain-clothes men rushed out of the cinema and began to fly with everything they had. There was no resistance, it was terrible.' After it was over, they came up to me and Honza Chlumu, who's now lying in hospital, said 'Be grateful you got into our hands. If you'd fallen into their hands (the Russians) you'd have come off much worse.' When I told them the Russians had protected Hadek, they didn't say a thing.

That night Hadek described his experiences to me. They are so terrible that they can hardly be put into words. While I was writing this he telephoned me from hospital to ask me not to write about his battle with the police, so as not to jeopardise an objective investigation. And so I'll take up the story only at the point where it is practically over, due to a peculiar turn of events.

Hadek's story: 'When I came to, I was in great pain, because some big man was dragging me upstairs by my hair. They threw me into a hall saying things like "Here's the chief counterrevolutionary!" The cinema manager shouted "Beat him up, kill him!" While he was shouting a smaller man hit me on the nose. One of them started to pull my hair, and somebody else shouted "Pull out his hair!" Then somebody shouted in Russian: "Nyebyitye yevo, pizdy!" (Stop beating him, you cunt! P.C.) Then the Russians made a circle round me, so that nobody could touch me any more.'

I would be very concerned if the relevant investigating apparatus was really so crude and corrupt as to thrust onto the table of its chief in Prague a note saying that in Semily it was all stage-managed by... a certain comrade. So I'll drop my own personal anxiety on this matter. I have attempted to be as objective in my account as possible. But I have not been able to speak to the 'other side'. The police chief would only speak to me if I treated everything he said as confidential. He believed the only person qualified to make announcements was the press spokesman of the Ministry of the Interior. I tried to speak to Comrade Stinilova, off the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Society. Our conversation lasted just as long as it took to walk from the Secretariat of the Society to her front-door. Although, as she said, she respected open enemies she couldn't see any point in our talking. First however, she asked me from whose flat I had just come. Why did she want to know, I asked. Why had I chosen Semily? Because it interested me as a type. She finished our conversation by saying that she loved the Soviet Union, just as some people love West Germany or the United States. I said that I didn't love West Germany, or America or the Soviet Union. Powers are powers and they don't inspire love.

The Fall of the Prague Spring

"And the men who spurred us on, now sit in judgement on our wrongs,as the siren and the shotgun sing their song..."

Pete Townsend and The Who, in Won't Get Fooled Again.

The Invasion

The invasion of Czechoslovakia took place on the night of August 20-21, 1968. At 10pm that evening a special flight from Moscow was announced. The plane, a civilian AN-24 did indeed arrive. But no-one got out. The plane remained parked at the side of the runway. After an hour another AN-24 arrived. It disgorged a number of civilians who were warmly welcomed by the customs officials. At about 2am an unannounced military AN-12 also landed. It released an airborn unit of the Soviet Army. The occupation of the capital had begun. From then on AN-12's arrived at minute intervals, releasing the dogs of war into the heart of Prague.

The invasion itself had begun at llpm when between 200,000 and 500,000 soldiers of the Warsaw Pact countries had crossed the Czechoslovak borders.

The response of Alexander Dubcek :

"On my honour as a communist, I declare that I did not have the slightest idea or receive the slightest indication that anyone proposed taking such measures against us... I have devoted my whole life to co-operation with the Soviet Union. Now they do this to me! This is the tragedy of my life!"

The response of one Russian soldier:

Rude Pravo, August 27, 1968:

"It happened on Thursday, at the time we still talked to them.

"Kolya, what are you doing here?"

A 19 year old boy sitting on a tank barely recognised me. Never, in that prehistoric time that my visit to the Soviet Union has now become, had he seen such horror in my eyes. Finally he recognised me.

"Kolya, what are you doing here?"

"We had our orders. We came as friends."

"As friends? But you are shooting!"

"I did not shoot."

"What will Sasha your sister say, when you get home?"

"I did not shoot. They sent us here."

He showed me the magazine filled with cartridges.

"But others do shoot. Your people shot a 20 year old boy. I'm sure he loved you. We all used to love you. Kolya, we had peace here until you came."

A thought occured to me. "Kolya, what is counter-revolution?''

"It is when people disagree with Lenin."

"And Kolya, do you love Stalin?"

"No, he was bad."

"Novotny was just as bad. We didn't want him..."

"I don't understand. We received an order... They didn't tell us the truth... Why would they lie to us?"

Kolya couldn't understand. Earlier he had spoken with dozens of other people and had heard the same question: "Tell me, why did you come, why?"

I stood there for about half an hour. And then I saw a terrible thing. Kolya turned his gun on himself and pulled the trigger."

The 'exact' reasons for the invasion are obscure. There are as many interpretations as there are interpreters.

One of the crucial factors was the forthcoming 14th Congress of