Then as far as you know is not far enough. James Cannon was a member of
the Communist Party who visited the Soviet Union on assignment for the
party. The Stalinists had usurped power by then. He saw for himself how
Stalin had already betrayed the revolution and he came into possession
of documents from the left opposition. He was able to smuggle the
documents out. If he had been caught he would most likely have been
detained in Moscow and where that would have led for him could not have
been good. He returned to the United States and showed the documents to
some comrades he could trust and formed a secret left opposition inside
the Communist Party. He knew that this was going to lead to expulsion,
but he stayed in as long as he could to recruit as many people from the
party as he could. Finally he had to come out as a Trotskyist and he and
his small group of comrades were, indeed, expelled. Others were then
expelled for simply standing up and asking why these comrades had been
expelled and a number of those people were recruited too. The new
formation called itself the Left Opposition and initially considered
itself a public faction of the Communist Party. One of the first orders
of business was to start a new newspaper to argue and promote the left
opposition cause. That newspaper was named the Militant and every time
the Communist Party had a public meeting they were outside selling the
Militant. Some of them got beat up for it too. In about a year or so a
new?? organization was organized called the Communist League of America
and in parentheses after that name were the words, left opposition. They
still called themselves a public faction of the Communist Party, but the
official publication of the CLA continued to be the Militant. In about
1932, after some consultations with Trotsky himself, the CLA dissolved
itself into the Socialist Party, USA as a tactical move. They still
retained an organizational structure within the Socialist Party and
never regarded their position within that party as more than temporary.
During that time the Militant was published only sporadically and was
mostly an internal factional bulletin in the Socialist Party. Then in
1938 the left opposition split from the Socialist Party and joined up
with the Workers Party to found a new party. The Workers Party was a
Trotskyist organization that had not entered the Socialist Party. The
new party combined the names of the Socialist Party and the Workers
Party to be called the Socialist Workers Party. The Militant resumed
regular publication and became the official newspaper of the Socialist
Workers Party and has been continuously published in that capacity ever
since. If you would like more detail then I would recommend the book,
History of American Trotskyism by James P. Cannon. That is the title of
the book, but it was published in the early forties, perhaps 1940, so
from our perspective now it is really the history of early American
Trotskyism. But from its first issue in 1928 the whole purpose of the
Militant newspaper was to oppose the Stalinist takeover in the Soviet
Union and even with all the changes it has undergone, especially after
about 1980, it has never wavered from being in opposition to the Russian
government.
___
Sam Harris
???Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
so ever.???
??? Sam Harris,
On 2/8/2020 4:10 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In 1928, wasn't Stalin in power by then? If so, it had good reason, but it's
surprising because as far as I knew, all of the Communists were pro Russia
until the pact between Hitler and Stalin.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 8, 2020 3:51 PM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Putin moves to extend his
rule, tamp down workers??? resistance
In this particular aspect I don't think the Militant is joining anyone.
The Militant has been consistently anti Russian government since its founding
in 1928.
___
Sam Harris
???Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
so ever.???
??? Sam Harris,
On 2/8/2020 1:00 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
So The Militant is joining the Democratic Party in its anti Putin project.
I've read a variety of analyses of his plan and not all of them assert that it
is a way for him to continue in power. I certainly don't know what's true. What
I do know is that he's the leader of the Russian nation and everyone in the
west, is anti Russia, regardless of what kind of government Russia has.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, February 8, 2020 11:25 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Putin moves to extend his rule, tamp down
workers??? resistance
https://themilitant.com/2020/02/01/putin-moves-to-extend-his-rule-tamp
-down-workers-resistance/ Putin moves to extend his rule, tamp down
workers??? resistance article BY ROY LANDERSEN Vol. 84/No. 5 February 10, 2020
With the help of the Red Army and after two years of combat, working people in
Odessa, Ukraine, took power in 1919, defeating reactionary pro-czarist forces.
Vladimir Putin denounces the Bolshevik Revolution for ???time bomb??? of
self-determination for oppressed nationalities. figure With the help of the Red
Army and after two years of combat, working people in Odessa, Ukraine, took
power in 1919, defeating reactionary pro-czarist forces.
Vladimir Putin denounces the Bolshevik Revolution for ???time bomb??? of
self-determination for oppressed nationalities.
With the help of the Red Army and after two years of combat, working people in
Odessa, Ukraine, took power in 1919, defeating reactionary pro-czarist forces.
Vladimir Putin denounces the Bolshevik Revolution for ???time bomb??? of
self-determination for oppressed nationalities. figure end Russian President
Vladimir Putin Jan. 15 announced ???a major renewal,???
which looks a lot like a plan to keep him in office indefinitely. His proposed
changes to the constitution are being rolled out with great fanfare. This takes
place as his popularity is falling and his 20-year rule faces deepening
problems as workers confront falling living standards and social crisis.
Putin aims to shore up Russian capitalism in an era of world capitalist crisis,
and with an economy heavily dependent on oil and gas exports that is weak
compared to Washington and its other competitors. At the same time the Kremlin
is seeking to shore up its international standing and defend its allies ??? as
it did intervening in Syria to rescue the tottering dictatorship of Bashar
al-Assad.
The government reorganization includes the resignation of Dmitry Medvedev as
prime minister and replacement of much of the cabinet. It weakens future
presidents and bolsters the State Council ??? a committee of top regional,
security and military officials chaired by Putin ??? that would take on greater
executive power.
This interim government is headed by newly appointed Prime Minister Mikhail
Mishustin, a little-known but loyal former taxation minister.
In addition to paving the way for Putin to retain the reins of power after his
presidency ends in 2024, the new setup is tasked with implementing his 12-point
National Projects plan. This is a set of schemes to use state resources to
modernize and diversify the capitalist economy, squeeze workers to boost
productivity, and allocate some social spending to try and cushion the harsh
conditions of life facing working people to quell unrest.
Real income of Russian workers fell 1.3% in the first half of 2019. Some 65% of
Russian households have no savings. The government adopted new pension laws
that will force workers to wait later ??? many until after the average life
span ??? before they can claim a pension.
This social crisis is worsened by sanctions imposed by Washington and the EU
that the imperialist powers say were in reprisal for Moscow???s seizure and
occupation of Crimea in 2014.
Bonapartist regime
Putin, a former officer of the KGB, the Soviet secret police, rose to power as
a capitalist-oriented economy and government emerged from the wreckage of the
Stalinist police-state regime in the 1990s.
He acted as an arbiter standing above rival forces ??? the so-called oligarchy
of newly emerged capitalist exploiters that had looted the former state-owned
enterprises, and working people, who faced a deep social crisis. He put his KGB
methods to work, rising in power through patronage and the arrest, torture or
murder of bourgeois political opponents.
In 2000, the year before he became president, Putin said he would prevent
Russia from being ???relegated to the second or even third tier of global
powers.???
He has since sought to restore some of Moscow???s former sway over its ???near
abroad??? of former Soviet Republics like Ukraine. After Viktor Yanukovych, the
Russian-backed Ukrainian president, was toppled by the popular Maidan uprising
in 2014, Putin occupied Crimea and reinforced separatist paramilitary forces in
Ukraine???s eastern provinces to break from Kyiv.
Putin set up the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 seeking to ensnare former
Soviet countries like Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan into a common
trade bloc.
Using oil revenues he modernized much of the Russian military, one of
the world???s largest, with a substantial nuclear arsenal bequeathed by
the USSR???s collapse. But even with these moves, Putin???s 2019 military
budget was
$44 billion, compared to $716 billion for Washington.
Moscow???s rulers have tried to use their intervention in Syria to maintain
influence and gain allies in the Middle East.
Putin identifies with czars, Stalin
Putin combines a hatred for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolshevik
Party that led workers and farmers to power with bemoaning the downfall of the
czarist empire, overthrown by the revolution, which had stood as the bulwark of
semifeudal reaction in Europe for centuries.
The Bolshevik Revolution, under the communist leadership of V.I. Lenin, marked
a tremendous advance for the world???s toilers, the first revolution in history
to overthrow capitalist exploitation and oppression. A government was formed
based on soviets ??? councils of workers, peasants and soldiers deputies. This
example of workers and peasants taking power inspired millions across the
globe, hastening the end of the bloody imperialist slaughter of World War I.
Revolutionary-minded workers worldwide organized to build Communist Parties
modeled on the Bolsheviks to fight for power.
The Bolshevik-led government organized workers to take control of industry, to
learn how to produce for society???s needs, not for profit.
It supported peasants???
struggles by nationalizing big landholdings and distributing land to the
tillers. It led working people to establish new socialized property relations,
the foundation of the world???s first workers state.
Lenin???s proletarian internationalist course supported the right of oppressed
peoples within the old czarist ???prison house of nations??? to
self-determination.
In the last year of his life, he led a fight ??? against a developing caste led
by Joseph Stalin ??? for a voluntary federation of these oppressed nations with
Russia, formed ???on the basis of full equality.???
Many of these gains were reversed over the next decade. Revolutionary upsurges
by workers and farmers in Germany and elsewhere were defeated and the Russian
Revolution isolated. The workers and farmers government faced reactionary
forces in a civil war and invasion by over a dozen imperialist powers,
including the U.S. rulers.
In this context, Stalin led a rising bureaucratic layer seeking to reverse the
proletarian course followed by Lenin. Amid war and deepening economic crisis,
workers and farmers were pushed out of politics. Frame-up trials and the murder
of revolutionaries, forced collectivization of agriculture and ???gulags???
of forced labor camps marked Stalin???s bloody counterrevolution reversing the
political gains of the Russian Revolution.
Despite this, the Soviet Union, however hideously bureaucratically distorted,
was still based on state property, not capitalist control, which workers needed
to defend. The workers state finally came to an end in the years after the 1991
disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Putin today says Stalin brought order to Russia, with whatever errors he might
have committed. He denounces Lenin???s Marxist policy on the right of oppressed
nations to self-determination, saying it created an ???atomic time bomb???
that decades later blew apart the USSR.
But it was the Stalinist counterrevolution???s Great Russian chauvinist
resubjugation of smaller nationalities that made this rupturing along national
lines inevitable.
After over six decades of Stalinism???s anti-working-class rule in Russia, and
destruction of revolutionary communist parties worldwide, the Soviet Union
imploded and came apart. Capitalism was reestablished on its ashes, and Putin,
out of its political police apparatus, rose to power.
Today he is determined to maintain his rule, convinced he can carve out order
and security for ???Mother Russia??? in a world of growing capitalist disorder.
Small wonder he is determined to obscure the powerful history of the Bolshevik
Revolution that brought workers and farmers to power.
article end
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??? Join the Socialist Workers Party 2020 US presidential campaign!
??? Meet the SWP candidates: Alyson Kennedy & Malcolm Jarrett ??? Back protests
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??? Protest hits lack of Puerto Rico gov???t response after quake ??? Putin
moves to extend his rule, tamp down workers??? resistance ??? Miami Alianza
Martiana headquarters vandalized ??? Asela de los Santos, Cuban revolutionary
leader ??? Parents protest asbestos threat in Philadelphia schools list end On
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--
___
Sam Harris
???Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
so ever.???
??? Sam Harris,
