Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Notre-Dame-des-Landes:
the ZAD has won, the ZAD must live (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Greece, Media, Anarchists Storm Ministry of Finance in
Athens By Tasos Kokkinidis (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, London Anarchist Communists: Marx and Engels and
the communist movement (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #279 - Public Education:
Lycée pro, the " poor parent " of the National Education (fr,
it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. US, black rose fed, Los Angeles: KOREATOWN LA FIGHTS BACK ON
7-ELEVEN ICE RAIDS (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. January episode of B(A)D NEWS - radio show produced by
international anarchist and anti-authoritarian radio network -
Episode 8 (1/2018) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
The government finally capitulated to the obvious: there will be no airport in
Notre-Dame-des-Landes. It is a victory of the convergence of labor and peasant struggles.
Now the state has to give up destroying the ZAD. ---- That's it ! The government has
announced the abandonment of the relocation project from Nantes airport to the
Notre-Dame-des-Landes site. ---- This is obviously a victory for the entire opposition
movement to the project. It is a victory of the unity of the movement, in its diversity,
ranging from the ACIPA collective, to the occupants of the ZAD, through all and all the
peasants organized within COPAIN, and finally the most recent collective union against the
airport - bringing together activists from the CGT, Solidaires and the CNT. It is a
victory of the convergence of workers 'and peasants' struggles, one of the driving forces
of this unity.
This is a victory against the destruction of agricultural land and the degradation of
biodiversity. This victory will allow us to resuscitate hope in our resistance against the
devouring capitalism of the living world and humanity.
(c) ValK
But we do not forget that the conflict is not over yet. The government has not yet
implemented what it calls the " restoration of the rule of law " on the site of
Notre-Dame-des-Landes, ie to reimpose the capitalist order on this dust Since 2012, will
they choose, as is here and there, a solution like in Larzac in the 1980s when the state
handed over land management to farmers ? In this case compromises will be found and the
situation will subside. The social and agricultural experiments underway on the ZAD will
be part of a framework of compromise with the public authorities.
But if the government chooses the confrontation, if it sends thousands of soldiers with,
as some say, armored vehicles and the genius of the army to destroy the barricades and
homes of the ZAD, it will be the only one responsible for what will take place on the
site, but also in cities like Nantes and Rennes. In such a scenario, Alternative
Libertaire will join the mobilization call of the opposition movement to the project. A
mobilization that will be organized as well in and around the site as in all cities where
one of the 200 support committees created in France is active.
(c) ValK
Already, without waiting for the decision of the government, all those who oppose the
destruction of wetlands and agricultural lands collectively affirm their will to oppose
expulsions, through demonstrations wherever they are organized, and especially on February
10, at the rally on the ZAD.
In 2012, tens of thousands of protesters and protesters converged on
Notre-Dame-des-Landes. " Operation Caesar " ended with a defeat in the open countryside
of the gendarmerie. Since then, the movement has grown stronger. If the government chooses
the confrontation, we will mobilize for a complete victory at Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
Federal Secretariat of Libertarian Alternative
January 17, 2018
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Notre-Dame-des-Landes-la-ZAD-a-vaincu-la-ZAD-doit-vivre
------------------------------
Message: 2
A group of around 30 people believed to be members of the Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas
(Rubicon) stormed the Finance ministry in the center of Athens. ---- The group entered the
main entrance of the building at Nikis Street and reached the 6th floor where the office
of Euclid Tsakalotos is located. ---- It is not clear whether the minister was in his
office at the time.
The demonstrators threw leaflets against the austerity policies imposed by Tsakalotos and
his team before leaving the building.
No arrests were made.
Correspondents say that the Finance ministry is supposed to be one of the most secured
buildings in Athens.
------------------------------
Message: 3
The following article is a chapter from The Idea: Anarchist Communism, Past, Present and
Future by Nick Heath. We should point out that whilst we regard Marx's analysis of
capitalism and class society as a very important contribution to revolutionary ideas, we
are critical of his attitudes and behaviour within both the Communist League and the First
International. ---- Marx was to re-iterate his ideas and to put them into practice in all
his time in the working class movement. "Without parties no development, without division
no progress" he was to write (polemic with the Kölnische Zeitung newspaper, 1842). In a
much later letter to Bebel written in 1873, Engels sums up this approach: ---- "For the
rest, old Hegel has already said it; a party proves itself a victorious party by the fact
that it splits and can stand the split. The movement of the proletariat necessarily passes
through stages of development; at every stage one section of the people lags behind and
does not join in the further advance; and this alone explains why it is that actually the
"solidarity of the proletariat" is everywhere realised in different party groupings which
carry on life and death feuds with one another".
The mythology of Marxism implies that the theory of communism was perfected by Marx and
Engels without really taking into consideration all that had gone before and that
communism, organised more or less into a loose movement, was created by artisans and
workers as a result of their practical experiences in the French Revolution and the events
of the 1830s, as well as their continuing theoretical labours. Marx and Engels'
involvement in this communist movement was one of continual political struggle with what
they saw as their opponents in it, a recurrent series of attacks often using slander as a
weapon.
Marx was won over to communism in 1842 by Moses Hess. In the same year, Marx familiarised
himself with the writings of Proudhon and Dézamy as well as Pierre Leroux and Considerant
in order to gain a grasp of the currents of French socialism and communism. During a short
stay in London in 1845, Marx and Engels made contact with the German exiles and radical
elements among the British Chartist movement. After Marx had been kicked out of France, he
made the acquaintance of Weitling in Brussels in 1846. Brussels acted as a focal point for
the clandestine movement across Western Europe. Not only were there a number of exiles
here from France and Germany, but it was a distribution point for the spreading of radical
literature in Germany, and was a stopping off point for German workers and intellectuals.
Elliot Eriksson has argued that Marx did not fight his extradition from France, and was
pleased to be exiled to Brussels, and that he was able to use its importance as a focal
point to establish a stranglehold on all propaganda being smuggled into Germany. Marx put
forward the idea of convening a congress of all communists to create the first
international organisation of all communists. The Belgian city of Verviers was decided
upon as the venue- it was close to the border with Germany and convenient too for those
coming from France.
Before preparations for this could be finalised, delegates of the League of the Just
arrived in Brussels and invited Marx and Engels to join their organisation. The League
had, as we have seen, established itself as an international organisation, in contact with
English and French revolutionaries. It now sought to enlist the mind of Marx.
Marx and Engels then entered into struggle with Weitling, who had defended Kriege. Up to
then Weitling had been seen as the leading light of the League. The League had
commissioned him in 1838 to write Mankind As It Is and As It Ought To Be, which had acted
as a sort of Manifesto for the League. However, Weitling's ideas were increasingly being
seen by others in the League as outmoded. The League's leading lights in London, Karl
Schapper, Heinrich Bauer and Josef Moll had rejected the communist colonies advocated by
Cabet, and now Weitling's concept of communism was in turn rejected as too militaristic
and putschist. In addition, Weitling frequently made reference to Christ as a pioneer of
communism, often quoting the Bible, and atheistic views were growing among League members.
In addition Weitling now advocated the need for a dictator to bring about the advent of
communism, and he strongly implied this dictator should be himself. His sel-importance
alienated other communists like Schapper and Moll.
Both Weitling and the Russian Pavel Annenkov have left accounts of a plenary meeting in
Brussels of the Communist League in spring 1846. Marx viciously attacked Weitling, whom
before he had praised to the heavens for his Guarantee during his sojourn in Paris.
Weitling's work Craft Workers' Communism was severely criticised. Both Annenkov and
Weitling affirm that Marx demanded a thorough cleansing of the ranks of the communists, as
Weitling says "human feeling must be derided". Despite the often asserted claim that
Weitling was opposed to propaganda preparing the way for a social revolution, it was the
Marx camp that opposed " oral propaganda, no provision for secret propaganda, in general
the word propaganda not to be used in the future". Marx firmly stated that the realisation
of communism in the near future was out of the question, and that first the bourgeoisie
must be at the helm. (Letter from Weitling to Moses Hess April 1, 1846).
It's worth quoting extensively from this letter. "I believe Marx and Engels will end by
criticising themselves through their own criticism. In Marx's brain, I see nothing more
than a good encyclopaedia, but no genius. His influence is felt through other
personalities. Rich men made him editor, voila tout (there you have it all, tr. NH).
Indeed, rich men who make sacrifices have a right to see or have investigations made into
what they want to support. They have the power to assert this right, but the writer also
has this power, no matter how poor he is, not to sacrifice his convictions for money. I am
capable of sacrificing my conviction for the sake of unity. I put aside my work on my
system when I received protests against it from all directions. But when I heard in
Brussels that the opponents of my system intended to publish splendid systems in
well-financed translations, I completed mine and made an effort to bring it to the man
(Karl Marx). If this is not supported, then it is entirely in order to make an
examination. Jackass that I was, I had hitherto believed that it would be better if we
used all our own qualities against our enemies and encouraged especially those that bring
forth persecutions in the struggle. I had thought it would be better to influence the
people, and, above all, to organise a portion of them for the propagation of our popular
writings. But Marx and Engels do not share this view, and in this they are strengthened by
their rich supporters. All right! Very good! Splendid!" This meeting was extremely
acrimonious with both Marx and Engels arguing vehemently against Weitling, who responded
in kind, Marx finally jumping up and down in his office.
The final break between the Marx group and Weitling came in the following month of May and
only two years after Marx had called Weitling's book "an exuberant and brilliant debut of
the German workers". Weitling soon left for the United States, from where he was not to
return till the 1848 Revolution.
Marx and Engels next denounced the German communist Hermann Kriege, who had emigrated to
America. Engels had at first put great faith in Kriege and had recommended him to Marx.
When Kriege arrived in London shortly after he had joined the League of the Just. He then
emigrated to New York in 1845 He led the League of Just there into the Social-Reform
Association, which advocated radical land reform. He brought out a paper called
Volks-Tribun to support this move. There he wrote of a vague communism based on brotherly
love. And came out with statements like "We have no wish to lay bands on the private
property of any man; what the usurer now has, let him keep; we merely wish to forestall
the further pillaging of the people's assets and prevent capital from continuing to
withhold from labour its rightful property" and: "Every poor man ... will instantly become
a useful member of human society as soon as he is offered the opportunity of productive
work." The land should be nationalised and then leased in rent free in plots of 150 acres
to small holders.
On hearing of this Marx and Engels were quite rightly appalled. They issued a renunciation
of Kriege's ideas, the "Circular Against Kriege", described by Gareth Stedman Jones as a
"grossly self-important missive".. What was disturbing about this was the viciousness of
the attack, which was highly vitriolic and personalised. The Committee in London wrote to
Marx: "aren't you being too harsh against Kriege? . . . Kriege is still young and can
still learn. "(Kriege was only twenty five years old). Another member of the League,
Joseph Weydemeyer wrote that there was 'widespread regret that you have again got involved
in such polemics'.
Moses Hess, who had been Marx's mentor, was next to be targeted, choosing to resign
rather than be expelled. "In the struggle between Marx and Weitling, Hess had taken
Weitling's side, and this was enough to infuriate Marx, and to make him look for a means
of crushing Hess. Nevertheless, Moses Hess, despite many deviations and peculiarities had
in the course of his socialist development come so near to Marx's standpoint, that, as
late as July 28, 1846, Hess wrote to Marx: "I am in full agreement with your views
concerning communist authorship. However necessary it may have been at the outset that
communist endeavours should be linked to German ideology, it is no less necessary now that
they should be based upon historical and economic premises, for otherwise we shall never
be able to settle accounts either with the ‘socialists' or with the adversaries of all
shades of opinion" (Rühle).
Marx and Engels now set up a Workers Educational Society in Brussels, modelled on the
London organisation of the same name animated by Schapper. They gradually built up
contacts in Britain, Germany, France and Switzerland, gathering those of like mind round
them. They then decided to set up an international organisation, to create cells in
Brussels, Paris and London. It seems likely that this, the second attempt at an
international, was at the initiative of the London group around Schapper. These groups
were to set up correspondence committees to maintain links with other communist groups.
These became known as the Communist Correspondence Committees. One such Committee was
established in Brussels by Marx, Engels and their associate Philippe Gigot. It would
appear that the preparatory work for these committees had already been put into place by
the middle of 1846 and that Joseph Moll, who came to Brussels to invite Marx and Engels to
join the League of the Just, was acting as a representative of the Communist
Correspondence Committee in London. The London group of the League of the Just had
answered favourably to the idea of increased communication between communists and made
clear that they had broken with the conspiratorial tactics of the Blanquists and the
outlook of Weitling, which sought to rouse the masses through spiritual inspiration.
However, they warned against the vicious denunciations that Marx had made against Weitling
and Kriege and emphasised that correspondence between communists was to encourage ideas
not to curb political debate. Later they wrote another letter where they stated:
"We believe that all these different orientations must be expressed and that only through
a communist congress, where all the orientations are represented in a cold-blooded and
brotherly discussion, can unity be brought to our propaganda...If people from all the
communist positions were sent, if intellectuals and workers from all lands met together,
then there is no doubt that a lot of barriers, which still stand in the way, would fall.
In this congress all of the different orientations and types of communism would be
discussed peacefully and without bitterness and the truth would certainly come through and
win the day".
After Marx had been persuaded by Moll that most of the London group had broken with the
ideas of Weitling, a Congress was decided upon at the initiative of the Brussels
Committee. For his part, Engels, active in the Paris Committee, used all the wiles of a
politician to persuade those who had not broken completely with Weitling. Weitling was
portrayed as a "reactionary" and falsely accused of not having written his books alone. In
his reports back to Marx all the contempt of these two for workers is manifest with
constant references to "those fools" "those asses", " those stupid workers who believe
everything" with their "drowsiness and petty jealousy" In Engels' own words he was able
"to put it over" with some and "bamboozled" others. Engels was able to report that "The
remainder of the Weitlingites, a little clique of tailors, is on the point of being thrown
out".
Karl Grün was next to be targetted. A populariser of Proudhon's ideas in Germany, he was
not a member of the League, but had a following in its groups. He was accused of
embezzling 300 francs on flimsy grounds by Marx and Engels. The Grünites explained that
they had raised the money themselves, and considered it as a loan. First Eisermann,
"Grün's chief follower" according to Engels, was expelled, followed in a few months by the
most closet of the Grünites. "The last Grünites- a whole commune- were thrown out" crowed
Engels. As a result only 30 members of the League were left in Paris. Only two members
survived in one Paris group of the League. The League was purged in Switzerland, Hamburg
and Leipzig as well, and any supporters of Weitling, Proudhon and Karl Grün expelled or
forced to leave.
Jonathan Sperber notes that:" Ideological differences do not entirely explain the vigour
of Marx's attacks on Grün, since there was a lot in Grün's work on French and Belgian
socialism that was congenial to Marx. Grün denounced the liberal regime in Belgium as
facilitating capitalist exploitation of the workers, under the guise of protecting civil
rights; he spoke of the concentration of capital and the impoverishment of the
proletariat; he was critical of the efforts of Fourier and his followers to get wealthy
individuals to finance his socialist schemes. Grün called for the abolition of wage
labour, and for the proletariat to assume political power; he expressly associated his
socialism with atheism."
The campaign against Hess did not proceed so well in Paris. Engels reported that: "Moses's
tittle-tattle produces the devil of a confusion for me, and exposes me to the most
long-winded counter-speeches from the workers. Whole meetings have been wasted over it,
and it is not even possible to make a decisive attack on this stale nonsense".
The League of the Just had been decimated. As Otto Rühle remarked: "The net upshot of the
visit was that Engels, though he did indeed put an end to Grün's influence, only increased
the confusion, so that the "Straubinger" ceased to be possible recruits for an
international communist league such as Marx and Engels already hoped to found"(Straubinger
being Engels' put down term for travelling journeymen).
The projected Congress convened in London in 1847, without the presence of Marx, but with
the participation of Engels. There were few delegates. Despite what Engels says, the
League of the Just was not reorganised into the Communist League. The Communist League was
a new organisation.
The Communist League established a constitution, and its first paragraph proclaimed that
"The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat,
the abolition of the old bourgeois society based on class antagonisms, and the
establishment of a new society without either classes or private property". The
organisation was based on "democratic centralism", with all members expected to espouse
communism and to be in accordance with its aims. Groups of members, styled "communes" were
the basic unit of the League. These made up into districts with their own committees. The
districts were combined under the control of a special "leading district". These leading
districts answered to a central committee.
The central committee itself was not elected by the conference of the League. Its powers
were delegated to the district committee of any city appointed by the conference as the
seat of the central committee. So a district thus designated would elect a central
committee of at least 5 members.
Marx and Engels suggest that the Communist League was the direct successor of the League
of the Just, and its predecessor the League of Outlaws. We have seen that this is not
completely true. They also give the impression that the lineage of these organisations was
one of centralist organisation. But the central committee of the League of the Just was
not just elected but broadly controlled by the membership as a whole. The original
constitution of the Communist League was similar, and Marx and Engels' usurped this
constitution, with the establishment of their highly centralised Central Committee in
1848. This arrangement was convenient for the perpetuation of a ruling clique.
The congress also decided to work on a programme for the League, and each district was to
offer its own project at the next congress. Further, a paper was to be produced. Only one
pioneer edition appeared. It was the first paper that openly proclaimed itself communist
on the masthead. It was mostly written by London members of the League. It quite correctly
argued against Cabet, who was encouraging people to emigrate to America to found communist
colonies there. It urged people to remain in Europe and fight for the establishment of
communism there. The paper also distinguished its communism from those of Weitling and the
French groups.
A second congress was held, at the end of 1847 with Marx present this time. There were
days of violent disagreement over a programme (it appears both Engels and Marx had drafted
separate proposals). The Paris groups had commissioned Hess to write a text, approving
this by a large majority. As a member of the committee, Engels arranged that his own text,
and not that of Hess, be sent to London contrary to the members' votes and as Engels
admitted "behind their backs". "But of course, not a soul must notice this or we shall all
be deposed and there will be an unholy row". The majority of the Congress was finally
persuaded to accept Marx and Engels's proposals and Marx was charged by Congress to write
a Manifesto in the name of the League.
It should be remarked upon that the Manifesto commissioned by the League took a
considerable time to write. Schapper and his associates as members of the Central
Committee had to write angrily to Marx that "If the Manifesto of the Communist Party does
not reach us before Tuesday, February 1, further measures will be taken against him (Marx)"
Marx and Engels argue in the Manifesto for a working class revolution in stages. Political
power would be captured, all banks would be amalgamated into one State bank, and the means
of production, transport and credit would also be controlled by the State. As Bakunin was
to later comment: This revolution will consist of the expropriation, either successive or
violent of the actual landowners and capitalists, and in the appropriation of all the
lands and all of capital by the State, which, so that it can fulfil its great economic as
well as political mission, must necessarily be very powerful and very strongly
concentrated. The State will administer and direct the cultivation of the land by means of
its appointed engineers commanding armies of rural workers, organised and disciplined for
this cultivation. At the same time, on the ruin of all the existing banks, it will
establish a single bank, sleeping partner of all labour and all commerce of the nation".
It should be pointed out that the Manifesto should not be seen as completely Marx and
Engels' work, as the input of other League members, notably Karl Schapper, can be
detected. During the first months of 1848 Marx was an enthusiastic supporter of the
section of the bourgeoisie that was struggling for democratic rights. At the same time, he
had contempt for the democratic leaders, unlike some other members of the League, who
admired their heroism and military capabilities (see Lattek). He clashed with Doctor
Andreas Gottschalk and his grouping the Workers Association in Cologne for separating the
proletariat from the democratic bourgeois camp (Gottschalk and co. were members of the
Communist League). He accused this group of isolating itself from the struggle. The
agitation of Gottschalk and his circle had increased the size of the Workers Society to
5,000 members. Finding himself in a minority, Marx first of all dissolved the Central
Committee. Despite the Cologne group being a section of the Communist League, he set up a
rival organisation, the Democratic Association and launched an electoral campaign for the
Frankfurt Parliament, supporting a dubious left candidate. In June of the same year, he
and Engels set up a daily paper the Neue Rheinische Zeitung: organ of democracy.
Previously describing themselves as communists, Marx and his associates now described
themselves as "we other democrats". They advocated a united front between the bourgeoisie
and the proletariat, as long as the former remained on the "revolutionary" road, in other
words as long as they struggled for a democratic society. There was not a word of the
antagonism between the democracy of the bourgeoisie and the communism of the proletariat,
and nothing about the immediate economic problems of the workers as the paper of the
Workers Society was quick to point out. In fact, not once did the words "communist" or
"communistic" "socialist" or "socialistic" appear in any article in the NRZ. During all of
this, the Communist League was dropped and allowed to fizzle out.
As Marx said in an article in the paper (22nd January 1849) "The revolution must be first
of all a revolution for the bourgeoisie. The revolution of the proletariat is solely
possible after capitalist economy has created the conditions". Gottschalk responded in his
own paper Freiheit, Arbeit (Freedom, Labour): "Must we, after finally escaping the hell of
the Middle Age, throw ourselves voluntarily into the purgatory of a decrepit capitalist
power?.."
He went to say: "You have never been serious about the emancipation of the repressed. The
misery of the worker, the hunger of the poor has for you only a scientific, a doctrinaire
interest... You do not believe in the revolt of the working people, whose rising flood
begins already to prepare the destruction of capital, you do not believe in the permanence
of the revolution, you do not even believe in the revolution."
The criticisms of Gottschalk hit home among the German workers.
As Hunt says, "Gottschalk was unusually inconsistent and vacillating in his political
views and could move from permanent revolution to social monarchism within a few weeks,
but his popularity with and closeness to the Cologne working classes probably makes him a
good weathervane of their sentiments". Gottschalk was close to the ideas of Hess and Grün.
Devoid of notions of class struggle, he believed in a peaceful transition to communism.
Nevertheless, his position vis-à-vis a united front with the progressive bourgeoisie put
him on a collision course with Marx and Engels.
The German bourgeoisie signally failed in its endeavours to bring about a revolution for
democracy and Marx was obliged to break with the bourgeois democrats in April 1849 and
resurrect the Communist League. It had been a complete debacle for Marx and Engels. Not
only had Marx and Engels attempted to hitch working class communism to the democratic
desires of the bourgeoisie (already outlined in the Babouvists' dangerous flirtation with
it) but he had denounced the fundamental principles of international solidarity between
the peoples. Positing the theory of "historic nations"- Germany, Poland, Hungary and
Italy- and lesser nations doomed to be germanised or disappear altogether, they argued
that strong nation states had to be created in order to facilitate the fall of absolutism.
The Poles were only useful as long as they fought against Russian despotism. After they
had fulfilled this task, they would have to be relegated to the second division of nations
doomed to extinction. In a totally inaccurate prediction, Engels foresaw the extinction of
the Czechs and Slovaks and the South Slavs. Chillingly, he saw these nations as backwards
and obsolete.
He warned in a veiled attack on the then Pan-Slavist Russian Bakunin that "We shall fight
an ‘implacable life-and-death struggle' with Slavdom, which has betrayed the revolution; a
war of annihilation and ruthless terrorism, not in the interests of Germany but in the
interests of the revolution!", that "we can only secure the revolution against these Slav
peoples by the most decisive acts of terrorism". In a profoundly racist language against
the Slavs he belly-aches that no gratitude was shown "for the pains the Germans have taken
to civilize the obstinate Czechs and Slovenes, and to introduce amongst them trade,
industry, a tolerable agriculture and education!" (Democratic Pan-Slavism, 14th February
1848). Even more chilling was Engels' pronouncement that "the next world war will not only
cause reactionary classes and dynasties to disappear from the face of the earth, but also
entire reactionary peoples. And that too is an advance". (The Magyar struggle, 13th
January 1850).
Just as appalling was Marx's belief in progressive wars. He was to support a war against
Denmark by Germany in 1848 because it would strengthen the German nation and German
democracy. "The real capital of Denmark is Hamburg, not Copenhagen" Marx blustered. This
was to be a continuing policy of Marx's, as witness his support for Germany in the
Franco-Prussian War in 1870.
Ending up in London later in the year, Marx formed an alliance with French Blanquist
exiles and the revolutionary wing of Chartism to set up a Universal Society of
Revolutionary Communists. The idea had come from Julian Harney, the communist Chartist
leader. With Engels, he drafted an Address of the Central Committee to the Communist
League in1850 refuting the opportunistic tactic of 1848-9, wrongly believing that a
proletarian social revolution was about to break out, and developing the need for a
Permanent Revolution until communism had been achieved. They linked to this the need for a
dictatorship of the proletariat, a concept which had been invented by Blanqui and was
sired by the Babouvists.
But soon Marx took a turn away from revolutionary activity, stating that no revolution was
possible for the present because of the economic recovery. Further, a coming revolution
did not just depend on another trade crisis, which he had seen as the cause of the 1848
Revolutions, but a massive development of the productive forces. Leading workers in the
Communist League like Schapper, Fraenkel, Lehmann and Willich fell out with him over this.
Worse was to follow. The communist Techow testifies that "Marx and his friends set
Schramm, their champion, on to Willich. Schramm attacked him with the coarsest invective,
and finally challenged him to a duel....there are bound to be repercussions, not only in
the local émigré set-up, but probably also in the Communist League. If this happens, then
the disgusting intrigues and the mean gossip which Marx and Co. have been organizing on a
small scale will probably have a more far-reaching effect, principally on their literary
activity. It is really too bad that men of such real talent should end by making it
impossible for anyone but the dregs of humanity to make common cause with them". The duel
was fought and Schramm was injured. This resulted in outrage against Marx. He was expelled
from the German aid committee and from the Workers Educational Association. In behaviour
that was echoed in Marx's later tactics in the First International, he had the Central
Committee transferred to Cologne. As Schapper noted: "Just as the proletariat cut itself
off from the Montagne and the press in France, so here the people who speak for the party
on matters of principle are cutting themselves off from those who organize within the
proletariat".
Harney had originally insisted that Willich be involved in the Universal Society. He
refused to take sides now. Following this, Marx and Engels wrote to the Blanquists saying
that as far as they were concerned the World Society was no longer existent. The Cologne
section and indeed the whole German organisation of the minority section of League
controlled by Marx and Engels was closed down by police action, as was the German majority
section in 1851. The police infiltrated both Leagues, but in his pamphlet on the Cologne
events, Engels went out of his way to falsely blame the Willich group for shopping them to
the police.
Marx followed this up with another pamphlet The Knight of the Noble Conscience attacking
Willich in the most vicious way. Following this, Marx dissolved his section of the League
in 1852. The German exiles found it hard to forgive his dismantling of the League. Being
predominantly workers, it confirmed their suspicions of university-educated intellectuals
and their "arrogance".
Marx and Engels had done considerable damage to important sections of the nascent
communist movement with their tactic of allying the cause of the working class with that
of the bourgeoisie. They had further strengthened the pro-Statist currents within this
loose communist movement and had prepared the way for the mass social-democratic parties
to come. They had separated off the different and loose currents of thought within the
workers movement from each other by their purges of the League of the Just, thwarting
fruitful dialogue and increasing division. None of the international endeavours had been
at their instigation, though they claimed credit for them, and all had been sabotaged by
them. As Christine Lattek points out it was never a case of the League having come under
the sway of Marx and Engels, and that what occurred was a certain convergence of opinions
between them.
As the German Marxist Otto Rühle was to write: "Since Marx and Engels were ruthlessly
endeavouring to reach self-understanding, self-laceration could not be avoided. This
self-laceration conjured up an army of adversaries, and involved them for five years or
more in the most venomous personal quarrels. A further result was that the proletarian
united front, which was already in course of formation, was, prematurely and without any
sufficient objective reason, broken for decades to come. The intolerant way in which the
purging of the communist ranks was effected and in which the cleavage in the communist
camp was brought about, was not the outcome of unavoidable necessity, not dependent upon
the progress of economic evolution. Its primary cause was Marx's craving for exclusive
personal predominance, which he rationalized into a fanatical confidence in the conquering
power of his own idea."
Now they had the luxury of retreating into theoretical work until 1864, whilst communist
workers endeavoured to carry on their organisational work within the working class. Marx
and Engels dropped the term "communist" to describe their politics from now on, preferring
the terms "socialist" or "social-democrat".
On the positive side Marx and Engels had brought much clarity to the League with their
ideas on class struggle and exploitation. With their departure many of the German
communists returned to vague notions of oppression and tyranny, pointing to their
influence being only passing.
It would be false to think that the communist movement vanished with the departure of Marx
and Engels. Activities continued in London and elsewhere for decades to come, with the
Willich League pursuing alliances with bourgeois democrats in efforts to overthrow the
existing system in Germany. In addition, particularly in the two years after the 1848
defeat, the notion of a transitional dictatorship was taken up by these German exiles.
The exile German communist movement in London, embodied in the
CommunistischerArbeiterBildungsVerein (CABV)-Communist Workers Educational Association,
established by Schapper and his associates in 1840, continued to exist and was still there
when Johann Most -who was to turn it in an increasingly anarchist direction -and later
Rudolf Rocker arrived in London.
Nick Heath
Beamish, R.The Making of the Manifesto. Socialist Register, 1998.
Erikson, Eliott. Marx and the Communist Manifesto. Stanford University,1954.
Henderson, W.O. The life of Friedrich Engels.Routledge,1976.
Hunt, Robert Norman. The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels. Springer, 2016.
Lattek, Christine. Revolutionary refugees: German socialism in Britain 1840-1860.
Routledge,2006.
Lenin. VI. Marx on the American "General Distribution":
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/20c.htm
Rühle, Otto. Karl Marx: His Life and Works. Routledge, 2011.
Schwarzschild, Leopold. The red Prussian: The Life and Legend of Karl Marx. Pickwick, 1986.
Sperber, Jonathan. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life. Liveright, 2014.
Stedman Jones, Gareth. Karl Marx, Belknap, 2016.
https://londonacg.blogspot.co.il/2018/01/marx-and-engels-and-communist-movement.html
------------------------------
Message: 4
Despite the announcement by Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer to make vocational education " a
path of excellence ", it seems that his ambitions are all other and go in the direction
of destruction of this sector. The vocational high school is regularly blamed for its
supposed inefficiency and its maladjustment to the business world. Thus, it seemed
necessary to make a small detour towards this " poor relation " of the French education
system. ---- Since its creation and " formalization " at the end of the 19th century,
vocational education has been put at the service of industrial development with the aim of
meeting the needs of the labor market. ---- From 1919 and the law of " Astier ",
vocational education passes under the tutelage of the public instruction then of the
National Education in the framework of a policy of massive schooling of the children
coming from popular medium. This law is at the origin of the creation of the Certificate
of Professional Aptitude (CAP) whose purpose was to meet the needs of qualified labor of
companies. In 1926, the training will be completed by the creation of the Professional
Studies Certificate (BEP).
Vocational education will then undergo changes leading to the creation of the Bac pro in
1985, the objective of which was to bring 80 % of an age group to the baccalaureate
level. The students then prepare a BEP in two years at the exit of which they can continue
two more years in order to obtain the BAC pro.
The high school today
In 2009, under the pretext of equalizing the length of schooling between the three courses
of study (general, technological and professional), the government launched a reform to
increase the number of training years from 4 to 3 years . Nevertheless, behind this facade
of equality put forward, it was to make budget savings by limiting the needs of teachers
in the pro path.
Often unrecognized and disreputable, the vocational high school has the distinction of
combining two types of training: a theoretical and the other professional. Like other
secondary streams (technological and general), students in these institutions have
theoretical courses such as French, history-geography, maths and science, applied arts,
English or Spanish. In addition to these so-called " general " subjects , students
follow courses related to their professional career such as Prevention Health Environment
(PSE), and of course practical lessons in the workshop.
To complete their training, high school students must also complete professional training
periods (PFMP) of 22 weeks of internships spread over 3 years. This element is very often
forgotten campaigns of denigration of high school pro on the part of the Government and
the employers who accuse him of being disconnected from the world of the company.
Professional high schools prepare students for three types of diplomas: CAP, BEP and Bac
pro. The CAP qualifies as a skilled worker or employee in a trade among the 200
specialties in the industrial, commercial and service sectors. The Vocational Studies
Certificate (BEP) is a step in the curriculum of the vocational baccalaureate in three
years. This is an intermediate diploma which is not compulsory. Finally, students can
prepare the baccalaureate in three years which allows them to continue studies in higher
education (BTS, DUT, university).
Nevertheless, the orientation of students of high school pro remains problematic since the
places in BTS and DUT are very often reserved for graduates and bachelors of the general
and technological sectors. As for the university, it will be more and more difficult for
the students of the professional to access it with the new reform of access to the university.
Through the CAP, the BEP or the baccalauréat pro, vocational high schools welcome more
than 700,000 students (one third of high school students) and train most of the workers
and workers of tomorrow. Often, the orientation of vocational high school students is
rather constraint than chosen. It is quite an important violence to impose vocational
training on a job that you are likely to do for a good part of your life. Who at 15 knew
what he wanted to do ? This forced orientation does not concern all students but those of
the most popular layers.
Growing malaise of teachers
Concerning the teachers of the vocational high school, a survey was conducted by the CGT
Educ'action on the working conditions of LP teachers. Nearly 1700 professors from high
schools have responded and the results are worrying. They highlight a growing unease of
the teachers of Professional High School (PLP). 89 % of respondents consider that the
vocational path of high school is not treated equally with the other paths (general and
technological high school). Moreover, sociologist Azziz Jellab has shown that PLPs often
find it difficult to get their skills recognized because they remain largely identified
with a category of staff who must fight against students' academic failure. They also seem
to be dominated within the school institution that values the disciplinary culture (CAPES
and aggregation being the incarnation).
In addition, the survey pointed out that 91 % of PLPs surveyed believe that vocational
education under school status is under threat, and in fact, 55 % of colleagues have
already considered leaving vocational education. And indeed, there is something to worry
about ...
The government is launching a major reform of vocational training and apprenticeship, led
by the Ministry of Labor, and the vocational path to school status is in the crosshairs.
Upon leaving the college, it is to focus the orientation of students to all learning,
strengthening employability. The goal is to sacrifice the general and professional
culture, in order to prevent career progression and changes in the career path of high
school students.
Caesar (Cal Saint Denis)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Enseignement-public-Lycee-pro-le-parent-pauvre-de-l-Education-nationale
------------------------------
Message: 5
With Trump planning a major wave of ICE raids targeting Northern California in the coming
weeks, especially targeting sanctuary cities, organized community responses are essential
to beating back these attacks. The goal, as always with immigration enforcement, is to
strike fear in immigrant communities, reinforce their precarious status as workers and
feed Trump's base that supports his white nationalist agenda. ---- Community Response
Halts 7-Eleven Raid ---- After raiding 7-Elevens across the country last week, ICE was
planning to return to a particular 7-Eleven store on Tuesday, January 16 in Koreatown to
collect documents. Unions and community organizations, including neighbors from the
Koreatown Popular Assembly (KPA) mobilized to respond. KPA is a neighborhood based
assembly that is independent of LA's institutional left of non-profit organizations that
normally dominate community organizing and which members of Los Angeles Black Rose/Rosa
Negra participate in. The group took on the action as part of it's recently launched
Koreatown Rapid Response Network, a tool for defending neighborhoods through community
direct action.
KPA and allies came out for the morning to show that ICE is not welcome in Koreatown and
successfully prevented ICE from returning to the store and continuing to intimidate
workers and immigrant communities in Koreatown. As one member of LA Black Rose/Rosa said,
"This type of mass action from below by everyday people from the neighborhood has the
power to stop these raids. This is where we need to be fighting Trump."
Taking the Streets Against the Cancellation of TPS
Over the weekend on Saturday, January 13 immigrant rights groups, both community based and
institutional NGO organizations, called for supporters to march in defense of communities
threatened by Trump's cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which allows
migrants from specific countries to remain in the US following war, natural disaster or
other humanitarian circumstances. The move by Trump effects migrants from El Salvador,
Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and possibly Honduras as well. At the march hundreds of Central
American immigrants, families, and friends marched to the detention center in downtown LA,
chanting "Shut Down ICE!" and "Let them out!" while detainees banged on the cell walls
from the inside.
Black Rose members and others from KPA passed out information to marchers about the new
Koreatown Rapid Response Network which asks people contact the Koreatown Rapid Response
Network if they see or hear about ICE activity or raids in the area.
By Black Rosa/Rosa Negra LA and BRRN Social Media Team
http://blackrosefed.org/la-koreatown-fights-back-on-7-11-ice-raids/
------------------------------
Message: 6
Welcome to the 8th edition of B(A)D news: angry voices from around the world - a commonly
produced monthly show of the anarchist and antiauthoritarian radio network, on this
occasion composed by Crna Luknja, anarchist show on Radio Student from Slovenia. ---- In
this episode we will hear contributions from: ---- - Radio Fragmata and Radio zones of
Subversive Expression from Athens: anarchist news from Greece ---- - Crna Luknja from
Slovenia: antifascist mobilization in Bulgaria ---- - Rosas Negras from El Salvador: on
police corruption ---- - Radio Kuruf from Chile: anarchist analysis of the current
political situation in Chile ---- - Anarchist radio Berlin: report on a recent Chaos
Communication Congress in Leipzig Germany that featured a variety of lectures and
workshops on technical and political issues related to Security, Cryptography, Privacy and
online Freedom of Speech. The report covers the congress from anarchist perspective
- Dissident Island from London: deals with an ongoing, lively and rather complex
discussion that was sparked by events at last years London Anarchist bookfair
- Final Straw from USA: shares an interview with comrades from Puerto Rico that are
involved with a mutual aid centre
The show is divided in four parts with some music and a poetry break in between.
(episode in total 1: 21: 52)
Audio Player you can download it directly from archive.org here: Bad News_Episode
8_1801_EN https://archive.org/details/BadNews_episode8_1801_en
https://www.a-radio-network.org/bad-news-angry-voices-from-around-the-world/bad-news-episodes/episode-8-1-2018/
------------------------------
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Anarchic update news all over the world - 25.01.2018
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