imposs1904
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Talking about the futility of reformism, I just stumbled across this wonderful passage from a 1914 Socialist Standard article by F. Foan:
“It is part of the policy of the rulers in every country to encourage those who deceive and confuse the workers as to the meaning of Socialism. One section is telling us that Christianity is Socialism, another that the State must own the means of life, another that we must buyout the capitalists. These are easily seen through; the worst frauds are those who lull the workers into apathy by telling them Socialism will come by evolution, and that even now we are in the transition stages.
Socialism can only be established by the deliberate and conscious action of the working class utterly disregarding the interests of those who oppose them. Before they can arrange or control the details of their own lives they must own and control the means of wealth production. To gain possession of these, they must first control the physical power that protects the capitalist class in their ownership. This is only possible by means of a working-class organisation that will control the political machinery. When the armed forces, through the machinery of government, are controlled by the working class, they can enter into possession of the means of wealth production without bargaining or compensation.”
He totally nails it.
From here:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-few-comparisons-1914.htmlIf it’s referring to Live 8 (and Keane) it must be a really old quote.
In more recent years the silly sod labelled Corbyn a communist.
I guess Manchester Branch didn’t do any paper sales in Burnage back in the day.
The YouTube algorithim just recommended this video to me.
Makes a nice change from it recommending Jordan Peterson videos to me:
Does 440 views in two years qualify as under appreciated?
Loved this track back in the day. Remember buying her album after seeing her perform on The Tube. I’m guessing it was 84/85:
A very good speaker on his day. Worth checking out some of his talks and debates in the audio section of the website.
A shame that the Ron Brown debate wasn’t recorded. In fact, I’m a little surprised that it wasn’t recorded. It’s not everyday that the SPGB debates a Labour MP.
PS – I think Jersom is the ‘Gersom’ who had the front page article in the January 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard:
Bolshevism: Past and Present (1934)
In that January 1934 he was listed as a member of the American party but the March 1934 issue carried the following correction:
“Owing to a misapprehension it was incorrectly stated in the January SOCIALIST STANDARD that the writer of the article “Bolshevism, Past and Present” is a member of the Workers Socialist Party, U.S.A.”
Funnily enough, when I was scanning in the article at the time, it did strike me that the author’s politics did come across as somewhat Council Communist’ish.
Some more background on the International Review.
From the 1974 book, THE AMERICAN RADICAL PRESS 1880-1960:
International Review
NEW YORK, 1936-1939
JAMES B. GILBERTTHE International Review of Contemporary Thought and Action, unlike so many of its companions in the 1930s, represented no political party or movement; it was a privately owned and edited magazine, devoted to left-wing causes, but broadly based in its interests. Published in New York by Herman Jersom and his wife, the Review contained articles and translations of articles written by a wide range of European radicals. Most of the articles and translations were composed by Jersom, who was a language teacher in the New York City public school system.
The political position of the magazine was radical but anti-Bolshevik. Jersom reprinted works written by a diverse group, including Rosa Luxemburg, André Malraux, Karl Radek, Simone Weil, Leon Trotsky, Mao Tse-tung, and many others. Much of the writing was theoretical, although after late 1936 articles began to appear on the war in Spain and the organization of industrial labor unions in the United States. The names of many of the authors of articles and translations are presumably pseudonyms for Jersom, although one American Marxist, Paul Mattick, contributed to the magazine.
Jersom took a strong stand against the Communists in Spain, but he did not turn to Trotskyism. On the contrary, the International Review blamed the tragedy of Spain on bolshevism, and the deformation of the Russian Revolution on Lenin as well as Stalin. Bolshevism, it contended, had little to do with communism or Marxism. Thus Jersom found his political moorings in the older writings of J. Martov, Rosa Luxemburg, and Friedrich Engels. Also under the auspices of the International Review, Jersom published three pamphlets: Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution , J. Martov’s The State and the Socialist Revolution , and M. Yvon’s What has Become of the Russian Revolution?
The International Review suffered from the same types of financial problems as other little magazines. lt announced somewhat mysteriously in 1937, for example, that available funds to continue publication were being denied to the editors and the magazine was in danger of suppres- sion. Again, in early I939, the magazine discussed financial affairs, this time assuring its readers that enough funds had been found to continue the journal for a year. Shortly after that, however, the International Review ceased publication. Jersom’s attitude toward radical politics had changed after the outbreak of war in Europe. For some time after the demise of his periodical, he published a mimeographed newsletter supporting American participation in the war, and then, apparently, he disappeared from
radical political life altogether.The International Review is thus a strange, but interesting, radical magazine of the 1930s, for it was not devoted to any political movement, nor did it stand strongly behind a single cause. Its private view of the period led it to reprint some of the lesser known writings of older, but important, Socialists and Marxists. In addition to commentary by Jersom, it reprinted significant articles on Spain and on the Soviet Union. When the war intruded—when present politics became of great importance—the International Review proved perhaps too remote to support Jersom’s new interest in supporting the war, and his publishing
College Park, Maryland, 1968
I’ll tag the details of this new biography of Paul Foot onto this thread, instead of starting another one:
The biographer, Margaret Renn, was from the same political tradition as Foot, and was also his contemporary.
Foot first originally joined the International Socialists in Glasgow in the early 60s when he was working as a local journalist. He also knew the SPGB in Glasgow. I remember a comrade contacted Foot a few years before he died, to ask him about this, and he replied with the following:
“I went to Glasgow for my first job (a reporter on the Daily Record) in September 1961. I joined the Young Socialists and the Woodside Labour party. A highly influential figure in the Woodside YS at the time was Vic Vanni, a big, very good-looking and persuausive bloke, a sheet metal worker, whose father had come to Glasgow from Italy, and ran a fish and chip shop. I became friendly with Vic and liked his sense of humour. He was greatly influenced by the SPGB, and many times I went with him and others to hear the SPGB lecturers in St Andrews Hall (I think). We also heard SPGB speakers like Dick Donnelly speak at open air meetings off Sauchiehall St.
“Before I left Glasgow in 1964, Vic joined the SPGB and I think he is still a member, probably a very senior one. . .“These SPGB speakers had a wonderful, proletarian, down-to-earth way of conveying Marxist ideas. They were all, without exception, sardonic and witty speakers, and they made a profound impression on me. In particular, they scornfully rejected the idea – prevalent at the time, that Russia etc were Socialist countries . . .”
The problem with the audio was at Keith’s end. His connection wasn’t the best . . . if he will insist on living out in the sticks.
