Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Karl Marx and the Young Republican Party

Sadly this is a mock up I found on the web, but it neatly illustrates the topic.

History is full of strange occurrences, chance meetings and weird common interests. The Paris Commune for example united for a time the Anarchists (under the Proudhon faction) the Communists (Under the leadership of Blanqui's supporters) the lefty republicans and the Free Masons.

Here's another strange coincidence in the life of Karl Marx. Marx after leaving the University of Berlin with a background in philosophy he wandered for a bit ultimately becoming a journalist in Cologne.

He had also written some play scripts and even a comedic novel. But his main source of work and income in the early 1840's was journalism writing for and editing the Rhineland News. The News was explicitly political and of a left wing persuasion mainly criticising the Rhineland Diet. While writing for the Newspaper Marx started corresponding with German exiles in France and learned about their new socialist ideas taking root in French working class districts. One of those ideas went by the name of Communism a name popularised by Auguste Blanqui and of course would be taken up by Karl Marx. Communism soon supplanted Karl Marx's early German republicanism though not immediately, it seems the suppression of the Rhineland News in 1843 pushed Karl to make his break with constistutionalism. 

In 1847 the first Communist party, the Communist League* was established with Marx and his close friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as major members. The Manifesto of the Communist Party was written on behalf of the Communist League and was an explanation of the groups beliefs, strategies and actions. Marx and the League also published a new paper in the Rhineland under the name of New Rhenish News but that didn't last very long either.

The Revolution of 1848 swept over Prussia and the smaller German states, the Communist League was supportive but unable to play any effective role. Though that didn't stop the League and Marx getting a lot of blame for causing it anyway.

Marx was exiled in 1843(he would return to Cologne in 1847) after the collapse of the Rhineland News and moved to Paris were he again found work co-editing a Leftist newspaper The German-French Annals. He and his wife and children had to keep moving around western europe until the fall out of the 1848 Revolutionary wave forced his family to seek shelter in London where he spent the rest of his days.

Whilst in London Marx ran out of money, and was desperately in need of work. An offer of work came from a surprising source, a newspaper published in New York, known as the New York Daily Tribune. The Tribune was founded in 1841 by Horace Greeley as a pro Whig party publication. In October 25th 1851 the paper boasted of acquiring some new foreign correspondents of great knowledge and insight

“a letter from Madame Belgioioso, upon the daily and domestic life of the Turks, and another upon Germany by one of the clearest and most vigorous writers that country has produced—no matter what may be the judgment of the critical upon his public opinions in the sphere of political and social philosophy.”

The clearest and most vigorous writer of Germany (even though it wouldn't exist for another twenty years) was Karl Marx, his first article was on the aftermath of 1848

 “The first act of the revolutionary drama on the Continent of Europe has closed...The ‘powers that were’ before the hurricane of 1848, are again the ‘powers that be.’ ”

 This relationship would continue for nine years until 1861. For his services Karl Marx was paid an average of $5 a week, which was just enough to keep his family in home, but not much beyond that. He would become the paper's global correspondent writing on events and conditions all over the world.  It wasn't a happy relationship, the paper refused all requests for a pay increase and Engels had to assist the Marx family financially from time to time. However the steady payments and research conducted for the Tribune would pay off for Marx's passion the development of his political understanding. Without the Tribune Marx probably would not have finished the first volume of Capital (some of his articles were reproduced in it) or any of his other post 1840's work.

So where does the GOP come into this? Well the Tribune supported the Whig party, however the Whigs collapsed in the 1850's with most members and supporters joining the newly created Republican Party. Horace Greeley was one such new member and he took his newspaper with him. This means that for several years Karl Marx's political ideas were being subsidised by the main journalistic arm of the Republican party. How's that for strange bedfellows?

But it goes a bit deeper Karl Marx was well aware of the American political developments and preferred the Republican party to the Democratic party. When the Civil War broke out Marx backed the Union, one of his last articles for the Tribune was about the public opinion of England (Britain) to the political instability in January 1861 (open war wouldn't happen until April) and warning and criticism of the Cotton importers and textile mill owners whom were trying to pressure the British Empire to side with the rebelling south.

The only war meeting convened on the arrival of the La Plata, in the cotton salesroom of the Liverpool Stock Exchange, was a corner meeting where the cotton jobbers had it all to themselves. Even at Manchester, the temper of the working classes was so well understood that an insulated attempt at the convocation of a war meeting was almost as soon abandoned as thought of.

And in 1864 the International Working Men's Association, of which Marx was a leading member wrote a letter congratulating him on his re-election and upon his resistance to the slave power of the Southern plantation owners. Marx was on of the signatures.

We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.
From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?

When an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveholders dared to inscribe, for the first time in the annals of the world, "slavery" on the banner of Armed Revolt, when on the very spots where hardly a century ago the idea of one great Democratic Republic had first sprung up, whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century; when on those very spots counterrevolution, with systematic thoroughness, gloried in rescinding "the ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old constitution", and maintained slavery to be "a beneficent institution", indeed, the old solution of the great problem of "the relation of capital to labor", and cynically proclaimed property in man "the cornerstone of the new edifice" — then the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Everywhere they bore therefore patiently the hardships imposed upon them by the cotton crisis, opposed enthusiastically the proslavery intervention of their betters — and, from most parts of Europe, contributed their quota of blood to the good cause.

While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world. 

Signed on behalf of the International Workingmen's Association, the Central Council:

Longmaid, Worley, Whitlock, Fox, Blackmore, Hartwell, Pidgeon, Lucraft, Weston, Dell, Nieass, Shaw, Lake, Buckley, Osbourne, Howell, Carter, Wheeler, Stainsby, Morgan, Grossmith, Dick, Denoual, Jourdain, Morrissot, Leroux, Bordage, Bocquet, Talandier, Dupont, L.Wolff, Aldovrandi, Lama, Solustri, Nusperli, Eccarius, Wolff, Lessner, Pfander, Lochner, Kaub, Bolleter, Rybczinski, Hansen, Schantzenbach, Smales, Cornelius, Petersen, Otto, Bagnagatti, Setacci;

George Odger, President of the Council; P.V. Lubez, Corresponding Secretary for France; Karl Marx, Corresponding Secretary for Germany; G.P. Fontana, Corresponding Secretary for Italy; J.E. Holtorp, Corresponding Secretary for Poland; H.F. Jung, Corresponding Secretary for Switzerland; William R. Cremer, Honorary General Secretary.

Honestly now can you imagine such a thing happening today?

Further reading:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2780892/posts


* By which I mean an explicitly Communist political party. Prior to the leagues founding early Communists were either members of other radical parties usually Republican, or like Blanqui's followers a clandestine network of supporters.

Metropolis and Yellow Socialism

One of my favourite films is Metropolis, I'd seen a grainy version of it as a kid on a soggy morning while watching the Sci Fi channel. Like most viewers it left an impression on me with herds of workers marching, and of course the introduction of the robot Maria. It would be over ten years before I saw it again.

I read in a magazine that they'd found a mostly intact cut of the film in Argentina and were busy restoring it. I grabbed the DVD as soon as it was released and watched it that very night. It's simply a joy to watch, the effects the music, the plot are all interesting and attention grabbing. Though the film has a pretty dark agenda and I don't mean the scheming of the factory boss dad.

SF Debris has reviewed the film, its very informative and quite meaty, both on the film and the background of early German cinema. However there's a very serious flaw within it. At around the 12 minute mark of part one (below) Chuck talks about the films writer Thea von Harbou and her influences when drafting both the script and the novelization. Chuck states correctly that Thea von Harbou became sympathetic to the Nazi party, he then incorrectly states that this prompted her to build the script around Socialist themes.



This is incorrect on three counts; first the Nazi party would not care for Socialist themes in the film since they attacked and destroyed Socialist and Communist films and influence in German media because they believed them to be a source of cultural corruption. Two, Metropolis doesn't actually contain any socialist themes at all, quite the opposite in fact. While Metropolis isn't a Manifesto the politics it does push are Fascist Class Collaboration, not Socialist Class Conflict.

A "Red" reading of Metropolis is uncommon but not unheard of. Chuck actually goes onto explain the root cause of this nonsense unwittingly. He calls it a film about the decadence of a capitalist pig* and the plight of the workers. And yes there are many scenes about systemic violence against the workers of this future city like:

The march of the downtrodden and oppressed

And in the scene where Freder sees the factory for the first time, he hallucinates that he's in hell.

But all you convey when you show economic misery like this is that you don't agree with that kind of treatment. That is not in and of itself Socialism, plenty of staunch capitalists have expressed regret and disagreement with extreme uses of labour. The abolitionist Frederick Douglass even went so as to accept that the concept of wage slavery was real and that it could get fairly close to conditions of chattel slaves in extreme circumstances. Dickens too was a famous campaigner for reforms and improvements for the poor, but in his novel Hard Times he attacks socialism even the concept of Unions alongside the Capitalists.

 If you watch Metropolis and don't feel sympathy for these abused Proles regardless of your own political views then I'm honestly shocked, it lays it on pretty thick. What would make Metropolis a Socialist film is if these images of brutality and desperation were used to agitate for a Socialist critique or solution i.e. revolution. But that just isn't the case in Metropolis, the uprising of the workers is lamented not celebrated. The critique and solution presented such as they are, are Fascistic.

The repeated message of the film is that the workers and the wealthy are the same family, Maria takes a group of workers children to the pleasure gardens, and literally points at the rich kids and says just that. "Das sind Eure Brüder!" "These are your brothers - your sisters!"


Young Freder the idealistic rich boy who goes where he shouldn't is appalled at what he witnesses,but he specifically says that the source of his sympathy is that these workers are his brothers

"Ich wollte den Menschen in die Gesichter sehen, deren kleine Kinder meine Brüder, meine Schwestern sind ..." [I wanted to look into the faces of the people whose small children are my brothers and sisters ...]

So what's the problem here? Well from the Socialist view its false conciousness i.e. nonsense, the employing class and the labouring class have nothing in common. Indeed according to Socialism all other distinctions, race, nation, sex, religion, are artificial and the only real dividing line is class. A Geordie Joiner from Newcastle has more in common with a Thai seamstress in Bangkok then he does his own boss even if his boss is his best mate and neighbour for more than twenty years.

From the Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

But shortly after Freder has declared his familial bond to the Proles he angrily takes his dad to task for what he's been doing.

 "Es waren ihre Hande, die unsere Stadt aufgebaut haben, Vater." "It was their hands that built this city of ours, father." 

This is exchange between father and son has a bit more going on but it still doesn't meet the criteria for socialism. All young Freder is doing is chastising his father for his unfairness and ingratitude to his employee's. Had he ended his moralising with "They built the city, so they should own and run it for themselves" that would be socialism. But this is just moral tongue lashing. He does end with these statements from Young Freder.


"I am going to prove to my father that the world is not made for one man - nor for a thousand - but for all Mankind." 

  "I will not live any longer on the sweat of other men." 

 "I have far to go today - alone, into the depths - to my brothers." 

 "Ich habe heute einen weiten Weg vor mir. Ich will hinunter zu meinen Brüdern." 

Again, this may seem like socialism to some, but all that's been stated here is a belief that's actually quite common to many different views on the political spectrum, and a declaration that Young Freder is dropping out of the Capitalist class and intending to live off his own labours. A sentiment which is common to socialists, but also to Ayn Rand style capitalists, and of course survivalists. The first statement "for all mankind" could be found in a socialist pamphlet or on a poster but it would have to have more added to it. Socialists do not just beleive that the world was built for all mankind, but for all mankind in common ownership and mutual responsibility.

A Liberal could make the same statement (and many did in the days when Monarchies dominated the globe) but mean that everyone has the same inalienable rights. A Conservative could say the same thing and mean a right to life and participation. Indeed of all the political currents I know of the only groups that wouldn't say something like this in any context (well except lying) would be Feudalists and those strange eugenicists.

Skipping ahead to the very end, after a fight between Rotwang and Young Freder on top of the Cathedral, we have a scene that is literally a Fascist economics slogan. Freder goes up to his father and Grot the foreman of the workers, the representatives of Capital and Labour, takes both men's hands linking the two through him, and then for the finale makes them join hands, themselves in kinship.

Freder the son of the wealthy and friend to the workers, with experience and knowledge of both is linking the two groups. He is the personification of mediation, the cornerstone of Fascist economics, under the concept of mediation the Fascist party balances between the two classes, able to look beyond the two's "sectional" interests for the greater good of the nation and achieves greater harmony through a rational middle or third way. Indeed when Fascism was created it propagandise on the claim that it was a compromise between communism and capitalism, that's how important this concept to Fascism, its at the very core of the ideology.

Hitler decreed a law bringing an end to collective bargaining and providing that henceforth "labour trustees", appointed by him, would "regulate labour contracts" and maintain "labour peace". Since the decisions of the trustees were to be legally binding, the law, in effect, outlawed strikes. Ley promised "to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory - that is, the employer... Only the employer can decide."

Of course in reality the Fascist mediators often sold out to the employers, and only gave into workers demands when the workers continued resisting, or when World War II broke out and the Nazi's feared poor living standards would provoke internal unrest, as it did in World War I.

The intertitle before this scene even calls Freder a Mediator.

And this is the final screen before THE END card.

Oh and speaking of Head and Hands

Indeed it's rather telling that the films capitalist is described as the "Head" the nickname for workers who use their intellectual capacity e.g. teachers, researchers, etc. That simply isn't done in Socialist agitation, the word for a capitalist is Parasite, not head or brain. To quote Solidarity Forever the anthem of the global labour movement:

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn

If Freder were really a representation of Socialism, then this scene would have ended with  him holding his fathers arms behind his back, while the workers (not Grot who was a spy and a sell out) force him to agree to turn over control of the city. But of course if the film really were about socialism Metropolis would have been paralysed by a general strike and Robo-Maria would have been sidelined for a strike committee.



*Not really,  the city master and factory boss is brutal and controlling, but he does seem to devote every waking hour to his work, if anyone's being decadent and flippant it would be Young Freder and he's portrayed very sympathetically.

Bernie Backs a Wobblie Whopper: The Burgerville Workers Union

Burgerville workers marching on April 26. (WNV / Shane Burley), from Waging Non Violence.

An interesting thing has happened across the pond, an American Presidential candidate has supported an organising campaign by the Industrial Workers of the World. Something that hasn't happened since the 1910's and the days of Eugene Debs when the Socialist Party split from the American section of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The Burgerville Workers Union:

Portland, OR – In a historic move, workers at Portland-area fast food chain Burgerville announced at a rally in the Clinton Street Theater on April 26th that they were forming a union, the Burgerville Workers Union, in affiliation with the Portland branch of the IWW. They marched from the theater to the Burgerville location at Southeast 26th and Clinton to present their demands:

• an immediate $5 an hour raise
• affordable, quality healthcare
• a safe and healthy workplace
• fair and consistent scheduling with ample notice
• a supportive, sustainable workplace including paid maternity/paternity leave
• free childcare and transportation stipends

A typical Burgerville worker makes only $9.60 an hour, and is typically scheduled just 26 hours a week, just under the 30 hours a week which would make them eligible to receive benefits. That equals out to about $990 a month before taxes. To put that into perspective, the average apartment rent in Portland is $1,275 a month for a one bedroom apartment, and most apartment complexes require prospective tenants income to exceed 3 times the amount of the rent.
“Most people can’t even afford to have an apartment. In Portland, everyone knows that the cost of living is insane. It basically took me a second job to be able to have a place of my own. I couldn’t afford it with what Burgerville pays me,” said Greg, Burgerville worker and union member.
Other workers cited problems with management’s uncaring attitude toward their employees: “I need to be able to take a sick day without fear of retaliation,” stated Robert, a Burgerville worker at the Powell location.
The workers forming the Burgerville Workers Union represent a cross-section of the community – young people, seniors, mothers, fathers, students, and grandparents. They put passion into their work, and want to improve their workplaces for themselves, their co-workers, and the community.
“We’re trying to make Burgerville a better place – I just want to be able to do my job and be paid a living wage. This is going to make Burgerville better, by having happy employees that work hard and are proud of their jobs” said Debbie, Burgerville Worker Union member.
The Burgerville Workers Union is supported by the Portland IWW and endorsed by a coalition of local unions and community groups, including ILWU Local 5, IATSE Local 28, SEIU Local 49, Portland Association of Teachers, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, Portland Solidarity Network (PDXSol), Portland Jobs with Justice, Blue Heron Collective (Reed College), Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Alberta Cooperative Grocery Collective Management, Hella 503 Collective, Marilyn Buck Abolitionist Collective and People’s Food Co-op.

Here's some more information about the Union.

And here's a short video put out by some of the Union members about work conditions and the need for the campaign.


As previously stated this campaign has been singled out by one of the candidates in this seemingly never ending race to the Oval Office.

The candidate is of course Bernie Sanders, here's what the next Commander in Chief (maybe, possibly, well there's a chance at least) has to say on the matter:

FRANKFORT, Ky. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday released the following statement praising the union organizing efforts of the workers at Burgerville, a restaurant chain in Oregon and southern Washington.

“I applaud the workers of Burgerville in Oregon for forming a union. What these workers are calling for is not radical. In the richest country in the history of the world, no one who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty. $9.60 an hour is a starvation wage. The workers at Burgerville deserve a living wage of $15 an hour. They have a right to flexible work schedules, affordable health care, and healthier working conditions. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

“Over the last thirty years, we’ve seen unprecedented growth in income inequality in this country. We have a rigged economy held in place by a corrupt system of campaign finance. That’s why workers, like those at Burgerville, must be able to form a union and collectively bargain for higher wages and stronger benefits.
“The Burgerville Workers Union is a perfect example of the type of political revolution that we need: people coming together and demanding real change to improve the lives of working people. As I’ve said on this campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about people from all walks of life coming together. And I am confident that when this happens, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”

In addition the Young Turks who've become an unofficial arm of the Sanders Campaign also talked to the Burgerville Workers and gave them a kinda endorsement.



I think the Sanders statement and the Young Turks video are interesting as they seem to have not quite understood what the Burgerville Workers were talking about in the way they were meant. They certainly don't know anything of the IWW. Both the statement and the video talk about campaign finance and political corruption. Whereas in Union video above and the brief interview segment the Workers were talking about the economic relationships of workers and the company within a community. The two don't really gel.

To elaborate, the Burgerville Workers aren't actually fighting for a new law increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. They're just pushing for a wage increase of $15 per hour, this struggle is between the workers of Burgerville and the owners of Burgerville, politicians corrupt or otherwise don't really factor into this dispute. But what about the bigger picture? Well the Union is saying something very different on that as well.

In many ways it’s not the fault of Burgerville or its owners. They operate within a low wage economy that accepts paying workers near minimum wage as the norm to squeeze everyone for maximum profit. This is an economy where over the last 40 years productivity has increased over 70% while wages have increased by under 10%, and where following the Great Recession the strongest job growth has been low wage work. The reason for this is clear: This is capitalism, a structure that prioritizes growth and profit over human need and development. We, Burgerville workers, are not merely facing Burgerville, we’re facing a whole structure that’s bent on pushing us to the edge of what we can bare.

We understand this larger structure. But we also realize that it is produced by people, no matter how large or unchangeable it seems. Burgerville produces it by choosing to go along with the rest of their peers and paying us meager wages; even workers produce it ourselves when we accept the boss’ authority over our work and accept wages far lower than the value of what we produce. We all produce this structure and we all face a choice: Do we allow it to continue or do we fight to end it?

They talk about minimum wage but aside from a comment about it currently being the lowest accepted point the context is completely different to what Bernie Sanders and Cenk Uygur use. The Union is talking about the role of wage labour in capitalism, the lower the wage paid the greater the economic exploitation. And the solution put forward by the Union isn't campaign financing reforms or political leadership its workers coming together the fight the system as a whole.

More and more workers are choosing to fight. We are inspired by garment workers in Cambodia, factory workers in China, and our fellow fast food workers across the United States. Workers across the world are standing up and demanding better lives and winning respect.

I think the workers in the Young Turks video were doing a pretty good job of stirring their interview in this direction. Its a shame that it was cut short so the trio in the studio could plug their own  pressure group the Wolf PAC. What's happened here is that American Liberals have seen an intiative by American workers and read their own narrative into it. And by offering their support they've ended up trying to usurp the original meaning of the campaign. I'm sure its unintentional but its still a problem. I believe the Young Turks videos main effect is to show the gulf between Liberal reformers and Revolutionary Workers.

And of course I should stress that a wage increase is only one of the demands of the Burgerville Unions current campaign.

• affordable, quality healthcare
• a safe and healthy workplace
• fair and consistent scheduling with ample notice
• a supportive, sustainable workplace including paid maternity/paternity leave
• free childcare and transportation stipends

I think its important to keep these other issues in mind here and in all similar cases as I've noticed a tendency for the monetary issues to dominate the discussions around strikes and labour campaigns. Usually feeding into a warped narrative about greedy workers getting ideas above their station. I think that narrative is bunk, though rather telling about the position of the working class in this society.

So here's my full and unconditional statement of support for the workers at Burgerville. I make this statement in the full knowledge of what the Burgerville Union is, and what it is aiming to achieve. IF you feel the same way then head over to their support page.

SPEW and Me

In Britain for some reason the most common and longstanding strain of leftism is Trotskyism. This has always been a bit of a mystery to me because even the Trotskyists loathe Trotskyists. Off the top of my head theirs the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Socialist Party in England and Wales (SP/SPEW) the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) Solidarity (also in Scotland) the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Workers Power(WP), the Workers Revolutionary Party(WRP) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CGPB) and I must be forgetting at least a dozen and have never heard of several more. Many have very bad reputations and reputations are all I know them by, with one exception.


I do actually have a bit of personal experience with one Trot group, and curiously enough it was the one that had a fairly decent reputation in some circles. That was SPEW often know as just the Socialist Party, but I'll keep referring to them as SPEW because I don't like them being associated with Socialism, and I hope I'll adequately explain why that is below. Here's a list of the times I encountered the Socialist Party in England and Wales.

A mini disclaimer, apart from the last incident this is all from memory and happened several years ago, so do bear in mind that I'm going to be a bit hazy on the details.

In 2011 I was at a UCU picket at the University of Hull, in addition to striking lecturers some local TUC council members, me and a mate we also had a few unaffiliated Socialists and the student section of the SP. It was a standard negotiation picket, a petition to sign support, banners saying UCU and “honk if you support hardworking lecturers” you know, not exactly building the barricades. The Student section turned up with a megaphone, but instead of manning the picket tried to get everyone to form some kind of rally chanting about Cairo and Wisconsin, and some third place I really don’t remember, Athens maybe?. When it didn't work they just left, as in walked off leaving the rest of us very confused. Now that was not a very good first impression, but I just wrote it off as a bunch of over enthusiastic students not really understanding the reality of these things.

A year later in Grimsby the SPEW as a party tried something similar at a Fireman’s Brigade Union protest, they were forcefully told to knock it off or be banned from any other FBU event. It was rather embarrassing; now they just take part in the protest but  afterwards try to encourage people to attend an additional meeting they set up nearby. I've never taken them up on the offer so don't how well attended this side meetings have been but if their election results are any indication the strategy hasn't worked very well.


And when TUSC was formed the group spent months fighting with the local Labour party over control of the Union branches, the fight was purely about officer elections and affiliations, and of course financial support for the local council elections, even though TUSC only put up one candidate a year at the time, though to be fair to them in recent years they've put up a few more.  The attempt failed and back fired pretty badly, since it meant that the few SPEW union branch officers they did have were isolated and had their reputations sunk because the ordinary members resented them wasting time trying to use them for political fights.

This is embarrassing stuff and it didn't endear me to them in anyway, but SPEW are a national organisation and so maybe I've just had some bad luck? Well no, I also have experience through a friend of a friend of an incident when the SPEW as a national organisation behaved in a very disruptive and opportunistic way.



For me the most egregious example of a SPEW highjacking was what happened to the National Shop Stewards Network. I wasn't directly involved in this but friends were so I learnt quite a bit about the group and its breakdown and the role of the SPEW. It was also a very public falling out so I was able to look up a few things and refresh my memory. This for me was the event that soured me on the party as a whole, I don't think I was every really in danger of joining them but it after this it meant I didn't have any time for them at all.

The NSSN was a network for shop stewards in various unions across the country, hence the name. More importantly it had succeeded in growing in some parts beyond a contact list into actual working groups and so had a physical presence. The SP had put a lot of effort into this network that had been founded by the RMT union in 2006 and for awhile had received quite a bit of credit from Trade Union types. However in 2011 it soon became clear that the SPEW were only interested in the NSSN because it was supposed to be just another front for the Party and as such all non SP members ended up resigning.

Effectively killing what had been a fairly active support network for the sake of party strategy. If you go to the NSSN website today its indistinguishable from a leftist blog site, all the news is about demo marches, "building the pressure" and solidarity (best wishes) with groups and people but no actual practical steps for any of them. The only times it does discuss strikes or workplace actions its by Unions on their own at best its a newsletter, about actions going on independently of itself. In contrast the old group was full of updates and news about workplace struggles, like for example the Yorkshire and Humberside bulletin from 2009.

I don’t bring up the NSSN because I have an attachment to it, I don't really. While it was doing some interesting things it remained firmly a creature of the Trade Union movement. Conservative, defensive and dominated by officers and staffers, even though it proclaimed that it's main goal was building the rank and file. I think on balance the old NSSN was better than what it became for whatever that's worth.
No I bring it up because in addition to my tangential connections to the NSSN it exposes the SPEW as just another opportunistic group concerned with its own influence. By the time SPEW had decided to exert controlling influence on the NSSN it had already agreed to join the anti cuts struggle. The problem and the reason for the split revolved around the question of how. The majority non SPEW officers agreed that the NSSN should be part of a wider anti cuts movement independent of any of the other organisations. 

 Source
“The NSSN Conference on 22nd January will feature an important debate about the network's role in the anti-cuts movement, which is likely to be decisive in determining the organisation's future. The meeting of the majority of current NSSN Officers held on 5th January unanimously agreed that the NSSN should seek to build unity between the existing anti-cuts bodies and to oppose any attempt to further fragment the developing but still fragile anti-cuts movement. We urge all NSSN supporters and like minded trade unionists to attend our conference to help ensure that the NSSN plays a positive role in unifying the emerging anti-cuts movement and in building support for the sort of industrial action that will be crucial to beating back the coalition's attacks.”

Emphasis mine.

However SPEW wanted the NSSN to join its own anti cuts organisation that was being setup at the time.

Source

“The purpose of this Conference is to put before shop stewards and workplace reps a proposal to set up a working class trade union based campaign that is able to intervene on a clear no-cuts programme in the forthcoming battles.”

Emphasis mine.

Both sides of the dispute NSSN officers on one side(SPEW blamed one Dave Chapple a CWU shop steward in particular) and the SPEW Executive Committee (which to me is telling*) claimed the opposition was unrepresentative, and while I’m no stranger to a fight between two dishonest groups equally as terrible, after the dispute came to ahead it was followed by mass resignations which does suggest that the NSSN officers did have a majority. Though many of the 80 who left may have been motivated more by anti SPEW feelings than pro NSSN officers feelings.

On the 22^nd of January meeting the SPEW members dominated and forced through their proposal. This meant that from 23^rd of January the NSSN had to work to setup a project of the SPEW, understandably the non SPEW members didn’t feel like working for a political party they weren’t members of and so resigned. And that was all she wrote. This dispute tanked SPEW’s reputation, amongst the trade union constituency, the jewel in the crown for most Trotskyist groups. At least one General Secretary had written an open letter to dissuade them from this plan and the shop stewards informed the rest of the union apparatus. And of course all the other leftist groups wasted no time spreading the information. It’s also clear that the dispute was purely about control, the NSSN had already agreed to resist the public spending cuts in some form so this couldn’t have been motivated by principal, unless we count naked self interest. If the SPEW were genuine in building a powerful anti cuts movement and had no interest in controlling the NSSN they had several options, join an already existing anti-cuts group, or set up their own but keep it independent of the NSSN either option would have allowed them to work with the NSSN on its own terms.

I do feel sorry for the members who put years of effort into the organisation only to have another group wreck it for them. And for any workers who relied upon the NSSN in their workplace struggles because this politicking couldn't have helped. 

A textbook case of highjacking, in hindsight this wasn’t really surprising given that SPEW is the child of Militant. But there you are. I don't really have an overall point here, I just thought it'd be worth sharing my experiences with this group for reference purposes. Though I suppose it might be useful knowledge for anyone interested in joining such an organization. I mean when I first encountered the "Socialist Party" tm I didn't know about their Trotskyist leanings or their dodgy heritage. They talked a good British leftist game about nationalisation and the need for workers militancy etc, which was in tune with my politics at the time.
Fortunately I held off joining until I knew more about them and my education took me in a different direction.


*To elaborate the dispute was publicly between a group of NSSN officers and the SPEW executive committee as a whole and not just the party members who had joined the NSSN. Which confirmed the allegation that the SPEW members were carrying out party orders.

The True Cost of the Royal Family is More Than Pounds and Pence

Youtube educational channel CGP Grey made a video about the Royal Family five years ago, and its below average compared to their usually educational trivia. The poor quality is clearly a result of the presenters bias in favour of the Royal Family, a bias that jumps out of their tone and subject choices.

The first part of the video dealing with the economics of the Royal Family and relations to the rest of the UK (Parliament) is correct though it skips other some interesting and important incidents in that relationship, like the time in 1795 when the Prince of Wales married the Princess of Brunswick and Parliament raised an £65,000 per year to pay off her debts. This was at a time when food riots were common, and starvation threatened thousands of commoners.

But the real issues begin after the video moves beyond this into other areas. Tourism for one, he talks about American tourism and states that it is simply because of the Royal family, and so the Royal Family are responsible for the GDP share that tourism brings in.

This is a common argument trotted out by Monarchists in the rare occasions that the Royal Family is publicly challenged, and as per usual nothing is given to substantiate it.

Because there simply isn't, first US tourists aren't the most common tourists to the UK in 2014 they were in third place behind France (1,980,000) and Germany (1,460,000) with a total of 1,280,000. That's quite a high number but it isn't what is being argued here. And as for why those Americans visit we're given the answer "the Queen". So language and family connections don't factor into this at all hey?

Interestingly in that same year 24 million Americans went to Mexico, and 12 million to Canada, so if governmental systems are the main attractions for tourism and tourist revenue a good reason to keep or change that system, I guess the UK should turn itself into a Federal Republic. Oh and the only thing given as evidence for the importance of the Queen to the Yankee tourist dollar was France. Now according to the statistics I could find, boring Republican Paris is a close second to London, oh and France is global number one travel destination for tourism, having 84 million visitors in 2014. And the UK was beaten by the republican USA, China, Italy, Turkey, and Germany. But Monarchist Spain was third with 65 million tourists so its not all doom and gloom for the Crown.

But enough about tourism, the video gets much worse. At 3:30 the video talks about Royal prerogatives in a dismissive way. Showing a rather simplistic view, yes the Royal Prerogatives are really used by the actual Royal, but they've been used by most governments ever since. A Prerogative is

The Royal Prerogatives are a series of historic powers formally exercised by the monarch acting alone, but which in reality are exercised by government ministers. They enable government ministers to rule virtually by decree, without the backing of or consultation with Parliament, in many areas not covered by statute. A.V Dicey has described the Royal Prerogative as: “the residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority which at any given time is legally left in the hands of the crown”.

In relation to foreign affairs, the powers cover:

• the recognition of foreign states;
• the declaration of war;
• the making of treaties;
• the accreditation of diplomats; and
• the deployment of armed forces in the UK and abroad.

In relation to domestic matters, the powers include:

• the appointment and dismissal of ministers;
• the issuing and withdrawal of passports;
• the appointment of Queen’s Counsel;
• the dissolution of Parliament;
• the granting of honours;
• appointments to, and employment conditions of, the civil service;
• the commissioning and regulation of the armed forces; and
• the calling of elections.*

There is also the prerogative of ‘mercy’, which affects the judicial system. It means that ‘pardons’ can be granted in relation to a criminal conviction (i.e. it used to allow the withdrawal of the death penalty), or legal proceedings can be halted against an individual.

Now these powers are used by the Prime Minister, but that doesn't mean the Monarchy is sqeuky clean, the government is still using autocratic powers to subvert the principle of democracy, and given they do require the public consent of the Monarch of the day, that means the Queen/King is still complicit in these acts.

Thanks to the Royal prerogative the UK government can declare war on a whim, and control the civil service. These are very serious parts of the UK governmental system and they stem directly from the Crown. The video alleges that abolishing the Monarchy wouldn't change much and they may be right Republican movement have sometimes deposed one family simply to build another form of tyranny. But sometimes they have succeeded in granting at least limited freedoms. The fact that Royal Prerogatives come from the Royal family would suggest that an attack on the Royals legitimacy would also attack the legitimacy of its powers.

Then at 4:00 the video takes its final most absurd step by coming up with a hypothetical Queen Elizabeth II as global despot. This suggests that the maker of the video genuinely doesn't understand the institution of Monarchy at all really. The Monarchical system is more than the actual Monarch, human beings do not live for ever and so do not rule forever (Unless your name is Kim). Even if the current Monarch is amazing, that's no guarantee that the rest of them in the future will be.

After all King Edward VIII whom actually appears in the video at 02:04 was a Nazi sympathiser and an agent for the Axis powers.

"The active supporters of the Duke of Windsor within England are those elements known to have inclinations towards Fascist dictatorships, and the recent tour of Germany by the Duke of Windsor and his ostentatious reception by Hitler and his regime can only be construed as a willingness on the part of the Duke of Windsor to lend himself to these tendencies."

 "The American understood he was being asked to carry a message to the President, but he was unsure of the exact terms. As he was leaving the governor general's residence, the duke's aide-de-camp spelt it out. He instructed Oursler to tell the President that if he would make an offer for intervention for peace, before anyone in England could oppose it, the duke would instantly issue a statement supporting the move. It would start a revolution in England and, the duke hoped, lead to peace."

Although funnily enough this absurd hypothetical isn't nearly as absurd or hypothetical as the video maker thinks. The House of Windsor is actually very comfortable with the idea of coups and brutal Monarchies. To take one example the Queen is married to Prince Philip, who as most tabloid readers will know is Greek. Greek royalty to be precise, the Greek Royal  Family remains close to the British family despite the embarrassment of being kicked off the throne in 1973. Constantine II was on the guest list for the Queen's diamond Jubilee before protests by the Greek government got him dropped.

 “Constantine is not allowed to go,” a courtier tells me. “If the Queen could invite whom she liked, of course he would be there.” Constantine attended the Duke of Cambridge’s wedding and is a regular guest at the most important royal events. His sister, Queen Sofia of Spain, has been invited to the luncheon.

Why so much hostility, well Constantine II wasn't happy being a constitutional monarch and decided on a little restoration, in 1967 there was a coup by right wing officers, mostly of the rank of Colonel hence the nickname "Colonel's Coup". The King decided to support them, (many generals and the Navy and Air force were loyal to the royal family). Unfortunately by December the relationship between the King and the Junta broke down, so the King decided to run his own coup using the officers and units loyal to him. The counter coup failed miserable merely strengthening the Junta's position so the King and his family fled to Rome. In 1974 the people of Greece would show their appreciation for the King's politicking and the regime it helped create by voting for a republic.





But that was Greece and decades ago, well at the time The Queen with the rest of the government backed the Junta even after the hapless Constantine had fled. Also on the Jubilee guest list were the King's of Romania and Bulgaria. Two houses that supported brutal genocide and oppression in the 20th century.

 Between 1941 and 1944, Romania was responsible for exterminating approximately 300,000 Jews, giving it the sinister distinction of ranking second only to Germany in terms of the number of Jews murdered during the Second World War.

The new legal policy, dictated by the governments of King Carol II and Marshall Ion Antonescu, discriminated against the Jews of Transylvania and Banat, among other groups, on the basis of citizenship. Moreover, it confirmed the intention to apply a "detailed plan" of deportation of the Jews from the above-mentioned areas (The Archive of the Jewish Communities of Timisoara, Doc. 76-78, 1943). Negotiations for these deportations began in November 1941 and were resumed in the spring and summer of 1942. All attempts to persuade the authorities to change this policy failed. An existing prejudice towards Jews as an ethnic group - according to which the Jews of Southern Transylvania could become spies or betray the Romanian interests as speakers of Hungarian and German - played an important role in the hostility against them. - See more at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/236-between-hungary-and-romania-the-case-the-southern-transylvanias-jews-during-the#sthash.ulNcVCMV.dpuf

The new legal policy, dictated by the governments of King Carol II and Marshall Ion Antonescu, discriminated against the Jews of Transylvania and Banat, among other groups, on the basis of citizenship. Moreover, it confirmed the intention to apply a "detailed plan" of deportation of the Jews from the above-mentioned areas (The Archive of the Jewish Communities of Timisoara, Doc. 76-78, 1943). Negotiations for these deportations began in November 1941 and were resumed in the spring and summer of 1942. All attempts to persuade the authorities to change this policy failed. An existing prejudice towards Jews as an ethnic group - according to which the Jews of Southern Transylvania could become spies or betray the Romanian interests as speakers of Hungarian and German - played an important role in the hostility against them. - See more at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/236-between-hungary-and-romania-the-case-the-southern-transylvanias-jews-during-the#sthash.ulNcVCMV.dpuf

The new legal policy, dictated by the governments of King Carol II and Marshall Ion Antonescu, discriminated against the Jews of Transylvania and Banat, among other groups, on the basis of citizenship. Moreover, it confirmed the intention to apply a "detailed plan" of deportation of the Jews from the above-mentioned areas (The Archive of the Jewish Communities of Timisoara, Doc. 76-78, 1943). Negotiations for these deportations began in November 1941 and were resumed in the spring and summer of 1942. All attempts to persuade the authorities to change this policy failed. An existing prejudice towards Jews as an ethnic group - according to which the Jews of Southern Transylvania could become spies or betray the Romanian interests as speakers of Hungarian and German - played an important role in the hostility against them. - See more at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/236-between-hungary-and-romania-the-case-the-southern-transylvanias-jews-during-the#sthash.ulNcVCMV.dpuf

Oh and there was a time when a commonwealth government was overthrown by the military in 1975 that had no protests or condemnation. That nation was the little known Australia, and the reasons for the coup involved the royal relationship.

 Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

 Sir John Kerr, the Governor General (the crown's representative to Australia) with the support of MI6 and the CIA deposed the elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlam using the powers of the Crown.

 The democratic process destroyed using the powers of the Monarch. Every Monarchist should ask themselves, if the Queen is happy to hobknob with brutal autocrats, and have her powers used to topple elected governments, would she really be opposed to the same happening here?

Of course the greatest fault of the video is that the whole thing is a massive strawman. The objections to the continuation of the Monarchical system are not those presented in the video. Here's what Republic the largest and most prominent Republican group in Britain has to say on the matter.

It's simple: Hereditary public office goes against every democratic principle.

And because we can’t hold the Queen and her family to account at the ballot box, there’s nothing to stop them abusing their privilege, misusing their influence or simply wasting our money.

Meanwhile, the monarchy gives vast arbitrary power to the government, shutting voters out from major decisions affecting the national interest.  The Queen can only ever act in the interests of the government of the day and does not represent ordinary voters.

The monarchy is a broken institution. A head of state that’s chosen by us could really represent our hopes and aspirations – and help us keep politicians in check.

It's simple: Hereditary public office goes against every democratic principle.
And because we can’t hold the Queen and her family to account at the ballot box, there’s nothing to stop them abusing their privilege, misusing their influence or simply wasting our money.
Meanwhile, the monarchy gives vast arbitrary power to the government, shutting voters out from major decisions affecting the national interest.  The Queen can only ever act in the interests of the government of the day and does not represent ordinary voters.
The monarchy is a broken institution. A head of state that’s chosen by us could really represent our hopes and aspirations – and help us keep politicians in check.
- See more at: https://republic.org.uk/what-we-want#sthash.sJ6Vh5Jy.dpuf

And in not one second of this video are these costs of the monarchy responded too.

*We now have fixed terms of five years, however there are two exceptions for an earlier election and they both require the consent of the ruling Monarch. 

Donald Trump and the American Working Class

The American elections are heating up, but I'm not going to talk about that here, instead I wish to talk about something that I feel is far more instructive to what we can expect from a Trump Presidency. Personally speaking I think the best measure of a politicians intentions real values, and leadership style and priorities is by their actions and not their rhetoric. To hell with "I'm _______ and I approve this message" and the obligatory "Paid for by a committee that's backing a rival to the politician we've just been attacking". Actions speak louder than words, or at least they should. Strangely politics is the one area where this isn't always true.

Now longtime readers will know I've opposed Donald Trump on principal for a number of years, I still think his actions in Scotland and Aberdeen in particular expose the man's priorities, ruining the lives of the local population so he can build another shrine to his own vanity. But today I have another example, Mr Trump is a businessman, and like all good capitalists he has a workforce. This workforce is organising because because Trump and his management haven't quite got around to making his own workforce great at all, never mind again.

I am a housekeeper at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. This past December, a majority of employees like me at Trump Las Vegas voted YES to a union. But Trump's company has refused listen to us and honor the results of our election.
Instead, they've blocked negotiations through legal challenges – which so far have gone nowhere. A federal officer recently recommended that the company’s list of objections be "overruled in their entirety" – and that the NLRB certify the union.Instead of sitting down to negotiate a fair contract, Trump company lawyers are still fighting to overturn the election.
If Donald Trump wants to “Make America Great Again,” he should start by negotiating a deal with his us – his Las Vegas hotel employees – just like his company did for workers at Trump Toronto in Canada.
Just last year, Trump workers in Canada voted for a union and have since negotiated their first contract – a deal that gives workers much like us a chance to provide for their families, keep their kids healthy, enjoy job protections and security, and one day retire with dignity.

Even the smallest slither of a concession from a businessman takes month's even years of organising and campaigning before it'll even come close to seeing the light of day. Toronto has organised successfully but the upper management stubbornly resist its spread.

This week Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas is facing more heat for its labor record. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued another federal complaint against Trump Ruffin Commercial, LLC, alleging that the company unlawfully terminated one employee and discriminated against another based on their union support, and promised employees job opportunities if they abandoned the union.
Trump’s company has driven an aggressive anti-union campaign since workers began organizing at the Trump Las Vegas in 2014.  The complaint issued this week is the third one brought by federal government against Trump Las Vegas alleging unfair labor practices. In prior complaints, federal officials have alleged that Trump’s hotel company engaged in the following unlawful activities: 1) maintaining rules prohibiting workers from communicating with one another and the public; 2) interrogations and surveillance; 3) intimidation of employees by Trump management and security staff, including a manager physically pushing employees; and 4) suspensions and a threat to fire union supporters.

 Trump's company treats its own workforce like hostile children in need of control and harassment. The concessions made to the Canadian workforce are welcome, but I can't help noticing that the darling of American Nationalism treats foreign workers better than those from the Fatherland, but to be fair to the man cross class rhetoric combined with anti worker policies are standard practice with all major nationalist movements, so he's really just going along with the flow here.


I mean he's not been coy about demonising migrant workers and taking a patriotic guise to American Labor, which is probably why he's been attracting so much support from those white supremacists and ghosts, and yet his actions and the actions of his company say the opposite.

Reuters reports that in just the last month Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida applied for 70 visas for foreign workers because they could be paid lower wages than American workers, even as Trump hit the campaign trail denigrating Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers. Since 2000, Trump-affiliated companies have sought 1,100 temporary visas for foreign workers, and most of the requested vias were approved.

The Las Vegas workers took part in the protests in Chicago


If Trump is this callous and dismissive of his own workforce, the very people who made his fortune that he's now using to run a Presidential campaign, then how will he react towards American workers whom haven't done anything for him?

His workers already live under a Trump Presidency, as the capitalist he controls their means of existence and daily routines,  they know what his policies are like and most of them hate it, this should be very instructive to the entire American population, and yet I don't belief its received much coverage.

Oh and if your reading this and are American and don't like Donald Trump much, then I urge you to support the workers of Donald Trump's companies in their protests and organisation attempts, no matter what happened come election day a stronger more combative workforce in Trumps corporate empire will only be an improvement. Of course everyone should be doing this for all workers everywhere but given the situation giving extra support to Trump staff makes sense.