Damning with Faint Praise - Watching G-Saviour

 

 I had two hours of free time and nothing to fill it, while contemplating nothing my mind dug up the film G-Saviour, so I tracked it down and watched it. Writing about G-Saviour (I'm calling Saviour) is going to do my analytics any favours, despite a big push at the time of its release it's falling into obscurity and the few who know of it have few nice words to say about it. The G stands for Gundam, though the word Gundam is never said in the film at all. Saviour is a 1999 Canadian TV movie set in the Gundam IP, the Universal Century(UC)* timeline to be precise. That's a very strange sentence, it failed to find an audience in North America on its release and I haven't been able to find evidence that it was released in Europe before its 2002 DVD release, and I'm not sure whether that was just fans importing American region DVDs. 

I first heard of it in 2019ish, when a several anime news blogs cause a mini-panic in the Gundam fanbase by reporting that there were feelers being put out to make a Gundam movie in Hollywood. 

*The UC is the continuity that the first Gundam shows and novels were set in, and is considered the default Gundam continuity among fans and Sunrise, the company that makes most of the animated shows. American movies based on Japanese source material have some hits, like Road to Perdition, but there are many more duds. The news did give some exposure to the existence of Saviour, with most mentions using it as a warning of what to expect if the deal went through. And it's been kicking around in the back of my mind ever since. What little I had heard about the project left me morbidly curious and expecting a terrible 90 minutes. Instead, I got a perfectly fine experience. Not great, not terrible.

It's a fairly competent and typical 90s film pilot to pitch a sci-fi series. None of the actors convince you they're space marines, scientists, political leaders etc. But none of the performers come across as miscast, I would liken the experience to watching a stage play dramatizing real events, you know you're watching actors on sets, they just do their jobs of telling a story. Among the cast no one stands out as bad or good, Blu Mankuma comes closest to living his role as the benevolent leader of his space colony, but he doesn't have enough screen time and material to work with. Everyone else is fine, the weakest in the main cast is Saviour's Char Aznable, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Halle played by David Longren. He's serviceable as a military bad guy, but he falls flat when he's supposed to be swaggering.

Had this been taken on as a full series, I can see the cast ironing out the wrinkles and improving with more screen time and plot development. With what we got, it's perfectly satisfactory. The effects do not wow, the film is live action except for vehicles and mobile suits (the mechas). The CG animation is on par with what a production like Saviour could expect in 1999. Babylon 5's CG effects were usually better, though I've seen many productions, some made a decade later, that look worse. The main flaw with the CG effects isn't the graphics or the animation, it's the editing. There is one battle segment in the film, it is impossible to follow.  The battle is outside a space colony, and all the shots are tight close-ups on one or two mobile suits and then a hard cut to an actor in a chair with an ill-fitting helmet shaking around trying to react appropriately to whatever was storyboarded for the CG bits. The whole sequence is confusing, you cannot follow the battle, and the few bits of action that are shown are slow and lack weight. 

There is one exception I would like to highlight. The film starts underwater, there the mobile suit sequence looked at its best. I think the water filter masked the 90s computer glow that plagued contemporary CG animation, and being set underwater did a lot to justify the ponderous movement of the mechs.

The plot is also serviceable, the setting is in the future, UC 0223 according to the opening credit voice over, which is in the future for most of Gundam as well. Mankind is still divided, the lines are roughly drawn between the Congressionals who control Earth and settlements in space, colonies including one called Gaea. The political situation is deteriorating due to a food crisis, the crisis is so severe that a radical plan to turn the seabed into agricultural zones. And agriculture and a scientific breakthrough are key to the conflict for the film. Scientists from the Congress and Gaea have cracked how to grow crops in the sea, and there's a conspiracy to control this key technology and resource.

Our Amuro Rey is Jack Curran (Brennan Elliot) can he rise above self-interest and fear and is what right? Will he successfully pilot the Gundam G-Saviour to save his friends and defeat the deadly Jack Halle? I won't spoil it, hell, chances are good you've already correctly guessed those answers. When the credits were rolling, I thought the Gundam connections were weak and could've easily been excised with original IP replacements. They don't even call the Gundam a Gundam, and it has no connection to any pre-existing Gundam storyline. I thought this was TV movie already in pre-production for a unique Sci-fi property, the genre was big business in the 90s, and Sunrise stepped in with some financial and technical assistance in exchange for using the film to promote its long-running franchise that still had trouble breaking into the North American market.

Everything seemed to fit that premise. The Canadian television production, the tacked on feel of the Gundam elements, the lack of connection or references to anything that came before, a setting so far away from the rest of the franchise there was no danger of it muddying the waters for other projects. The lack of follow up or push to include it or build upon it in following years. It ticked every box.

So, I was surprised when I went to the film's wikipages, both main and Gundam entries to double-check that my memory was accurate for Saviour, and discovered that I was completely wrong. The film had been in production for at least two years and was not only part of a multimedia project including a video game, novelisation and manga, but that it was part of Sunrise's 20th anniversary celebrations for the franchise, together with the anime series Turn-A Gundam. There went my theory, crashing into earth.

That was the last thing I expected. The film was released in cinemas in Japan, which didn't surprise me, Gundam is a massive property in that country. But all the rest of it, the tie-in video game, novels and manga were surprising, that meant Sunrise was heavily involved in this thing. Why make a multimedia project where the main property is made by another company, Canada's Polestar, and has little connection to greater franchise and all the rest of the project is Japan only? I do not understand the logic behind this at all, who was then was the target audience for Saviour? An international audience can't have been the main target, most of the products weren't available in their markets. And I can't imagine Japanese audiences already on board with Gundam got much out of the film. Making a Gundam film with little connective tissue to the wider franchise does make sense if the intent is to entice a new audience, and Sunrise had success with this before Saviour, creating new Gundam properties that could stand on their own, some that weren't even in the UC continuity. But apparently their main target was the audience they already had. 

Saviour is extremely obscure, it doesn't have many fans. My faint praise puts me in that small camp. And even though I grew up on sci-fi shows with the feel and sensibility of Saviour, I wouldn't have bothered tracking it down without the Gundam connection. I don't understand much about the G-Saviour project, but I do understand why the film failed to catch an audience, its ram shackle construction leaves little for anyone. If there was a target audience for G-Saviour, it was probably me, just me. And I didn't live in North America nor Japan. I was busy watching Babylon 5, Star Trek, Sea Quest DSV, Sliders, X-Files, repeats of Doctor Who and Anime movies on a German language channel broadcast from Frankfurt. I'm reminded of an old saying, "try to please everyone, and you'll disappoint everyone".

Text of the Soviet acknowledgment of the existence of secret agreements with Nazi Germany

 

Text of the Soviet acknowledgment of the existence of secret agreements with Nazi Germany

CONGRESS OF PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES OF THE USSR
DECISION
of December 24, 1989 N 979-1
ON POLITICAL AND LEGAL EVALUATION
OF THE SOVIET-GERMAN NON-AGGRESSION PACT
FROM 1939
 

1. The Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR takes note of the conclusions of the commission on political and legal evaluation of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939.
 

2. The Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR agrees with the opinion of the Commission that the Non-Aggression Treaty with Germany was concluded in a critical international situation, in the face of increasing danger of aggression by Fascism in Europe and Japanese militarism in Asia, and had as one of its aims to take away from the USSR the threat of an impending war. Ultimately, this goal was not achieved, and the miscalculations associated with the presence of German obligations to the USSR, exacerbated the consequences of treacherous Nazi aggression. At this time the country was faced with difficult choices.
The obligations under the treaty came into force immediately after its signing, although the treaty itself was subject to approval by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The decree of ratification was adopted in Moscow on August 31, and the instruments of ratification were exchanged on September 24, 1939.
 

3. The Congress considers that the contents of that treaty were not incompatible with the rules of international law and the treaty practice of States in making treaty settlements of this kind. But both at the conclusion of the treaty and at its ratification the fact was concealed that simultaneously with the treaty a "secret additional protocol" had been signed, delimiting the "spheres of interests" of the contracting parties from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, from Finland to Bessarabia.
The originals of the protocol have not been found in Soviet or foreign archives. However the graphological, phototechnical and lexical examination of the copies, maps and other documents, the correspondence of the subsequent events to the content of the protocol confirm the fact of its signing and existence.

4. The Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR hereby certifies that the Treaty of Non-Aggression of August 23, 1939, and the Treaty of Friendship and Boundary between the USSR and Germany concluded on September 28th of that year, as well as other Soviet-German agreements, in accordance with the rules of international law, lost force at the moment of the German attack on the USSR, that is June 22, 1941.
 

5. The Congress states that the Protocol of August 23, 1939, and other secret protocols signed with Germany in 1939-1941, both in method of drafting and in content, were a departure from the Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy. Delimitation of "spheres of interest" of the USSR and Germany and other actions taken in them were from the legal point of view in contradiction with the sovereignty and independence of a number of third countries.
The Congress notes that at that time the relations of the USSR with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were regulated by a system of treaties. According to the peace treaties of 1920 and the non-aggression treaties of 1926-1933, their parties undertook to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and inviolability in all circumstances. The Soviet Union had similar obligations towards Poland and Finland.
 

6. The Congress states that the negotiations with Germany on secret protocols were conducted by Stalin and Molotov in secret from the Soviet people, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) and the entire Party, the Supreme Soviet and the USSR Government, these protocols were excluded from the ratification procedures. Thus, the decision to sign them was, in substance and form, an act of personal power, and in no way reflected the will of the Soviet people, who are not responsible for this conspiracy.
 

7. The Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR condemns the signing of the "secret additional protocol" of August 23, 1939 and other secret agreements with Germany. The Congress recognizes the secret protocols as legally invalid and null and void from the moment of their signing.
The protocols did not create a new legal basis for relations between the Soviet Union and third countries, but were used by Stalin and his entourage to issue ultimatums and exert forceful pressure on other states in violation of the legal obligations undertaken before them.
 

8. The Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR assumes that awareness of the complex and contradictory past is part of the process of perestroika, designed to provide every people of the Soviet Union with opportunities for free and equal development in an integral, interdependent world and expanding mutual understanding.
Chairman
Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. GORBACHEV

[Translated from Russian by DeepL, bolding my own]

Bakunin for anti-Imperialists by Arthur Lehning

 

Author Biography

Paul Arthur Müller-Lehning (1899-2000), born in Utrecht,
the Netherlands, was an anarchist and syndicalist from
the 1920s. Involved in the Anti-Militarist Bureau and the
syndicalist International Workingmen’s Association, he
fled Nazi Germany for the Netherlands in 1933. In 1935, he
helped found the International Institute for Social History
(IISH), which includes the Mikhail Bakunin archives, and
the Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels papers. In 1940, he fled
to Britain when the Nazis invaded. He retained some
influence after his return to Europe. A prolific writer and
editor, his masterwork was the edited works of Bakunin,
published in French in 1976.

 

The Use of Reading Bakunin for Anti-Imperialists

On imperialism itself, [Mikhail] Bakunin [1814-1876] has nothing specifically
to say. That is not strange, because imperialism in its modern form had not
yet appeared; besides, opposition to imperialism by a revolutionary is a rather
obvious thing. But I think Bakunin’s writings can be useful to anti-imperialists
in several ways. Firstly, on account of the general view held by Bakunin about
the essence of the revolutionary struggle and his conceptions about federalism
and the state. Secondly, on account of his activities in the eighteen forties.

As far as the last point is concerned, it is clear that I don’t wish to stress it too
much. All historical parallels can be abusive. However, it is not abusive to point
out the similarities between various kinds of Nineteenth Century nationalism
and anti-imperialism in our time. This is not only because a great deal of today’s
anti-imperialist fight is carried out on nationalist platforms, but also on account
of the intensity with which the banner of then and that of today monopolise
the attention of men with radical consciousness. In this respect, Bakunin has
important things to say.

Bakunin from Nationalism to Anarchism

Bakunin’s so-called “revolutionary Pan-Slavism” in the 1840s is usually
misunderstood. In his famous Appeal to the Slavs (1848) he advocated a coalition
between the Slavs of Austria, the Hungarians and the democratic Germans in
order to liquidate the Austrian Empire and to coalesce with the Poles for an
independent Poland and a revolution in Russia. He hoped that a Slav Federation
would encourage the Slavs to take part in the struggle the revolution was waging
throughout Europe. The social liberation of the masses and the emancipation
of the suppressed nationalities should, in the view he then held, lead to
a universal federation of European republics.

After the failure of the Polish insurrection [for independence – Ed.] of 1863,
however, Bakunin no longer believed in using the banner of nationalism
for social revolutionary aims. By 1864 he had definitely formulated the
philosophical, political and socialist ideas which are associated with his name.
From then on he would defend social revolution on an international scale, and
reject every form of nationalism. Nationality is not a principle, he wrote, it is
a fact, as legitimate as individuality. But neither peace nor the unification of
Europe would be possible as long as the centralized states continued to exist.

Fighting Imperialism, but not through
Nationalism

The point I wish to make is that yesterday’s nationalist faith, like the anti-
imperialist dedication of many present-day revolutionaries, though deserving
our admiration, can be insidious and lead to dangerously wrong conclusions –
such as that by putting an end to imperialist domination the revolution will be
achieved and the way towards socialism be paved.

No one will deny the importance of analysing modern forms of imperialism,
but it is not less important to be cautious about the methods to be used in this
fight if one wants to prevent replacing imperialist domination by a national
form of exploitation and despotism. This, of course, involves the fundamental
question of what means to employ to achieve the aim of socialism and freedom;
and experience allows us to say that the end of imperialism and the destruction
of capitalism in a given country does not necessarily solve the problem of
oppression.

We may ask meaningfully the capital question whether the instauration of some
kind of revolutionary state brings us any nearer to a real socialist society. I don’t
intend to try to answer it here, only to insist that it is not an academic question
as much as it seems. Few people will deny the fact that in the so-called socialist
countries the state is not withering away, but there might still be some who
think that their regimes may easier pave its way. This, however, may be doubted
in the light of the dominating trend of these countries and in that of the history
of the last five decades.

Imperialism and Statism Versus Socialism

Bakunin’s view has importance also in that it does not see a break between
nationalism and imperialism, state domination inland and abroad. Marx and
the Marxists considered imperialism primarily as a consequence of capitalism,
Bakunin saw it as a consequence of strong states and centralized power.
Obviously, there are imperialist campaigns in the twentieth century that cannot
be explained in terms of economic forces. Although Bakunin agreed with most
of the Marxist analysis of the economic system, he did not believe that socialism
could be achieved by centralizing power, in which hand it ever was.
Modern capitalist production and banking speculation, Bakunin wrote, demand
for their full development, an advanced centralised state apparatus. The modern
state is necessarily a military state in its aims, and a military state is driven on
by the very same logic, to become a conquering state. A strong state can only
have one foundation: military and bureaucratic centralisation. Every state, even
if dressed up in the most liberal and democratic form, is necessarily based upon
domination and violence, that is upon despotism – concealed despotism, but not
less dangerous.

For Bakunin, equality without liberty was an irredeemable fraud, “perpetuated
by deceivers to deceive fools”. Equality must be created by “the spontaneous
organisation of the work and the common property of the manufacturing
associations and by the equally spontaneous federation of the communities,
not by the supreme and paternal activity of the state”. Equality without liberty
meant for him the despotism of the state, and in his opinion the state cannot
survive for a single day without “possessing an exploiting and privileged class:
the bureaucracy”. The conspiracy of Babeuf and all similar attempts to establish
a socialist society were bound to fail, because in all these systems equality
was associated with the power and authority of the state and in consequence
excluded liberty.

The most sinister alliance imaginable would combine socialism and absolutism
– that is to say, the aspirations of the people for economic liberation and material
prosperity with dictatorship and the concentration of all political and social
forces in the state:

“May the future preserve us from the benevolence of despotism, and
may it also save us from the damaging and stultifying consequences of
authoritarian, doctrinaire or institutional socialism. Let us be socialists,
but let us never become sheep. Let us seek justice, complete political,
economic and social justice, but without any sacrifice of liberty. There
can be no life, no humanity without liberty, and a form of socialism
which excluded liberty or did not accept it as a basis and as the only
creative principle, would lead us straight back to slavery and bestiality”.

People’s Power or State Power

For these reasons, Bakunin opposed the belief that a social revolution can be
decreed and organised by a dictatorship or by a constituent assembly set up
by a political revolution. Only after the abolition of the state – the first, the
essential condition for real freedom – can society be reorganized, but not from
above, not according to some visionary plan, nor by decrees spewed forth by
some dictatorial power. This would simply lead, again, to the establishment of
a state and to the formation of a ruling “aristocracy”, i.e. a whole class of people
who have nothing in common with the masses and who will begin to exploit
and suppress the people all over again, under the pretence of acting in the
general interest, or in order to save the state. “The victory of the Jacobins or
the Blanquists [bourgeois and socialist revolutionaries advocating dictatorship
– Ed.] would mean the death of the revolution”.

The Great [French] Revolution, which for the first time in history had proclaimed
the liberty of citizens and men, by making itself the heir of the monarchy which it
had destroyed, revived at the same time this negation of all liberty, centralisation
and omnipotence of the state. “Seventy-five years of sad and harsh experience”,
Bakunin wrote to a Frenchman in 1868:

“spent in sterile tossing between a freedom that was several times
recovered and always lost again, and state despotism ever more victorious,
have proved to France and the world that in 1793 your Girondins were
right against your Jacobins. Robespierre, Saint-Just, Carnot, Couthon,
Cambon and so many other citizens of the Montagne were great
and pure patriots, but it is nonetheless true that they established the
machine of government, that formidable centralisation of the state,
which made the military dictatorship of Napoleon I possible, natural,
necessary, and which, having survived all subsequent revolutions, by no
means diminished but rather preserved, cosseted and developed by the
Restoration and by the July Monarchy as by the Republic of 1848, was
bound to lead ultimately to the destruction of all your liberties”.

Democracy from Below: Collectives, Assemblies,

Delegates, Militias

A radical revolution can only be brought about by an attack on the institutions
and by the destruction of property and its associate, the state. Then it will not
be necessary to destroy people and thereby provoke the inevitable reaction
which the massacre of the people always causes in every society.

That is, for Bakunin, the great secret of revolution. It must begin with the
dissolution of the state; the disbanding of the army and the police; the abolition
of the courts; the burning of all bonds, bills and securities; the repeal of those
bourgeois laws which sanction private property, and their replacement by
expropriation. The entire social capital – including public buildings, raw
materials, the property owned by church and state – should be put in the hands
of the workers’ organizations. At the outbreak of the revolution the community
should be organized by the “Permanent Federation of the Barricades”. The
council of the revolutionary community should consist of one or two delegates
from each barricade, one from each street or suburb; these deputies, with a
binding mandate, should always be responsible, and subject to recall.

Bakunin did not mean that there could be a revolution without violence, but
that this should be directed against institutions rather than against persons.
The revolution should, however, not develop a new authority, i.e. the right to
coerce. Those who carry out the repression will do so with the approval of the
revolutionaries; this is the only legitimation for violence should be short and
not lead to an organization invested with authority to repress. In all his writings
Bakunin rejected the idea of a “revolutionary government”, of “Committees of
Public Safety”, including the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat”. For such
a new authority, such a “proletarian state”, in theory representing the workers,
would lead in practice to a new ruling class.

Revolution means to overthrow the state, because social revolution must put an
end to the old system of organization based upon violence, giving full liberty to
the masses, groups, communes and associations, and likewise to the individuals
themselves. It would destroy once and for all the historic cause of all violence,
the power and the very existence of the state, the downfall of which will carry
down with it all the iniquities of juridical right and all the falsehoods of the
various religious cults, that simply are the consecration, ideal as well as real, of
all the violence represented, guaranteed and furthered by the state.

The Need for the Revolutionary Idea

Poverty and despondency are not sufficient to provoke a social revolution. They
may lead to local revolts, but are inadequate to arouse whole masses of people.
Only when the people are stirred by a universal idea evolving from the depths
of the folk instinct and clariϐied by events and experience, when people have a
general idea of their rights, revolution can take place.

One cannot aim at destruction without having at least a remote conception of
the new order that should succeed to the one extent; and the more vividly that
future is visualized, the more powerful is the force of destruction. The nearer
such visualization approaches the truth, that is the more it conforms to the
necessary development of the actual social world, the more salutary are the
results of destructive action, determined not only by the degree of its intensity
but also by the means it takes to reach the positive ideal. Exploitation and
oppression are not merely economic and political, and would therefore not be
automatically abolished by a conquest of political power and the organization of
the new economic system. They have one common source: authority.

Bakunin held the view that every dictatorship could have no aim but that of
self-perpetuation and that it could beget only slavery in the people tolerating it.
Freedom can only be created by freedom. The new social organization should
be set up by the free integration of workers’ associations, villages, communes
and regions from below upwards, conforming to the needs and instincts of the
people.

Globalisation from Below

That was what Bakunin meant by federalism. Smaller groups should federate into
greater units. Of course he was well aware that a certain economic centralization
was inevitable, as a consequence of the development of large scale production,
but he rejected the view that these problems could only be solved by political
centralisation. He insisted on the need of collective ownership of property and
argued that if the authoritarian state, with its unnatural centralisation, would
become the basis of social organisation, the unavoidable result would be the
destruction of the liberty of individual man and of smaller groups, and this
would lead to new exploitation and to endless wars.

In Bakunin’s theory, free productive associations, having become their own
masters, would expand one day beyond national frontiers and form one vast
economic federation, with a parliament informed by detailed statistics on
a world scale, that would decide and distribute the output of world industry
among the various countries, so that there would be no longer or hardly ever
industrial crisis, stagnation, disasters and waste of capital: human labour,
emancipation, each and every man would regenerate the world.

Working Class and Peasant Revolution

Contrary to Marx, Bakunin generally regarded the peasants as a revolutionary
force, though historically the essential role belonged to the proletarians of the
cities. In his Letters to a Frenchman, written two months after the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian war [1870] and in which Bakunin exposed his views
on the way the revolutionary movement had to take, he gave practical advice
how to overcome the antagonism between workers and peasants. Their fatal
antagonism had to be eliminated, otherwise the revolution would be paralysed.
It would be necessary to undermine in fact, and not in words, the authority of
the state.

Bakunin advocated that delegates should be sent to the villages to promote a
revolutionary movement amongst the peasants. Communism or collectivism
should not be imposed on them, even if the workers had enough power to do so,
because such an authoritarian communism would need the regularly organized
violence of the state, and this would lead to the re-establishment of authority
and a new privileged class. The revolutionary authorities – and there should
be as few of them as possible – must promote the revolution not by issuing
decrees but by stirring the masses to action. They must under no circumstances
foist any artiϐicial organisation whatsoever upon the masses. On the contrary,
they should foster the self-organisation of the masses into autonomous bodies,
federated from the bottom upward.

States are not progressive forces

Bakunin differed from Marx and Engels not only with regard to the role of the
Slavs, but also in his appreciation of the political future of Europe, and he was
far from agreeing with them that [Prince Otto von] Bismarck [Prussian founder
of the German Empire – Ed.] and Victor Emmanuel [King of Italy – Ed.] in their
striving towards unification of their respective countries did useful work for
socialism. On 20 July 1870 Marx wrote to Engels: “If the Prussians are victorious
the centralization of state power will be useful to the centralisation of the
German working class”. And a few weeks later Engels replied that Bismarck
now, as in 1866, did “a part of our job”.

National unity with its consequences of political and economic centralisation
was, in the opinion of Marx, a prerequisite of socialism. According to Marxian
dialectics, the capture of the centralised state by a working class organized in
a political party would open up towards socialism and the ultimate “withering
away” of the state. In this context, the predominance of Marx’s theory, that
is his conception of this historical process, became itself an element and a
precondition of this process.

Bakunin understood this basic concept perfectly well but did not agree
with it. “What has made us reject this system”, he wrote, pointing to
revolutionary authorities, liberty directed from above, “is that it leads directly
to the establishment of a new set of great national states, would be separate
and necessarily rivals and hostile to each other, and to the negation of
internationalism”.

Bakunin feared that this development would lead to a new Caesarism [a
militaristic order headed by a strongman, involving a cult of personality – Ed.],
and after the Franco-Prussian War he predicted an era of ceaseless wars and
the danger of a Prusso-Germanisation of Europe. Two years before his death
he wrote: “Bismarckism, that is militarism, the police and financial monopoly
merged into a single whole, namely the modern state, is everywhere victorious.
Conceivably, this powerful and scientific negation of all that is human may
continue triumphant for another ten or fifteen years”.

Certainly, this triumph has been rampant for more than a century, and is still
very much alive.

Mikhail Bakunin Biography

A world-famous revolutionary, Bakunin was involved in
pro-democracy and anti-imperialist movements in the
1840s. Jailed in 1849, he was sentenced to death twice,
in both cases commuted to life imprisonment. After long,
brutal years in various prisons, he was exiled to Siberia.
After a dramatic escape in 1861, he made his way to
Western Europe. Here he was increasingly involved in the
rising workers’ and socialist movement. In the International
Workingmen’s Association, founded 1864, he helped found
the anarchist and syndicalist movement, clashing with
Karl Marx. Bakunin always retained his deep opposition
to imperialism. As an anarchist, however, he insisted it be
combined with a revolutionary class struggle to create a
self-managed, international, free, socialist and stateless
society from below. Otherwise, independence would be
hijacked by local ruling classes, the masses left in chains
and still exploited.

Plain text version created from a pamphlet scanned by Zabalaza.

A Memorial for Twitter

 

 Well, it looks like Musk may finally have killed twitter, with rate limits causing yet another exodus to new pastures and some old ones. Currently, the site is still chugging along like an old car that's in danger of shaking itself apart at every bump and pothole. Will it collapse for good this time? I don't know, I think its wheels will keep spinning for a few more "genius" reforms from the new management, though what made the site a place I wanted to spend more time than was healthy is slipping away.

I was one of those odd individuals who enjoyed twitter, but I was never starry eyed about it. Musk has been a disaster for Twitter, which was to be expected really, the man has been a disaster with everything he's touched as far as I can tell. But even back in the BE (Before Elon) era the site had many problems. As a platform for discussion it's always been terrible, the character limits kill attempts to demonstrate nuance and balance, sure you can add another tweet adding context or a generous concession, but you're lucky if a tenth of the people seeing the first tweet bother even glancing at the second. It seems like it was designed from the beginning as a mechanism for group think, interactions showing support the like/fav, the retweet and the comment space are only useful for telling its algorithm you want more content like that which overtime limits the diversity of the feed. And conversely the best way to highlight negativity or opposition is the quote tweet mechanic which is an effective means of broadcasting heretics to your supporters for attacks and hostility.

Despite its structural drawbacks, I found the site very useful. As a sort of newswire service I found a lot of information that is ignored by the large institutional media, Anarchists in Ethiopia, feminists in Japan, radical Union campaigns and direct action protests throughout the UK etc. And over time was able to connect with some interesting people from around the world. And in addition, there was also a very interesting phenomenon that I was able to take part in. Twitter with its international audience and usage as an information service led to an organic network of translators. News and blogs that appeared in one language were often boosted by followers who spoke more languages and would translate it. The unusually large Esperanto speaking user base were very good at this, and I played a small part translating information into English for a wider reach. It did also help that I learnt to stop rolling in the mud of twitters negative sides, instead of multiple thread arguments I'll just share some contrary information and then mute the thread, either they'll take it on board or they won't, let nature take its course.

And having used Twitter quite a bit from 2017-now, I can say with certainty that in my experience the service was taking small steps to address some of its worst problems. Its reporting system became more comprehensive and precise, so reactionary bigots, bullies and stalkers who knew not to swear in plain text or use the slurs most well known in the USA were increasingly getting caught. There were still many right wing celebrities using the platform to boost their outreach, but little by little the line crossing was getting too much and a few of them were being shutdown. And that process accelerated during the COVID pandemic since many of them pivoting to vaccine conspiracy talk.  I don't wish to oversell these steps, none of the well known problems with Twitter were solved completely, but for a time it looked like a process of correcting some of the worst parts of the service had begun. 

Then Elon Musk bought the company and quickly reversed what limited progress had been made. On the 28th of October last year, management changed hands at the blue bird headquarters. And things quickly turned to shit. I don't subscribe to the Great Men theory of history, but even I've been taken aback by just how much malign influence a hands-on tech CEO can achieve. The far right celebrities? Well they're back. You found our service to be a useful way to find out about important examples of activism? Well, too bad for you sunshine, we're banning them to make room for the Christian fundamentalists and the "national conservative pundits". The report system that had a chance of keeping up with the mutations of harassment? Practically toothless again. You use Twitter as a news aggregator? Well, here's ads for cryptocurrency scams in the middle of threads to break them up. Musk spent much of the early days of the takeover complaining about bot accounts, well as far as I can see he's made that problem much worse, my account has just over a thousand followers, a minnow in the sea, and yet even my account has been swarmed by fake account follows, and my direct messaging system filled with spam accounts. 

During his short stint as captain of the S.S. Bluebird, he's steered the ship from one crisis after another. And while so far the ship has managed to smash into those rocks without piercing the internal hull, and we can enjoy some schadenfreude at the massive dent to Musk's reputation as both a genius and a savvy businessman, the net result has been a series of exoduses varying in size and a frustrating and increasingly poor experience for those who remain. The rate limit fiasco is just another chapter in what is shaping up to being a very long catalogue of incompetence. 

At the present time, Twitter is still online, and I still have an account, but I'm in the prepping stage for a move. The previous crises lead to some moving to other alternatives, but not that many. Musk's financial lifeline dealing with the plummeting value of the company was his assets in other companies, which he's been selling off in bits and pieces to cover the numerous money holes he's dug for himself. His lifeline in social media terms has been the lack of an alternative Twitter. We use the term social media as a collective label for what in reality is a loose collection of very different services with their own strengths and uses. Twitter was unique, at least at that size and potential reach. It was never as big as some would think given its prominence in journalism and mainstream media, just count how many news stories are broken via a tweet on an average news report for an example of this. But it's still used by lots of people in most of the world. So, while in theory users pissed off with the way things are going to have many places to set up shop, in practice it's not that easy. Facebook, Tumblr etc, just don't scratch the same itch, and they all have their own issues and demographic clashes.

There have been Twitter alternatives for some time, under the old management right wing types who found even the light touch moderation of Twitter unbearable split off onto a dozen right wing alternatives, but they're small, explicitly politically partisan so have no chance of scoring big advertisers and are run and controlled by a tiny group of thin-skinned wannabe führer's, so they haven't grown so much as stagnated or collapsed into infighting. Now, though, Twitter is facing some competition on at least two fronts. The old management have been working on a new Twitter called Bluesky, and Zuckerberg's Meta is pushing something called Threads.

They both look like Twitter clones, and many of the latest crop of Twitter exiles have set up accounts on one or both of these services. This should worry Musk since if either or both get traction he's no longer in charge of the only game in town. Personally, I think both aren't very good, in the interests of transparency I must be up front and disclose that I have no account on either platform, Bluesky is invite only, at the moment and while I know people who can give me an invitation, I didn't see the point in going through all that rigmarole before I know if the service will take off, my plan has been to wait for it go public and let others fight for the clout that comes with first one in the pool. And as for Threads, I left Facebook years ago, and haven't been impressed with any of Zuckerberg's products since then, a Twitter under his benevolent gaze did not excite me at all.

So much of what I've heard about these sites is second hand, but I think I was right to be sceptical, both services have issues that do not appeal to me at all. I think what Bluesky and Threads show us is that as bad as Musk's tenure has been, it isn't exceptional. Musk isn't doing anything beyond his position of owner of the company, he's just terrible on the job, I suppose it's like the difference between using a shotgun or a sniper rifle to take out a threat in a crowded room. They're both tools designed to kill people and both will get the job done, just that one's clumsier and messier than the other. 

It's early days for both these alternatives, they might get better if there's enough pressure for it, but I won't be holding my breath. Though if Twitter does collapse, or I finally reach my breaking point, I might find myself setting up an account on one of them. 

Still, there is some positive news. The other commonly cited Twitter alternative is Mastodon. If you have a Twitter account, you're probably sick of hearing about Mastodon. In simple terms it's essentially Twitter, a short messaging service where you can react to other users messages, contact them, share your thoughts and photos and videos and links. But it's open source and decentralized, so there isn't one all powerful body making decisions for the entire user base. Open source and decentralisation have become ugly buzzwords for internet marketers, but in Mastodon's case the old usage, multiple users working to build something together, still rings true. 

Mastodon has been around for a while, it's where many of the earlier waves of Twitter exiles popped up before. So why hasn't it taken off before? Well, it sort of has done, just at a slower pace, but there are some barriers to entry. First to create an account instead of going to Mastodon.com and clicking sign up you have to pick what's called an Instance to join and create an account there. Instances are like private clubs they have their own rules admins and even special features, all of which should be available to check before you join. Once you've picked an Instance its usually pretty simple to set up an account, and there are even dedicated apps like Tusky on smartphones now to make it easier.

Another barrier is the absence of algorithims, in my expereince algoritihims are things you only notice by there absence. Much of the content social media sites like Twitter use algoritihms aggresively not just to shove adverts in your face but to deliver content to you too. If you've ever wondered why you aren't seeing content from accounts you follow even though you know they're still active its because the algoritihm isn't showing you their stuff anymore. The absence of an algoritihim to me is a positive, it gives you freedom to build your own feeds and make your own judgements. But, on the otherhand this can be daunting at the start since the point of social media services are to show you things you want to see and give you opportunities to engage with them. So at the start Mastodon can be very sparse, you'll have an Instance feed (the content produced by other users on that Instance) and the Federated feed essentially the global feed of all users on the main network without a filter for your preferences. So, it takes awhile and some active searching to find users posting stuff that you like and value and find interesting. Hashtags aren't just for spamming messages on Mastodon they're actually useful. So, usually what has happened is that many setup accounts on Mastodon, find the transition awkward and don't stick around.

Though over time Mastodon has grown organically, the Fediverse which is the name for the main federation of Instances now registers over 13 million users, and recently registered over 2 million active at the same time. It took awhile for me to build up a feed but at present I actively look through the feeds several times a week, find things I like most times, and have chatted with others. Still not using it nearly as much as I used to use Twitter, but I hope the trends continue in a positive direction. In addition, although Mastodon clearly used Twitter as its main inspiration there are other quality of life improvements. For example, you can't quote tweet or quote toot as its called over there. This limitation has done a lot to limit aggro behaviour. And two or three Twitter exoduses ago several Instances were setup by tech savvy reactionary types, and in addition to clogging the federated feed their userbases started harassing other users. The response was quick, since their admins wouldn't reign in the behaviour other instances defederated, essentially a group wide block, so those Instances can't see our activity and we can't see theres. On Twitter targeted harassment is ignored and the accounts being targetted have to play a game of whack-a-mole or adopt a third party block list, and third party applications are increasingly being throttled by the new direction the site is going. And the system has been integrated into several others including video and music streaming.

So, looks like I'll be giving my meagre support to Mastodon, I'd like to see a better internet not dominated by six blokes who seem to be going through a permanent mid life crisis and a never ending game of asset hoarding. I can be found here.

Witchcraft - Notes on Gundam Witch from Mercury Season 01

 

 I'm going to start watching season 02, or part 02 or whatever they're calling it, of the newest Gundam show Witch from Mercury. Why only now? Well, we'll get to that later. First, though, I wanted to jot down my thoughts on the first part. I've been a Gundam fan since I was the age of a typical Gundam protagonist, Wing was my introduction to the franchise, and I've been dipping into its back catalogue ever since. Witch from Mercury - Witch for convenience - was a bit of a surprise. I'd heard some news about it being in development, but didn't follow it very closely. I found out that it had been released because I saw a lot of fan art about it. 

Unfortunately, due to circumstances, it took me a while before I could watch the show. My IT systems were in storage, and I was confined to the house with an old smart TV and a chromebook, so I patiently waited for it to become available on the Gundam YouTube channel. Meanwhile, I had fan art and fan guesses to navigate past to avoid spoilers. When I did manage to watch the first season, it ended, leaving me with some thoughts about what I've watched and where it could be going in the next season.

So, before I take the plunge, I'll sketch them out and see how close my predictions are and how it handles what it built up in season 01. I know I'm not the first one to notice that Witch differs quite a bit from what is considered typical Gundam, but that isn't automatically a bad thing. Nor is it the first time that's happened, SD Gundam (chibi style comedy shorts) and the Fighter G Gundam (think wrestling with Mechs, or the anime adaption of the film Robot Jox) were extremely different and while not everyone in the fandom has come around on them, they have their fans. Personally, since I'm not a Japanese Gundam fanatic from the 1980s I think SD Gundam misses more than it hits, but there are still some episodes I quite like, and I really enjoyed the energy of Fighter.

 And Witch being different has opened the franchise to a new audience. I said that I discovered that the show had started airing thanks to the explosion of fan art, but interestingly, most of the fan art was being made or shared by people I follow on social media that had never expressed any interest in Gundam before. The Gundam fandom outside Japan has been growing over time and the Netflix deals gave it more of a push, but it's still a small pond, so further growth is welcome. Of course, Witch being atypical will mean that not every Witch fan will evolve into a Gundam fan, but in the gaps between seasons I have seen some start mining the franchise for another fix. And I saw an article that claimed that sales of the Mobile Suit model kits (Gunpla) in Japan have broken records, if true that means there's a lot more new friends to welcome.

Overall, I like Witch, and I think many of the changes from the formula work well and are refreshing. In the fandom, a vocal minority has been wishing for a female protagonist for some time, so it's good that it finally happened and the character and her plot is interesting. It's a bit odd looking back how long this has taken given how many Gundam stories have come out and how even back in the 1970s the shows would include viable candidates for main character status but just kept to the old formula despite being willing to change and experiment with the rest of it. I watched Reconguista a few months ago and well that's a blog post in itself but one of the few positives for that show was Aida Sururgan, making her the main character and the boy Bell her back-up/possible romantic partner* would've been an improvement. Anyway, back to Witch, I like Suletta and I like Miorine, I even remembered how to spell their names without looking it up!** I like both as individual characters, but at first I wasn't buying the relationship between them. I know that's something of a "hot take" given that the lesbian relationship seems to have been its main selling point amongst the Gundam first timer fans. 

Works of this nature were how I discovered the show, I'd credit the artist, but I found this on a wallpaper site uncredited.

I do understand the appeal both in having a main character LGBTQ relationship in a very popular show - I really loved how the show quickly established same sex attraction is considered practically normal in most of the society of the show, nipping that "but we're both X" angst in the bud- and that both parts of the relationship are very interesting personality wise and clash quite a bit creating friction in the will they, won't they? Style of teasing. And it doesn't hurt that the cute red head Suletta's character design made her easy to turn into a cuddly Racoon by fan artists. But, the relationship as depicted struck me extremely toxic. Suletta surprised me a lot in just how close to the bone she cut me. Watching her clumsy and confused attempts to navigate her emotions in what is essentially a military training camp for adolescents was giving me some quite vivid flashbacks. She even has red hair. And Miorine's abrasive isolation and defensiveness read very realistic to me. I'm not saying any of this is bad, I found it very interesting to watch, I just wasn't convinced the lovey-dovey path was viable and found the multiple episode cycle of Suletta clumsily trying to connect with Miorine without actually connecting (another deep cut there) while Miorine maintains a cold detachment and lashes out (and another) started to grate. Fortunately, around the time I was getting actively annoyed at the closed circle was when the show started to move on this. And the last few episodes seem to be confirming an awareness of the emotional vulnerabilities of the two main characters, the toxic relationship between Miorine and her father is obvious from the first episode, and once Suletta's dear mother shows up it quickly became clear to me that that relationship is just as rotten.
 

I was a little worried that the show would keep these two characters locked in an angsty will they, won't they? Oh, woe is me, why can they not see that they're perfect for each other? Cycle. Only to have a last minute or deathbed confession, but once the show dropped hints that the relationship has some issues that need to be worked out, my fears were calmed. And then the last scene of season 01 happens, and we get Suletta's sweet smile after she= well I won't spoil that, but after that scene I'm officially really intrigued and willing to follow this relationship wherever it goes. 

The setting has moved from battles between political-national factions, Zeon vs Earth Federation, Zaft vs a different Earth Alliance, MAFTI vs Earth Federation, the boys in Wing vs well everyone else, etc. To a setting dominated by corporations. This makes sense both in relation to the current year when corporations continue to grow in influence and importance in society and in international relations, and it builds on the limited criticisms of corporations and greed in military affairs that previous Gundam shows touched on, Anaheim Electronics supplying both sides, the cabal of industrial giants in Seed Destiny and son. But I find far less interesting as a setting. I get it, they're corporate heads, so they're petty and nakedly self-serving, but I find the talk of stock prices and intrigues over market concerns opaque and not very interesting. When Miorine forms her own company and essentially drags her friends acquaintances into joining her, I like the parts where they're trying to work together and interact with each other, but I still have no interest in the corporate side of it. I just do not have the interest or respect for business culture to buy into any of it. One of my hopes for the next season is that since the violence has ratcheted up quite a bit, the fights and physical conflicts will take more attention away from the corporate culture. Yes, functionally speaking scenes where bad people gather in a poorly lit room with a map and a communications system and plot violence are the same whether they're wearing military uniforms or smart casual office attire, I just do not care for their expositionary blather in the latter.

Class, class commentary has always been present in Gundam and Witch is no exception. Usually in the settings there is a distinct divide between those who live on Earth (Earthnoids) and those who live in Space (Spacenoids) and usually the upper crust and the elite are on Earth while the downtrodden are on the Moon, or asteroids or in city sized space stations. Witch has this divide too, Mercury in the title refers to a community living on the planet Mercury, but has flipped the positions. In this show, it is the Earthnoids who are the downtrodden underclass, with the Spacenoids exploiting and deriding them. I like how Miorine and Suletta as outsiders gravitate to the students from Earth, but they don't do much with this dynamic in season 01, though again the final bits of that season strongly suggest that season 02 will do more with this theme going forward.

So, that's where I am now, so far patiently waiting for the Gundam channel to make the season 02 videos available in my country. I know they've been uploaded because the Americans I follow have been chattering about them, and a plugin I have tells me they're hidden in the playlist. When I voice my displeasure at region blocking for online content, someone pipes up about VPNs. Yeah, I could use one of those, I could a lot of things in fact, that's missing the point, consumer hostile actions don't become okay because consumers can make use of loopholes.

Appendix

Gundam shows you might like if you like Witch (no refunds)

Gundam Wing; back in the day, Gundam Wing was the show that provoked a massive influx of new fans to the franchise. Partly because it was the first show to get a big push in English speaking regions, but also due to its five main characters being angsty boys with a lot of trauma and relationship issues with each other and everyone else they weren't tyring to murder inside a big machine. I tried watching the show again some years a go and, well I thought it was terrible, but maybe Heero and Duo and the rest's charms will work for you, I fell for them hard back in the day.

Turn A Gundam: Another show that was atypical to what had come before, features a plot full of intrigues between wealthy indivdiuals and also did experiment with gender representation. Is noted for having the first explicitly homosexual character in the franchise, though in the present day I don't think he'd be held up as a positive example, though I think it works in a sad way. Also its protagonist Loran reminds me quite abit of Suletta, though with a different background and upbringing so I wouldn't say she's a female copy of him. 

Iron Blooded Orphans: The series before Witch, its standalone so you don't have to worry too much about the lore of the franchise getting in the way. Had some LGBTQ and non-conventional relationships and leaned heavily into the power dynamics of the world. Also very bloody and covers some darker aspects of the setting which Witch has hinted at and may go down that root too but might hold back. We'll see.

*Yeah, I saw that twist coming and was hoping it'd swerve it.

** You can play a game with Gundam shows, type the names of characters into the Gundam wiki based on how they were pronounced on the show, Japanese original or dubbed, either way it'll be a challenge.

 

The ISK [Militant Socialist International] and its relationship to Vegetarianism and Esperanto

 

The ISK [Militant Socialist 

International] and its relationship to

 Vegetarianism and Esperanto

 

Text of a lecture for the Vegan Meeting in Castle Gresilion Paris on the 2018-05-11.

1. ISK

2. Vegetarianism in the ISK: History according to End the Slaughter!

3. ISK, Esperanto and SAT

4. Sources

[Note; While translating the first section of Gary Mickle's text I discovered that most of the first section had already been translated into English and was being used as the English wikipedia page entry for the ISK. So I used that and translated the parts that were not in it. Section 1's Political ideas through to the end is my translation. Reddebrek]

1. ISK

The Internationale Sozialistische Kampfbund (ISK) was a socialist split from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) during the Weimar Republic period, and it was active in the resistance against National Socialism (Nazism). Internationally it used the names Militant Socialist International (in English), Internationale Militante Socialiste (in French) and in Esperanto the name Internacio de Socialista Kunbatalo.

History

Founded in 1925 the ISK was the political organisation and platform for a circle that had gathered around the philosophy of Göttingen Leonard Nelson and his collaborator Minna Specht. It was preceded by an organization the International Socialist Youth League (ISJ) that arose in the context of the youth movement of the turn of the century, founded by Nelson and Specht in 1917 with the support of Albert Einstein. Leonard Nelson, philosophically speaking heavily tied to Neo-Kantianism- wanted to become a University Professor whose political impact surpassed the limits of the University. He was a defender of an ethically motivated, anti-clerical, anti-Marxist, but also anti-democratic oriented socialism, which included strict compulsory adherence to animal protection and vegetarianism. Nelson decided to found the ISK, after the ISJ were expelled from both the Communist Party (KPD) in 1922 and the SPD in 1925.

The ISK took over the ISYL's publishing label, Öffentliches Leben, which published the ISK newsletter beginning January 1, 1926. Beginning January 1929, an edition in Esperanto was added, and in April, a small circulation quarterly in English was added as well. It was usually eight pages and editions ran an average of 5,000 to 6,000 copies. Nelson moved his main published works there as well, his philosophical and political series Öffentliches Leben and his 1904 treatises, "Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule, Neue Folge", re-reasoned with mathematician Gerhard Hessenberg and physiologist Karl Kaiser, and which, after Nelson's death, was continued by Nobel Prize winner Otto Meyerhof, sociologist Franz Oppenheimer and Minna Specht until 1937.

With the growing electoral success of the Nazis at the end of the Weimar Republic, the ISK founded the newspaper, Der Funke to confront the situation. Of particular note was the "Urgent Call for Unity" (Dringender Appell für die Einheit) regarding the July 1932 federal election. It appeared in the newspaper and on placards all over Berlin. Calling for unity and support of the SPD and the KPD in order to thwart further gains by the Nazis, it was signed by 33 leading German intellectuals, including scientists Albert Einstein, Franz Oppenheimer, Emil Gumbel, Arthur Kronfeld, the artist Käthe Kollwitz, writers Kurt Hiller, Erich Kästner, Heinrich Mann, Ernst Toller and Arnold Zweig and many others.[3]

The ISK continued to work in the resistance after the 1933 Nazi ban. The ISK had destroyed all written party records and until 1938, remained undetected, while the larger parties, the KPD and SPD, were being battered by massive arrests. The ISK was therefore able to continue its resistance work, helping political refugees leave the country, conducting sabotage and distributing leaflets. In 1938, however, a wave of arrests hit the ISK.[4] A main focus of the work was the attempt to build a clandestine trade union, the Unabhängige Sozialistische Gewerkschaft ("Independent Socialist Union"), which also supported the Internationale Transport Workers' Federation.[5] The ISK's best known act of resistance was the sabotage of the opening of the Reichsautobahn on May 19, 1935. The night before Hitler's trip to inaugurate the new highway, ISK activists wrote anti-Hitler slogans, such as "Hitler = War" and "Down with Hitler", on all the bridges along the route between Frankfurt am Main and Darmstadt, where he was to travel.[6] The Nazi propaganda film produced of the event had to be edited numerous times.

In exile, the ISK also published the Reinhart Briefe ("Reinhart Letters") and Sozialistische Warte, which were then smuggled into Germany. Because of their factual and unpolemical reporting, these were valued by various members of the German Resistance. The ISK was linked with the Socialist Vanguard Group in England and the Internationale Militante Socialiste in France.

ISK members after 1945

After World War II, the ISK was merged into the SPD on December 10, 1945 after talks between Willi Eichler, chairman of the ISK and Kurt Schumacher, then chairman of the SPD. Most of the former ISK members then joined the SPD.[5]

One prominent member of the ISK, Ludwig Gehm, was later the national vice chairman of the Committee of Formerly Persecuted Social Democrats (Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemals verfolgter Sozialdemokraten) and a Frankfurt am Main city council member from the SPD. Eichler, who was chairman of the ISK for many years, represented the SPD in the Bundestag from 1949 to 1953 and is considered one of the main authors of the Godesberg Program. Alfred Kubel was a member of the Lower Saxony state government for many years and was Ministerpräsident from 1970 to 1976. Hamburger ISK member Hellmut Kalbitzer was elected to the Bundestag several times, served in the Hamburg Bürgerschaft and from 1958 to 1962, was vice president of the European Parliament. Fritz Eberhard, who was in the ISK until 1939, was a member of the Parlamentarischer Rat ("Parliamentary Council") and was involved in writing the postwar constitution, including the right to conscientious objector status in the new laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Eichler also published a monthly magazine from 1946 until his death in 1971, Geist und Tat, which was devoted to "rights, freedom and culture" and he had a publishing house, Europäische Verlagsanstalt until the 1960s.

Structure

The ISK never set out to amass a large membership, but rather to become an active and hard-hitting organization. Membership requirements for prospective candidates included adherence to a certain ethical socialism that were more stringent than for the major parties.

• Members were to abstain from nicotine, alcohol and meat, were to be absolutely punctual and orderly, and because of the anti-clerical position of the organization, withdrawal from church affiliation was mandatory

• Participation in a trade union, the ISK and the labor movement was general requirement for members (eliminating passive membership)

• Instead of a membership fee, there was a "Party tax," which all members with an income over 150 Reichsmarks had to pay

The ISK never had more than 300 members, largely because of the strict requirements for membership. These members were organized into 32 local groups. However, its political work involved sympathizers, between 600 and 1,000 in 1933. A survey in 1929 revealed that 85% of ISK members were under 35 years of age.

Chairmen of the ISK (formerly, the ISYL)

• 1922–1927, Leonard Nelson and Minna Specht

• 1927–1945, Willi Eichler and Minna Specht

From 1924 to 1933, the ISK (and its forerunner, the ISYL) maintained its rural school, the Walkemühle in the Adelshausen quarter of Melsungen, Hesse and from 1931 to 1933, its own newspaper, Der Funke, both of which were banned by the Nazis.

Political Ideas

The relationship between the rank and file ISK membership and its founder and chief ideologue Leonard Nelson has been described as a “personal cult”. Nelson rejected the democratic principle, in which the majority decision is to be treated as rational. In its place he used what he called a rational-leader-principle, which has some obvious problematic elements. Nelson promoted the concept of a rational dictatorship, believing that it was possible to ascertain in an objective manner what needed to be done. The ethics of science would become the foundation of a politics of science. Nelson believed that science could show what is just, i.e. in accordance with moral law, so the rational individual who has a keen enough grasp of science will know the moral and intellectually best ways to run society they must be free from limits. An all-powerful state should carry out any and all reforms deemed necessary.

Nelson opposed the Marxist teachings of the historical necessity of capitalism to the development of socialism and communism. Instead he promoted human responsibility and the necessity of a “moral compass”. He based these beliefs in his readings of Immanuel Kant.

Since its creation ISK was strictly anti-nationalist and anti-militarist. During the war Eichler publicly expressed opposition to the dogma of national sovereignty. The ISK also practiced sexual equality amongst its membership by promoting equality of rights for women.

The group promoted a mix of non-authoritarian and authoritarian structures within its orbit. On the one hand its educational service Walkemühle instructed both adults and youths on the importance of critical thinking and some of the latest concepts of the time. While on the other hand ISK described the training of civil servants as an example of authoritarianism.

 

Poster of the “Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund” (ISK), a foundation of
Leonard Nelsons for the parliament elections in 1932. Signed by Kronfeld, Albert Einstein
and Franz Oppenheimer and well known artists like Kurt Hiller, Erich Kästner, Karl and
Käthe Kollwitz, Heinrich Mann, Ernst Toller and Arnold Zweig.

 

2. Vegetarianism in the ISK and the anti-Fascist Resistance

As described, a vegetarian way of life was a mandatory membership condition in ISK. Through its publications it propagated vegetarianism in Germany and abroad. It organized group visits in slaughterhouses to convince the workers to renounce their work and the other violent ways humans relate to animals. Willi Eichler ISK co-president since 1927 documents one of these visits in his 1926 essay “Even Vegetarians?” Recently that essay has been circulated again by social democrats acting in the group Sozis für Tiere (Social Democrats for animals). Willi Eichler would join the SPD in the aftermath of the Second World War and moderate his politics. He led the commission that developed the social democratic Program of Godesberg (accepted in 1959), in which the idea of socialism appeared only in a very diluted form, and which many later regarded as a road map for the right-wing in that party. I could not find out if he remained a lifelong vegetarian.

Nelson agreed with Eichler: "A worker who wishes more than a guarantee he will not become a capitalist and for whom the fight against all exploitation is a serious matter, he does not bow before the pressure of public opinion toward the habit of exploiting harmless animals, he does not participate in the daily millionfold murder."

The resistance activity of the ISK against the Nazi rule was effective, if we consider the enormous difficulties and the small membership. Cunning means were applied, and one of them made use of vegetarianism - more on that later.

At the beginning of Nazi rule, the ISK formulated 4 objectives for resistance activity: information, propaganda, anti-Nazi actions, and security for the group. One means was illegal leafleting. The Nazis held elections of worker representatives in companies, admitting only "suitable" candidates. The ISK campaigned for a vote of no confidence against all candidates - until the Nazis gave up on the elections in 1936 due to the lack of popular support for their picked candidates. (Only 50-60% voted for the official list.) Also in 1936, ISK members also collected money in workplaces for the resistance in Spain.

At the inauguration of a highway, it was discovered that the bridges were painted overnight with chemicals that can be seen only when daylight hits them, and the speaker systems had been sabotaged. Two SS members were later executed for insufficient vigilance. Invisible paint, which is visible in daylight, was also used for to daub slogans on the pavement, using suitcases with a special mechanism. A grassy hill next to the Berlin railway was chosen for an action using fertilizer poured from canisters. After a few weeks the hill was marked with the slogan "Nieder mit Hitler" [Death to Hitler].

The ISK also discussed a plan to kill Hitler via a suicide attack, but the plan was opposed by some members and did not go beyond discussions.

The anti-Nazi activity included a set of vegetarian restaurants, which ISK members operated in several cities and used for clandestine purposes. Some had opened before 1933, the remainder opened after the rise to power from the Nazis. Large restaurants were founded in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and Bochum. According to one report, the Hamburg restaurant prepared 120 lunches a day.

They were often led by women, but both men and women worked in them. The working day was long and the pay low. The restaurants served several purposes: to provide work to the unemployed, to generate a profit that was used for resistance activity, enable contact between resistance agents in a relatively unsuspicious place, serve as bases for production and distribution of illegal printing material etc. However, they also served for promote vegetarianism.

A wave of arrests in 1937 forced many restaurant workers to flee abroad or to live in hiding. Two fugitives founded vegetarian restaurants in Paris and London. The restaurant in Paris became a contact point for exiled Germans and was also a source of funds. The same for the restaurant in London. There they were supported by a group linked to Nelson inside the Labour Party, the Socialist Vanguard Group, the British affiliate to the Militant Socialist International (ISK).

Here is a somewhat extensive quote from a document from the City Archives of Göttingen, which captures the atmosphere of the era and also paints a picture of the spread of vegetarianism in Germany at the time and the political implications of it, e.g. the spread of the legend about Hitler being “Vegetarian”:

Next to the premises of the ISK in the city, the vegetarian restaurant can be seen, operated by the mother of Fritz and Helmut Schmalz on Weenderstraße 71/72. August Schmalz was member in the ISK since 1927; she had already led vegetarian cooking courses in the Walkemühle. Vegetarian restaurants were a financial pillar of the organization, although more profitable and useful for that purpose were the restaurants in the bigger cities like Berlin, Hamburg (Anna Kothe worked there since 1934, who for a long time worked in the headquarters in Göttingen as a housekeeper), Cologne or Frankfurt. Auguste Schmalz's vegetarian luncheonette has been around since at least 1931 and was a regular meeting place. Hannah Vogt recalled: “I remember a place in Weender Straße – which was led by the mother of trade unionist Fritz Schmalz – where everyone had a vegetarian lunch. Many of them regularly met there.” Since spring of 1933 the premises were observed, however the police failed to prove that the guests of the Schmalz lunchroom participated in anti government discussions.

The income opportunities that opened up with such a restaurant also attracted the greedy gaze of the "Volksgenossen" [Nazi term, roughly means People’s comrades, used as a term for correct i.e. Nazi behaviour]. In a letter to the rector of the university at the end of October 1933, someone proposed a remedy against an urgent lack of food for the students. He said that among the 4,000 students there are at least 150 vegetarians, "who now wish to live according to the way of life of our people's chancellor", but can't, because "the only vegetarian lunch place here (...) is run by the ex-communist Schmalz". According to the writer, he even makes an advertisement by posting it on the blackboard of the auditorium, despite the fact that it is possible to prove, "that the students are being influenced by propaganda there, acting at that in a very refined manner”. The author of the letter thought his “most noble task to provide the students of the University of Göttingen with the cheapest high-quality food, in accordance with the new theory of nutrition". Of course he hoped for the support from the rector for his "valuable idea, also represented by Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Göbbels (!) and even many professors in Göttingen". Schmalz's lunchroom survived despite these attacks and denouncements at least until the beginning of the war.

3. ISK, Esperanto and SAT

The ISK attempted to spread beyond the borders of Germany in their early days and adopted Esperanto as one of the means to achieve this.

Registered in bibliographies is the edition of the quarterly Esperanto-language Organo de Internacio de Socialista Kunbatalo since 1929 (before the appearance of a similar publication in English). After the Autumn of 1933 it appeared in Paris under the name The Critical Observer: magazine of politics and culture. It continued to be published until the end of 1939 if not longer. Hermann Platiel was credited as its editor after the move to Paris, but its possible that he occupied that position earlier.

The ISK published a daily newspaper Der Funke [The Spark] for 14 months, between 1932-01-01 and 1933-02-17. Then it was banned. The release necessitated great sacrifices, inevitable for such a small organization. Notable in it is the striving for a working class united front against the looming fascism and the very critical reporting on nationalism in general. The complete journal collection is now archived online. There you can find three kindly written articles about SAT and its congress from 1932 in Stuttgart. Although one would expect that their author would be Hermann Platiel, the authors used initials ("M. H.", "Rpt.", "O. W.") do not match that assumption.

Some excerpts from the articles:

Party political neutrality among the Worker Esperantists (from Der Funke 1932-06-05) In the Esperanto Labour movement, whose most important, global organization is SAT (World Anti-national Association), the party political disputes, especially between the CP and the SP, was not missing. In Germany there are already in many cities separate communist and social democratic Esperanto groups. All the more gratifying that the president of SAT, Lanti, who also publishes the Esperanto newspaper Sennaciulo, stands entirely on the ground of the party political neutrality of SAT. In an open letter to many SAT members he assumes a position against the communist attempts to link SAT to a definite political program, by which the CP wants to secure for itself a better foundation for its domination. The CP wants first, that SAT compels all members to recognize Marxism as “the correct basis on which the firm unity of the proletarian Esperantists can be founded".

[…]

In addition, Lanti quite rightly throws back the opinion that non-Marxist viewpoints such as those of Nelson, Kropotkin or Gesell should remain undiscussed in the newspaper, because "the vast majority of organized workers recognize Marxism as the theoretical basis for their class struggle”. That is totally incorrect - let's think about England, Spain or India!

[…]

It is desirable that Lanti's positions continue to be guiding SAT and its newspaper, so that the very desirable propaganda for Esperanto as an international means of understanding, especially as a tool for a fighting working class should not be hindered by a dogmatic and party-politically narrow framework.

We greet the Esperantists in Stuttgart [title originally in Esperanto] (from Der Funke 1932-08-06) In the second week of August, the 12th congress of ... SAT meets in Stuttgart. […]

SAT for two reasons is particularly called to work on the creation of the socialist united front: Its members are linked by the bond of a common language. […] SAT also fulfills an important prerequisite for the collaboration in the creation of united front of the various workers parties. The management of SAT has been resisting firmly and successfully for years against the disrespect of party political neutrality within the Association. [...]

The working Esperantists in Stuttgart (from Der Funke 1932-09-01) The 12th congress of the world association of working Esperantists (SAT) 250 comrades from 12 countries participated despite the bad economic situation.

[…]

The most important result of the congress was the re-securing of the party political neutrality of SAT.

[…]

Also the efforts to change the current structure of SAT – a union of all the proletarian Esperantists without regard to their nationality or race - by associating national associations, were unanimously rejected.

With the exception of the proposers, all the comrades emphasized the necessity right now, of a front between the workers and the growing wave of nationalism, not only emphasizing the international connectedness of the proletariat, but also to practically realize it, for which purpose the present stateless organizational form offers the best basis.

[...]

Its known that Hermann Platiel was both an ISK and SAT member. Born in 1896 (or possibly 1886) and died in 1980, Platiel was hired as an administrator for the SAT office in Leipzig from the 8^th of May 1929 until 1932. In Leipzig he also led the local ISK branch. After Lanti stood down from the post it was Platiel who became the President and Director of SAT from 1933-35. SAT published his text History of the schism in the Workers Esperanto-Movement: Documentation which shows the causes and responsibilities and prepares the foundation for united action. He then became the secretary of the French Esperanto section of ISK 1938-39. I do not know if he has been active in SAT since the 40s or maintained any relationship with Esperanto at all. Petro Levi who joined SAT shortly after the war does not remember seeing him when I asked, and I was not able to find anything online, though of course there are still other sources to check,

In 1943 he illegally fled to Switzerland, and worked for the "Schweizer Hilfswerk" (Swiss Relief Fund) and wrote reports for the London foreign leadership of ISK. Before the escape to Switzerland he was located in the southern French city of Montauban, to which he fled from the internment camp in Gurs. There he married with well-known ISK member Nora Platiel (née Block). In 1949 they settled in the German city of Kassel, where Nora began a career as a court jurist and then a representative of the Hesse parliament (for the SPD). Hermann worked as a director of a theatre in Kassel, according to reports with great commitment.

This summary of facts about ISK's relations with Esperanto and especially with SAT is very incomplete. Further research would be worthwhile. Research in the archive of SAT in Paris should provide insights about that, also about Hermann Platiel personally, and would answer the question whether he and possibly others ISK members played a role in the then Vegetarian Section of SAT, which we can guess, but do not know now.

4. Sources

• Das Schlachten beenden!, Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Nettersheim 2010 [GWR estas

monata ĵurnalo kaj eldonejo dediĉitaj al senperforta anarkiismo, kun ekologia emfazo kaj

simpatianta kun veganismo; pli ĉe www.graswurzel.net]

• Heiner Lindner: Um etwas zu erreichen, muss man sich etwas vornehmen, von dem man

glaubt, dass es unmöglich sei – Der Internationale Sozialistische Kampf-Bund (ISK) und

seine Publikationen, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 2006, http://library.fes.de/pdf-

files/historiker/03535.pdf

• Vikipedio germanlingva: ISK, Nora Platiel kaj esperantlingva pri Hermann Platiel

• urba arkivejo de Göttingen: http://www.stadtarchiv.goettingen.de/widerstand/texte/isk-

goettingen_1933-1935.html

Gary Mickle

Translated into English by Reddebrek