Women deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers

By Steve Halpern

Recently the news media has reported that there is a strong possibility that women’s right to abortion will be reversed. State governments would be empowered to make the decision to allow, or not to allow women to have the right to abortion.

We might think about the fact that if women lose this right, many will continue to seek abortions by illegal means. Before the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortions, we lived in a different atmosphere. During those years, many women were mutilated or lost their lives due to back-alley abortions. Why? Because thousands of women were willing to risk their lives because they felt the absolute need to terminate a pregnancy.

I have worked in factories, as a housekeeper, and as a school bus driver. In my experience, there are times when my coworkers and I fail to find the words to describe the conditions we face. In those moments we might use words described as profanity. So, when we think of how women might lose the right to decide if and when they become mothers, I ask the question: How the f— did that happen?

The history of women: The revolution of the thirteen colonies

So, in order to explain how and why many women might lose the right to decide if or when they become mothers, I believe we need to look at a bit of history. We can begin with the revolution of the thirteen colonies.

The revolution that created the United States was a battle between two classes that had opposing interests. The British ruling powers demanded that the thirteen colonies continue to subjugate their interests to a brutal feudal monarch. The inhabitants of those colonies declared independence to put in place a government that would advance capitalist development here. 

This new nation was built on the foundation that a small minority would control the productive forces. For those reasons, initially only landowners had the right to vote. Women, slaves, Native Americans, and workers who owned no land were all denied the right to vote. 

The first government in this country felt that giving these people the right to vote would interfere with the rule of those who had a lot of money. However, after the revolution Shay’s Rebellion prompted the government to include the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. For the first time, many people living here had rights that the government was supposed to respect.

For most of the history of this country women’s right to own property was compromised. It wasn’t until the 1970s that women gained the right to have credit cards. Women who were slaves were property and had literally no rights. The rape or murder of slave women was legal.

The Declaration of Independence made it clear that the revolutionary government in this country in no way supported the rights of Native American women. One of the complaints listed in this Declaration was that the signers didn’t feel the British gave enough support to the colonists in their genocidal war against Native Americans. In those wars that lasted over 100 years, Native American women lost their lives, their homeland, and even much of their culture. However, during those 100 years Native Americans, who consisted of many nations, battled tenaciously to defend their homeland. That struggle continues today.

Mercy Otis Warren was an ardent defender of the Revolution. Warren wrote highly influential plays arguing why a revolution was necessary. She was one of the only participants in the Revolution who wrote a history of the war for independence.

After the Revolution one of Warren’s sons died in the war against Native Americans. Warren was one of the few who argued against those wars. She felt that the actions of the government provoked Native Americans to resist the theft of their homeland and the genocide against their people.

The Civil War

About 360,000 Union soldiers died in the Civil War that ended the system of chattel slavery here. Harriet Tubman was one of the Union soldiers. Tubman risked her life during slavery to liberate many of those who were viewed as the property of their owners.  

However, after the period of radical reconstruction, the federal government ordered union soldiers to withdraw from the former confederate states. That action effectively gave power to the Ku Klux Klan that proceeded to deny Black men and women the citizenship rights they were supposed to have because of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

As a result, racist vigilantes murdered thousands of Black men and women. All three branches of the federal government refused to enforce the Constitution and prosecute the murderers. These horrors continued for decades.

Ida Wells was an outstanding leader who was born into slavery and dedicated her life to ending the horrors of the lynching of Black men and women. After one of her close friends was lynched, Wells advised the Black people living where Jim Crow was the law to leave. She also argued that Black people needed to reserve a special place in their home for a Winchester rifle to defend themselves against racist murderers.

The suffragettes

Wells also participated in the movement to win the right to vote for all women in this country. At that time, there were suffragettes who had racist attitudes and Ida Wells not only battled for women’s right to vote, but also against racism in the suffragette movement.

One of those suffragettes was Alice Paul. Paul organized demonstrations in front of the White House demanding women’s right to vote. Those demonstrators ridiculed President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send U.S. soldiers to fight in the First World War. Wilson argued that this would be a “war for democracy.” The suffragettes argued that there could be no war for democracy when women didn’t have the right to vote.

Wilson responded by arresting the demonstrators, sending them to prison, and treating them as common criminals. Alice Paul and the suffragettes protested this with a hunger strike. Guards then placed a tube into Alice Paul’s throat and force fed her three times a day. These were some of the actions that won women the right to vote in this country.

Mother Jones was another outstanding leader. Jones supported every effort to organize workers here and in other countries. In the year 1903, she organized her 125-mile march of the children protesting child labor in this country. 

Clearly all leaders make mistakes. Mother Jones opposed the suffragette movement, and felt that her primary effort was to win better working conditions for men.

However, when the Russian Revolution erupted, Mother Jones said she was a Bolshevik from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. The Bolsheviks put in place a government that gave women the right to vote for the first time in the history of the world. 

The civil rights, anti-war, women’s rights, and immigrant rights movements

Then in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This action sparked the bus boycott in that city that lasted for over one year. Every day for that entire year Black women and men either walked long distances to work or found rides on the vehicles donated by supporters of the boycott.

We might also consider that during these years the U.S. government allowed for the forced sterilizations of Black, Puerto Rican, and Native American women. These women didn’t have the power to prevent those sterilizations.

For those reasons, many in those communities opposed the right to abortion. That sentiment, no doubt, comes from the fact that these women were denied the chance to choose to become mothers. 

Actions continued for many years demanding that Black people receive full citizenship rights in this country. Then, in the mid 1960s the government bowed to that movement and enacted the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Those actions effectively did away with Jim Crow segregation. Fannie Lou Hammer was one of the outstanding women who were leaders of this movement.

However, racist discrimination continued in many ways throughout the country. Routine police brutality against Black people sparked rebellions in hundreds of cities in this country in the 1960s. 

It appears that those actions convinced people who have power in this country to give millions of Black people opportunities they never had before. These included opportunities in education and employment. However, racist discrimination, as well as routine police brutality continues to be a fact of life for Black people in this country.

Immigrant women

Just as Black people were denied basic citizenship rights in the past, people born in other nations who live here are also denied those basic rights. Back in the 1960s there was a labor shortage in this country and the government initiated measures to attract workers from other nations to come here. 

 In the past few years, the economy has deteriorated, and the government has organized to deport literally millions of workers merely because they were born in other nations. Because of this reality, many immigrant women will not report a rape to the police because they fear deportation. Thousands of immigrant women have been separated from their children who were born here. The parents are forced to leave this country, while their children oftentimes are sent into foster care. 

Clearly all workers in this country face many difficult challenges. However, along with these challenges, immigrants face the continuous threat of deportation. Deportation for many immigrants means going to a nation where the wages are between one and ten dollars per day. However, faced with all these challenges the twelve million immigrants who live here continue the struggle demanding their rights.

The Cuban Revolution

We might also consider that in 1959, during the same years as the civil rights movement, a revolution erupted in Cuba. Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin were among the leaders of the revolutionary forces that took power on the island. 

Today, the women’s contingent of the Cuban armed forces is named for Mariana Grajales. Grajales’ entire family was dedicated to the Cuban revolutionary war of independence from Spain. Antonio Maceo was the son of Grajales, and became a Major General of the revolutionary forces. 

Today women are fully integrated into Cuban everyday life. All Cuban women who are pregnant, as well as their children, receive regular medical checkups. While Cubans do not have many of the conveniences we have in this country, all women on the island have an absolute right to an abortion.  

The war against Vietnam

With the war against Vietnam, millions of mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters saw their loved ones go to war against the men, women, and children of Vietnam. An anti-war movement erupted that convinced about 80% of the population to oppose this war. We might consider that about half of the millions of Vietnamese people who lost their lives because of this war were women.

Advances for women

Out of the anti-war and civil rights movements erupted a movement demanding equal rights for women. Because of this movement, employers began to hire women in occupations they rarely had before. In the 1960s only a tiny minority of medical doctors were women. Today about half of the medical doctors are women.

I am a school bus driver. Back in the 1960s only a small minority of the drivers were women. Today about half of the drivers are women.

Because of this movement in support of women’s rights, the Supreme Court ruled in their Roe v. Wade decision that women have the right to abortion. This decision gave women the right to decide if and when they become mothers. For the first time in this country, working women gained this right. We might consider that affluent women always had ways of getting safe abortions.

However, since 1973 powerful interests organized to take this basic right to abortion away from women. These forces paid to open hundreds of centers used for the sole purpose of convincing women not to have abortions. The government enacted the Hyde Amendment that prevented federal funds to be used for abortions. Administrators of many hospitals refused to allow abortions to be performed in their facilities. In most counties in this country women have no access to abortion. Now, the Supreme Court is considering doing away with the federal mandate to the right to abortion altogether.

So, thinking about this history, we might ask another question. Why do I feel that all women deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers?

Why is this so important?

Literally ever human being in the world is here because a woman carried us for about nine months before giving birth. These women are usually the primary care givers for all these children for perhaps about eighteen years. 

We all depend on a continuous supply of goods and services. We can speculate that about half of the labor required to produce all these goods and services comes from the labor of women. So, we can conclude that women participate in giving us literally everything we need and want, as well as our lives. 

Yet the government in this country, that claims to represent “liberty and justice for all,” also has and will continue to argue that women do not have the intelligence to decide if and when they become mothers. Those government officials are fully prepared to enact laws that will force pregnant women to have children they clearly do not want.

I’m writing this blog to demonstrate how women have clearly shown throughout history that they, and their male allies have the potential to win the dignity and respect that they clearly deserve.

Opponents to the right to abortion oftentimes make the following argument. “You wouldn’t even be here if your mother had an abortion.”   

Well, one of the most insulting comments a person can make is to say something derogatory about a person’s mother. The argument against the right to abortion is an argument that clearly states that women do not deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers.

In the year 2020 millions of people from all over the world protested against murders by the police in this country. Those demonstrations changed the political climate here. Now police officers are being convicted of the murders they were responsible for. 

After attending a few of those demonstrations, I attended demonstrations protesting the bombing of Palestinians, in solidarity with Puerto Rico, and in defense of the environment. Recently, I also attended one of the largest demonstrations in support of abortion rights.

I’m saying all of this at make an argument that the struggle for abortion rights is also a struggle in support of the rights of workers all over the world. My opinion is that by viewing ourselves as workers living in the world, this will only enhance the battle in support of all women’s rights. 

Growing numbers of people are preparing to struggle to make sure that every woman has the fundamental right to decide if and when she becomes a mother.

Ann Frank and the victims of persecution then and now

The other evening, I listened to a segment of the so-called news program 60 Minutes. This was about an investigation into the person who informed on the family of Ann Frank in Amsterdam to the Nazis who had political control of the city in the 1940s. Frank’s family hid from the Nazis for two years before they were arrested for being Jewish. Ann Frank is the author of her autobiography that is one of the most read books in the world. Frank, her sister, and mother were eventually murdered in a German concentration camp.

Authorities in Amsterdam asked a 30-year retired veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to head up the investigation. There might have been about twenty or more people who gave the retired FBI agent assistance.

When I heard that an FBI agent was heading this investigation, immediately I understood there was a serious problem. In this country, the FBI worked as an enemy of the labor, civil rights, Black power, socialist, and immigration movements. With that kind of record, I would oppose the use of an FBI agent heading up an investigation of anything.

The conclusion of this investigation argued that it was probable that a Jewish man informed on the Frank family to save his and his family’s life. This person had managed to avoid the concentration camps by becoming an informant.

Commentators on this story argued that this was a clear example of the horrors the Nazis organized. While the informant might have been guilty of causing the deaths of the Frank family, the main criminals were the Nazis. 

Millions of deportations in the United States

Clearly, we do not live in the environment Jewish people lived in with the Nazi occupation. Today we have the right to protest government policies we object to. Those rights come from literally centuries of struggle on many issues.

However, today there are about twelve million immigrants living in this country. Most of those immigrants come here to avoid living conditions where wages are between one and ten dollars per day. 

Clearly none of us have any control over who our parents are or where we are born. The Nazis executed Ann Frank because her parents were Jewish. The United States government working with the FBI has deported literally millions of immigrants who were living in this country. When those deported immigrants had children born in this country, they were separated from those children possibly never to see them again. We might also think about the fact that the United Nations estimates that every day about 30,000 children die of easily preventable diseases in the world.

We can also say that the life expectancy in this country for many Black, Latino, and Native American people is much lower than the rest of the population. This is because of institutionalized racist discrimination. So, I believe that when we talk about liberty and justice, it needs to be for everyone, and not just for some and not others. 

This is why I found it ironical that a retired agent of the FBI would head-up an investigation into the horrors of the Nazis. We also need to have an investigation into the fact that Democratic and Republican Presidents in this country have deported millions of immigrants. Most of those deportees return to nations where the prevailing wages are between one and ten dollars per day.

 

Marxism versus Liberalism – Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis

 

By August H. Nimtz

Palgrave-Macillan – 2019

When we think of the politics of the United States government during the twentieth century, a central priority has been a literal crusade against the idea of communism. We can start with the U.S. invasion of the Soviet Union after the First World War. Then, there was the prison sentence for the socialist Eugene Debs for giving a speech against that war. Then, after the Red Army of the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany, the U.S. government conducted their cold war. Members of socialist organizations in this country found themselves blacklisted or in prison merely because of their political views. President Kennedy threatened the world with nuclear weapons because of the Cuban Revolution. Then, there were the wars against Korea and Vietnam.  The primary idea used to support this crusade has been that capitalism represents democracy, while Marxism is nothing more than a philosophy representing ruthless dictatorships.

This crusade has had its results. While the government spent literally trillions of dollars in their wars, about 42 million people in this country do not have enough food to eat. Six million are homeless. In the world, about 30,000 children die every day of easily preventable diseases.

While the government claims we live in a democracy, the reality tells a different story. We are born into an environment where we need to find an employer who will purchase our labor for money. On the job, we have no control over our work environment. 

Several years ago, a boss I was working for told me to stop listening to the radio. When I protested, he declared, “This is not democracy.” That sentence might be news to government officials, corporate executives, as well and many who work in academia.  

In August Nimtz’ book, Marxism versus Liberalism – Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis, he gives a history of the words and actions of liberals, versus the words and actions of those who have supported Marxist politics. By doing this, he presented the actual record of the difference between the liberal and communist approaches so the word democracy.

Alexis de Tocqueville versus Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with Marx and Engels on the idea that a parliamentary democracy is better than the rule of a feudal monarch. Tocqueville made that argument in his famous book Democracy in America. In that book, Tocqueville understood that chattel slavery continued to be a serious problem in this country. However, he also believed that the parliamentary system in the United States was the best in the world.

While Marx felt that parliamentary democracy was better than feudalism, he also argued that because of the flow of capital, that system would always be about the accumulation of vast amounts of capital by a tiny minority. The majority would only have enough to sustain themselves so they would be able to work for an employer. 

In January of 1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels authored their Manifesto of the Communist Party. In that pamphlet, they argued that in the capitalist system crisis is inevitable. In the following passage they explained what happens when there is a capitalist economic crisis.

“In these crises a great part not only of existing products, but also of previously created productive forces are periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all other earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly finds itself put back in a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.”

Marx and Engels only had to wait about one month for the reality they wrote about to spark rebellions throughout Europe. Some of the largest uprisings took place in France where Tocqueville was a minister in the government. So, both Marx and Tocqueville had to figure out how to orient to rebellions where workers were demanding jobs because they were facing starvation.

Tocqueville argued that the workers of France were advancing “socialist ideas” that he didn’t agree with. For that reason, he worked to mobilize the French armed forces to crush that rebellion. Ultimately the French armed forces murdered about 3,000 workers to defeat that rebellion.

Marx and Engels didn’t feel that these rebellions were about “socialist ideas.” They felt the rebellion was due to the conditions of starvation that thousands of workers faced. For that reason, they took the side of the workers against the repression. They argued that the uprising failed because it was premature, and didn’t have a leadership capable of organizing an effective resistance.

Because of the repression of this uprising, the French government wasn’t very popular. As a result, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, won an election to head up the French government. Because the French government had become so odious, Bonaparte argued for universal male suffrage. At that time, the right to vote was limited to a minority of the male French population.

Tocqueville argued against the right to vote for the entire male population. He understood that the capitalist system that he supported meant that a tiny minority would have enormous wealth while the majority would live in poverty. Tocqueville believed that if all men could vote, this would undermine capitalism. This point of view further isolated Tocqueville from the majority of the electorate. Marx and Engels favored the right to vote for all men and women, and felt that universal male suffrage was an advance.

Bonaparte would eventually crown himself as emperor. Although Tocqueville dedicated himself to the idea that parliamentary democracy was better than feudalism, his actions paved the way for a new French monarchy. Tocqueville would actually work for the administration of Bonaparte before Bonaparte made himself emperor. 

Marx and Engels understood that the only way to prevent a monarchy from regaining power would be with a mobilization of the working class in alliance with the peasantry. That was a perspective that Tocqueville found to be inconceivable. 

Karl Marx and John Stewart Mill

Marx and John Stewart Mill were both supporters of the Union Army in the Civil War of the United States. Their support of the North came from their adamant opposition of the chattel slavery. However, August Nimtz documented how Marx and Mill supported the Union Army in completely different ways.

John Stewart Mill might have been the most prominent British political analyst of his day. For the most part, Mill limited his activity to his writings. For Mill, the Civil War in the United States was only one of his interests and he didn’t write much about it.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels both viewed the Civil War in the United States as the most important political event, perhaps in the 19th century. Marx postponed his writing of his major work Capital to devote himself to understanding the background of the Civil War.

Unlike Mill, Marx had supporters in the United States. Those supporters felt that Abraham Lincoln had the capacity to become an ardent opponent to the slave owning interests. For that reason, they campaigned for Lincoln to become President.

Joseph Weydemeyer was the leader in the United States of the International Workingmen’s Association that supported the politics of Marx. After campaigning for Lincoln, Weydemeyer joined the Union Army and became a colonel. 

Karl Marx also wrote many articles in support of the Union Army for the New York Daly Tribune. Abraham Lincoln was a reader of the Tribune and no doubt appreciated Marx’s articles. 

After Lincoln won reelection, Marx sent a congratulatory letter to the U.S. President as a representative of the International Workingmen’s Association. Lincoln responded with a warm letter in appreciation of the support of the IWA. Lincoln’s letter responding to John Stewart Mill’s congratulations was clearly more formal. 

After the Civil War, Mill, like Tocqueville opposed universal male suffrage. Marx and Engels both argued in support of giving everyone the right to vote.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Max Weber

Just as John Stewart Mill was a prominent theorist in Britain, Max Weber was one of the most prominent theorists in Germany. During much of his life, Germany was ruled by a monarchy. Like Tocqueville and Mill, Weber argued that a parliamentary democracy was better than a monarchy.

In the year 1905 there was a profound uprising in Tzarist Russia. Weber developed an interest in this uprising because he felt it had the potential to throw the tzar out of power and establish a constitutional parliament. To better acquaint himself with what was happening, Webber learned the Russian language. 

Eventually Weber wrote a book about the 1905 uprising. He felt that the future of Russia depended on the Kadet Party. That party billed itself as a liberal opponent to the tzar. In actuality, the Kadets proved that they in no way were serious opponents to the tzar. 

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a supporter of the politics of Marx and Engels. Just as Marx and Engels supported the workers in 1848, Lenin supported the working class uprising in Russia in 1905.Just as in the repression of the 1848 uprising in France, the repressive forces supporting the tzar murdered hundreds of workers when they demonstrated in Saint Petersburg. 

Lenin would later argue that the 1905 uprising was a “dress rehearsal” for the 1917 Russian Revolution. In fact, the Russian Soviets or workers councils were established because of the 1905 rebellion.

The Tzar made a concession to the 1905 uprising by allowing for the formation of a parliament known as the Duma. While Weber favored the Kadets in the Duma, Lenin advanced the Bolshevik program. That program called for “all power to the Soviets.”

The reality that workers, peasants, and soldiers faced during the First World War is difficult to even imagine. Literally millions of Russian soldiers lost their lives in the war. Those who survived had inadequate clothing, food, or ammunition. Many Russian civilians faced starvation. Yet the tzar, and then the provisional government demanded that the soldiers continue to fight the war.

Lenin wrote his pamphlet Imperialism—The highest stage of capitalism in the midst of the Russian Revolution. Lenin argued that the horrors of this war were about carving up the wealth of the world for the owners of capital. He would also argue that armaments manufacturers amassed huge fortunes, while the Russian people experienced the horrors of the war. 

These were some of the reasons why the Bolsheviks won the support of the working class, large sections of the peasantry, as well as significant sections of the military. These were the reasons why there were very few deaths during the October 1917 Revolution. The new name for the nation became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This name reflected the fact that while in the past Russia had been a prison-house of many nations, the new nation would be an alliance of those same nations.

Max Weber found nothing progressive about that development and believed it was a tragedy that the Kadets weren’t in power. In fact, the Kadets refused to support the basic demand of the Bolsheviks, peace, bread, and land.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson was perhaps the only president who had an academic career before taking office. Wilson had a Ph.D. degree, he was President of Princeton University, and had written several books. However, Wilson was born at a time when slavery was legal in this country. His family supported the confederacy in the Civil War. Wilson never spoke in support of the Union victory against the confederacy. The Democratic Party that he represented ran the Jim Crow system that denied Black people basic democratic rights in this country.

Initially, Wilson ran for President on a ticket where he opposed U.S. involvement in the First World War. Wilson’s point of view was that all nations needed to determine their own destiny. He actually supported the February Russian Revolution in the following quotation.

“Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia?”

However, shortly after Wilson was elected, he organized one of the most vicious pro-war campaigns in the history of this country. Alice Paul and the suffragettes ridiculed Wilson’s “war for democracy” in a demonstration in front of the White House. They questioned how there could be a war for democracy when women didn’t have the right to vote. Wilson ordered the demonstrators arrested and they served time in prison as common criminals.

Wilson also ordered the prosecution of Eugene Debs for giving a speech against the war in Canton, Ohio in 1918. Debs ran for President while he was in prison and received close to one million votes.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin understood that there could be no democracy in Russia unless the working class and the peasantry held power. The first things he initiated when the Bolsheviks came to power were to end Russian participation in the First World War, and to distribute land to the peasantry. 

After the Revolution, the Bolshevik government made public the Sykes-Picot agreement where the dominant capitalist powers agreed to carve up the Middle East for their own benefit. The horrendous reality of the Second World War was clear evidence that Lenin was absolutely right that there could be no genuine peace as long as capitalism continued to exist.

Lenin also argued that there was only one way for a genuine peace to emerge from the war. That was for the working classes of the world to replace capitalist governments with governments controlled by the working class.

When the Bolsheviks made a peace agreement with the German government, many German soldiers didn’t see why they needed to continue the war. That anti-war sentiment was one reason why the German government began negotiations for an end to the war.

 

In the discussions at the end of the war at Versailles, Woodrow Wilson issued his 14-point program that he believed would bring peace to the world. It is useful to look at Wilson’s sixth point in detail. 

“The evacuation of all Russian territory, and such settlement of all questions affecting Russian will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and assure her sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good-will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.”

Months after arguing for his 14 points, Wilson ordered the U.S. military to join a fourteen-nation invasion of the Soviet Union. Well, that action doesn’t seem to me to be an example of “unhampered…independent determination of her own political development and national policy.” So, while the Bolsheviks did everything in their power to end their participation in the WWI, Wilson failed his “acid test” and made a clear decision that the First World War would not be the “war to end all wars.”

Eugene Debs summarized Woodrow Wilson’s years as President, perhaps from his jail cell. “No man in public life in American history ever retired so thoroughly discredited, so scathingly rebuked, so overwhelmingly impeached and repudiated as Woodrow Wilson.”

On the other hand, the Russian people under the leadership of the Bolsheviks managed to defeat the invasion of their country. They did this with no aid from the outside world. That military action was clear evidence that the Bolsheviks won the popular support of the overwhelming majority of the people of the Soviet Union.   

Conclusion

Reading August Numtz’ book will provoke a legitimate question. How and why was the democratic system that Lenin promoted reversed when Joseph Stalin took power in the Soviet Union?

Marx, Engels, and Lenin all understood that because of the relative underdevelopment in Russia, the Russian Revolution would need to be joined by other nations. Nimtz found evidence that both Marx and Engels anticipated the Russian Revolution. Germany seemed to be the most likely nation that might have a proletarian revolution. However, the German Revolution did not manage to bring a worker’s government to power.

The people of the Soviet Union experienced a world war, famine, and then a civil war. Under those conditions Joseph Stalin managed to betray and reverse most of the conquests of the Russian Revolution. In my opinion, that in no way compromises the political cause that Marx, Engels, and Lenin dedicated their lives to.

August Nimtz gave us a different perspective on how to look at this. The revolutions of 1848 were defeated. The Paris Commune only lasted a few months before it was defeated in 1871. The Russian Revolution endured for about ten years before it was betrayed by Stalin. The Cuban revolutionary government has managed to stay in power for over sixty years.

Growing up in this country, I’ve listened to people who argue: Get an education, or, Get involved in politics to make a change. Well, Tocqueville, Mill, Weber, and Wilson all were highly educated, and they all were involved in politics. Their political careers led to in unmitigated disasters.

This book teaches us that it isn’t enough to become educated or to get involved in politics. We also need to learn from history.

In the year 2020, millions of people from around the world joined in demonstrations protesting murders by the police. I believe that most of those who demonstrated were under thirty years of age. This younger generation is beginning to understand that they will not have the opportunities of their parents. They have joined in demonstrations and many are becoming critical of the capitalist system.

Of those who are critical of capitalism today, August Nimtz offers a unique perspective. He argues that the only way to get rid of capitalism is with a proletarian internationalist perspective.

Marx and Engels lived in Britain when they wrote and organized support for the Union Army in the Civil War. As the Russian Revolution was erupting, Lenin wrote his pamphlet about imperialism. He pursued a political course arguing that the Russian Revolution was a part of an international struggle to liberate humanity. After the Cuban Revolution, the new Cuban government issued the Second Declaration of Havana. This document linked the Cuban Revolution to the history of workers struggles in the world.

Clearly all those who would support the interests of the working class would like the movement supporting our rights to be more advanced. However, Karl Marx spent a considerable amount of time explaining why horrendous catastrophes are unavoidable in the capitalist system. 

In the year 1950, the world economy was worth about five trillion dollars. Today the world economy is worth over eighty trillion dollars. Sooner or later capitalists will have serious problems finding places where they can profit off of a dramatically increasing world economy. This is what Marx and Engels were talking about when wrote about the “disease of overproduction.”

Understanding this, we can say that sooner or later there will be a generalized fightback by the working class of the world. When this happens, I believe workers will not only be demanding lower costs for health care and education. They won’t just be protesting against abuse by the police. 

They will be demanding lifetime rights to top quality health care and education. They will be demanding a government that will make it their fundamental priority to do away with all forms of racist and sexist discrimination. Yes, with an international struggle by the working class, that kind of world is indeed possible.

Mao Zedong Thought

 

By Wang Fanxi

Edited, translated, and with an introduction by Gregor Benton

Reviewed by Steve Halpern

In recent years, the nation of China has captured the imagination of the world. Back in the 19th century, literally tens of millions of Chinese starved to death. The Manchu Qing Dynasty ruled China for about 200 years. During that time, the Manchu royal family ordered the majority of the male population to wear pigtails and shave the front of their heads. Millions of Chinese women had their feet bound so tightly that their bones would break.

Today China has already become the manufacturing center of the world. Port cities of China continually load supertankers with containers to be transported all over the globe. High-speed trains transport passengers faster than jet aircraft over tens of thousands of miles. In three years, China used more concrete than the United States used in over 100 years. This enormous development allowed the capitalist economy in the world to escape the 2008 recession.

On the one hand, many argue that this unparalleled development means that the Chinese government is doing something right. Clearly hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have seen a significant improvement in their standard of living. 

On the other hand, there are those who argue that China has a repressive government that is intolerant of decent. The Chinese government repression in the 1989 Tiananmen Demonstration, and of the recent Hong Kong demonstrations is clear evidence of this point of view. 

In order to begin to understand China today, I believe we need to go back to look at the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party and its central leader Mao Zedong.

In his book Mao Zedong Thought, Wang Fanxi gave us the background to Mao as well as an analysis of where his ideas came from. Fanxi was uniquely qualified to write this book. He was a member of the Communist Party during the same years as Mao. While he never met Mao, he knew people who worked closely with him. 

As a member of the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Fanxi was one of many members who went to the Soviet Union in 1926 to study revolutionary politics. From that vantage point Wang viewed the defeat of the 1927 Chinese Revolution.

Initially Chen Duxiu was one of the two initial leaders of the CCP. Chen had been forced to leave China because of his criticisms of the Guomindang (Kuomintang) that was the dominant Chinese nationalist organization. Because of this repression, Chen Duxiu became inspired by the Russian Revolution and helped to organize a proletarian party to overturn capitalist relations in China.

However, with the rise of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, that approach was largely abandoned. Because of the example of the Russian Revolution, as well as the support of the Soviet government, that government had a tremendous influence over the CCP.

Stalin had a completely different approach to politics than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Lenin understood that there would be no fundamental change in tzarist Russia unless the working class took power. Stalin, on the other hand argued that there needed to be a “block of four classes” in China. That block of four classes would consist of workers, peasants, capitalists, and the middle class. 

Because of this perspective, Stalin promoted the idea that the Guomindang was the primary revolutionary organization in China. He coerced the Chinese Communist Party to follow the orders of the Guomindang. As a result, during the 1927 revolution the Guomindang ordered members of the CCP to give up their arms. This led to the massacre of thousands of members of the CCP and the defeat of the 1927 revolution.

Leon Trotsky opposed Stalin’s approach to politics. Trotsky had been the commander of the Red Army that defended the Soviet Union for two- and one-half years from a foreign invasion. Trotsky understood that the Guomindang, headed by Chiang Kai-shek was an enemy to the Chinese people. For those reasons, Trotsky adamantly opposed the perspective of following the orders of the Guomindang. 

Wang Fanxi and Chen Duxiu were among many members of the Chinese Communist Party who supported Leon Trotsky’s approach to the 1927 revolution. Although Trotsky’s perspective proved to be correct, the leadership of the CCP continued to support Stalin and blamed Chen Duxiu for the disaster and defeat of the 1927 revolution. Both Wang Fanxi and Chen Duxiu would serve time in prisons run by the Guomindang in the 1930s.

Mao Zedong Thought

Wang Fanxi began his analysis of the thinking of Mao Zedong by looking at Mao’s early years. Because Marxist literature was not available in China for a long time, Mao concentrated his early reading on the Chinese classics. It wasn’t until Mao reached the age of 27 that he began to look at Marxism. Most of the Marxist literature Mao studied were the writings of Joseph Stalin. 

Initially Stalin favored Wang Ming to be the leader of the CCP because of the Wang’s allegiance to his dictates. Although Mao supported the politics of Stalin, he had his own ideas. This independence proved to be crucial to the success of the Chinese Revolution.

Wang Fanxi differentiated between the tactics and the strategy of Mao. Wang conceded that Mao was a brilliant tactician. When the Chinese Communist Party found itself in extremely difficult positions, Mao’s leadership proved to be crucial in allowing the CCP to survive. 

However, Mao argued that his tactical approach should also be viewed as a strategy. In other words, while Marxists argue that a socialist revolution can only happen because of a political party based on the working class, Mao argued that the CCP needed to be based on the peasantry. 

Clearly the CCP found it nearly impossible to continue to operate in the cities because of the repression by the Guomindang. We can also say that during the Cuban Revolution, revolutionaries also found it nearly impossible to operate in the cities and they based their guerrilla resistance in the mountains.

However, there is a difference between carrying out a struggle in the countryside and changing a strategy to base the movement on the peasantry. Peasants want to farm their own land. Workers work together creating profits for capitalists. 

This is the reason why a worker’s movement can put in place a government that can make human needs more important than profits. Only a workers’ government can eventually convince farmers that collective farming is more efficient than family farming. This is one reason why Marx supported the idea of a proletarian revolution. Mao grew to reject that idea.

Under these conditions, Mao grew to support most of the organizing methods of Stalin. Lenin initiated the idea of “democratic centralism” where members of the Bolshevik Party discussed their political orientation at national gatherings. Then, after a vote was taken to accept a political line, all members were required to support that line. Lenin fully accepted the idea that there would be differences within the party, and that those who had differences would have the right to raise them at national meetings.

On the one hand, there are no cities in China named after Mao. That was a conscious policy of the CCP. However, at the seventh congress of the CCP in 1945, “Mao Zedong Thought” became the guiding principle of the party. This meant that anyone who was critical of Mao was critical of what the party viewed as an absolute truth. 

Then, in the year 1956, this changed. Nakita Khrushchev became the head of the government in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev gave a four-hour speech using 26,000 words to describe all the crimes of Stalin. In fact, Stalin organized to murder the entire leadership of the Russian Revolution. After that speech, the Chinese Communist Party revised their 1945 resolution to state that Marxism-Leninism was its guide to action. However, that change in no way changed the political direction of the party.

Mao advanced his plan of the Great Leap Forward. In many ways this plan was like the forced collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union advanced by Stalin. Millions died because of that disastrous plan. 

Liu Shaoqi was the second most powerful member of the CCP at that time. While Liu supported most of Mao’s policies, he opposed the Great Leap Forward. As a result, Liu replaced Mao as the head of the party and advanced policies that appeared to many to be more rational. Den Xiaoping was a supporter of the politics of Liu Shaoqi. 

Mao didn’t like the fact that he was losing influence and organized the Cultural Revolution. Young people, seeing that their future was very limited, joined with Mao in a campaign aimed at punishing millions who had positions of influence in the country. As a result, the entire educational system in China was destroyed for a time, and millions were forced to work in the countryside.

In what appeared to be a repeat of the Chinese disaster of 1927, the Chinese Communist Party advised their supporters in the Indonesian Communist Party to support the politics of Sukarno. Sukarno headed the Indonesian government in the 1960s. 

That support left the hundreds of thousands of communists in Indonesia defenseless against a military coup led by the military commander, Suharto. As a result, hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Indonesians died because of a massacre organized by the military. Had the party armed itself and prepared for that coup, clearly a different result might have happened. 

Finally, after China had given military support to the Vietnamese struggle against the US invasion, Mao met with US President Richard Nixon in February of 1972. By December of 1972 Nixon ordered the Air Force to carry out operation Linebacker II. The Air Force then dropped 20,000 pounds of bombs on North Vietnam. That bombing campaign in no way altered the eventual outcome of the war.

After Mao's death the Chinese government ordered the invasion of Vietnam, and supported the genocidal rule of Pol Pot in Cambodia. These were the actions that convinced the US government to begin to reverse its policy towards China.    

Mao on literature and art

One thing I learned from Wang Fanxi’s book was that Mao was a poet. Wang even viewed Mao’s poetry as worth reading and a part of the Chinese literary heritage. 

However, Mao’s poetry reflected the hundreds of years of feudalism in China and not the ideas of a proletarian revolution. Saying that, Mao’s ideas, like Stalin’s were completely different from Lenin’s approach to art and literature.

Lenin wrote favorably about the writings of Leo Tolstoy. Lenin argued that Tolstoy gave a stunning view of life in Tzarist Russia and felt that view was worth reading. However, Lenin also wrote about how Tolstoy was a large landowner, who wrote his novels from that perspective. So, Lenin was about the free expression of art after the revolution, but reserved the right to be critical of that art. 

Mao, on the other hand felt that art needed to follow the dictates of the party. Wang Fanxi felt that this approach created an environment where genuine artistic creativity was impossible.

Why was Mao so popular?

After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping became the new leader of China. Unlike Khrushchev, Deng made no speech denouncing the crimes of Mao. However, Deng took China in a different direction. While pretending to support the interests of workers and farmers, Deng opened China to massive capitalist investment. 

Marx and Engels argued that they thought proletarian revolution would first erupt in the advanced capitalist nations. They were wrong. Those revolutions erupted in the relatively underdeveloped nations of Russia, China, and Cuba.  

Malcolm X once argued that in the United States there used to be an expression, “You don’t have a Chinamen’s chance.” That expression summarized the hundreds of years of systematic oppression experienced by the large majority of the Chinese population. Malcom argued that after the Chinese Revolution that expression wasn’t used any more.

So, we can argue that in China there was an extreme yearning for liberation. Wang Fanxi, and Chen Duxiu dedicated themselves to the liberation of the of the Chinese people. Mao initially dedicated himself to the liberation of China. Then, largely because of his ardent support of the politics of Joseph Stalin, he allowed his personal ambitions to get in the way of a true liberation of China.

Clearly there will be those who argue that there have been hundreds of millions in China who have recently experienced a significant improvement in their standard of living. Well, there was a significant improvement in the standard of living in the United States between the years 1945 and 1970. Clearly, Marx argued that when there is an upturn in capitalist development, there can also be an improved standard of living for the working class.

After the Second World War, there was a strike wave followed by the titanic events of the civil rights movement. These events were the prime movers in the improved standard of living.

In the past years there have been tens of thousands of strikes in China. Because of the repressive character of the Chinese government, the world has little information about these strikes. However, at one time there were about 5,000 mining deaths per year in China. Today, that number has been reduced to about 300 mining deaths. Miners are among the most militant workers and we might assume that this sharp decline in mining deaths was largely due to job actions by miners.

China and Cuba

When we compare the reality of China and Cuba today, I believe we can also see a profound difference. As I mentioned, there was a clear change in the politics of the Chinese Communist Party after the death of Mao. However, after the death of Fidel Castro there was no significant change in the politics of the Cuban Communist Party.

There has been massive capitalist investment in China. However, the United States maintains an embargo against Cuba. 

China invaded Vietnam and profits from their international investments in their “Belt and Road” initiative. Cuba sent its armed forces to Angola to defend that nation from an invasion by the apartheid government of South Africa. Cuba has also sent its doctors all over the world to treat some of the poorest patients on the planet.

For all these reasons, I believe that while the Chinese Communist Party claims to support the ideas of Marxism, in fact China has become a capitalist state. This is in spite of the fact that in China’s early years, the CCP took significant steps against Chinese capitalism, as well as support for the resistance to the US invasions of Korea and Vietnam. 

Today, the United States government has challenged China because China has become their primary capitalist competitor in the world. Living in the United States means that we need to oppose all those war moves. Allow the Chinese people, as well as the workers of the world to resolve their own problems.

I frankly don’t see how unparalleled growth of China will continue indefinitely. As this growth begins to come to an end, Chinese workers will see how their only road to advancement will be with a government that makes human needs and not profits its only priority. Workers in the world will also begin to see how our class has the same fundamental interests all over the globe.