[R-G] RE: [unclassified] RE: [620peace] Howard Zinn interviewed by La Jiribilla in Havana
William Mandel
wmmmandel at earthlink.net
Tue May 18 02:19:02 MDT 2004
Tom's ignorance is beyond belief. It would take a book to deal with each
of his misstatements. Not one, six. I've written them: The Soviet Far
East and Central Asia, 1944, Institute of Pacific Relations and Dial
Press; A Guide to the Soviet Union, 1946, Dial Press; Russia
Re-examined, 1964, Hill & Wang (the 18-year gap between this and the
previous one was thanks to Truman and McCarthy; it was only when Kennedy
was elected that Hill asked me to write that one because he thought it
would sell, and proved right: revised edition, 1966; English edition, A
New Look at the Soviet Union); Soviet Women, 1975, Doubleday/Anchor;
Soviet But Not Russian, 1985, University of Alberta Press and Ramparts
Press; Saying No To Power (my autobiography), 1999, Creative Arts.
Only the last two can still be gotten new, from me. The others can
be obtained from used-book sellers online or in bookstores. The
advantage of the last-named book is that it represents what I have
learned, including inadequacies in the earlier books, over an uncommonly
long active lifetime.
If Tom knew the history of the Soviet workingclass, he would have
learned that wage differences were introduced because that proved the
only way to get enough people to do harder jobs rather than easier ones,
or to make the effort to learn skills. He would know that when it became
clear that faith in socialism was being lost, and Gorbachev, new to
power, addressed a meeting of the workers in the Putilov Shipbuilding
Works of legendary revolutionary traditions, and asked: "Would you work
for capitalists?" in a context implying that he expected the answer: "Of
course not," he got a yell: "If they paid decent wages." Or if he had
been with me talking to the striking coalminers in Kazakhstan in 1990,
he would have been bowled over, as I was, to hear the slogan right out
of the AFL: "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work," rather than
workers' power.
And if he knew Paul Robeson (who I knew personally, as I knew Dr.
DuBois), he would have known that Paul was shocked to his roots on his
last visit to the USSR when a great Jewish poet he knew in Moscow, Itzik
Feffer, indicated by hand gestures that he had been given leave from
incarceration for this meeting. To which Paul, in his greatness,
responded by choosing to sing in his concert at the Moscow Conservatory
the soul-stirring Yiddish song of resistance in the Warsaw ghetto:
"Never Say That You Have Reached the Very End" (zug nit kaynmull az du
gayst dem letzn veg). Feffer was executed.
You see, the big difference between me and the leaders of the U.S.
Communist Party, many of whom I knew (Gus Hall, etc.) because we had
been sent to Ohio by it during the years of organization of the CIO, is
that I thought the Soviet Union was a society to be studied, while they
thought it was simply to be propagandized, so they never bothered to
read the manuscripts of my books when I offered them, and were shocked
out of all usefulness when Khrushchev in 1956 told part of the truth of
the Stalin Era. Thank goodness that Trotsky, to whom Tom refers, never
got to run the country, because he wanted to militarize the working
class to make socialism work, while Stalin, equally desirous of making a
success of a system that ultimately proved unworkable, was a better
politician in moving more slowly toward the level of discipline that
culminated in gulag, and so achieved the social gains of which Tom is
proud, as I was. But he also created a situation in which anyone who
tried to think for himself, and for others, was shortened by a head,
with the results we see today: a country whose people haven't the
vaguest notion of how to improve their situation while regretting how
far they have fallen.
William (Bill) Mandel
My autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Introduction by Howard Zinn), is
a history of how the American people fought to defend and expand its
rights since the 1920s (I'm 86) employing the form of the life of a 30s
AND 60s activist, one who was involved in most serious movements:
student, labor, 45 years of efforts to prevent war with the USSR, civil
rights South and North, women's liberation [my late wife appears on 50
pages], 37 years on Pacifica Radio [where I invented talk radio], civil
liberties. You may hear/see my testimony before different
McCarthy-Cold-War-Era witch-hunting committees [used in six films and a
play]) on my website, http://www.billmandel.net
<http://www.billmandel.net/> I am the author of five books in my
academic field. For an autographed copy, send me $24 at 4466 View
Pl.,#106, Oakland, CA. 94611
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Warner [mailto:warner at scn.org]
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 9:41 PM
To: William Mandel; 'Fred Feldman'; 'snews'; 'nsan'; 'ufpj-news'; '107';
'standard'; 'gleft'; 'solidarity'; 'kom'; 'gpcafe'; 'rad'; 'mxmail';
'620'; 'ceoi'
Cc: Walterlx at earthlink.net; communard2 at juno.com; Lecconsult at aol.com
Subject: Re: [unclassified] RE: [620peace] Howard Zinn interviewed by La
Jiribilla in Havana
To Tom's contention that:
The reason that the U.S. is a magnet to so many people on the face of
the
earth is that there is a HUGE imbalance of the worlds' resources -
especially energy - that is gobbled up here than any other place on the
planet. And the immigration pressures must be viewed with some degree
of
quantitative judgment. It is OVERWHELMINGLY the people from the
third world
that are beating at the borders of the U.S. It is the Haitians and
the
Viet Namese and the Chinese and the Nicaraguans and yes - the Cubans -
as
well as the rest of the peoples of Asia and Africa and Latin America.
Where are the throngs of Canadians and Germans and French people who are
dying of thirst crossing illegal desserts and being set upon by border
guards and their dogs? It is precisely the people from the colonial
world - whose homelands have been raped over the centuries by
imperialism
that are the BIG immigration seekers. They strive to come to the
place
that has consumed all of the wealth of their countries and saddled them
with
un-payable debt with suffocating interest rates - which accrue to the
imperialist countries - especially the U.S.A. And of course, not
only do
these same migrants that seek entry to the U.S. - They also batter at
the
borders of Germany and France and Canada. Some even seek migration to
the
emirates and oil rich autocracies of the Mid East - where they are
beaten
and abused and exploited. It has NOTHING to do with the superiority
of a
market economy.
W. Mandel responds:
The French and Germans and Canadians all have capitalist (market)
economies, which have given them higher living standards than any of the
Marxist countries had.
1)
2) Tom notes:
3) The fact that these imperialist countries - in addition to being
capitalist - were the victors in the several world wars and the conquest
of the colonial world. And needy third world people seek to suck a
little bit of their largesse from immigration to there too. Of
course, this does not address the fact that the countries that are
fleeing to these places - Turkey, Palestine, other parts of the Mid
East, the Philippines, and the continent of Africa, are capitalist
countries too. So - they are NOT fleeing from non capitalism to
capitalism but from colonial oppression and its aftermath to the place
where the wealth of their countries flowed after their conquest.
After all, W. Mandel said that "our country today remains the most
popular and desired goal of immigrants, whether highly-educated and
relatively-prosperous Israelis and similarly highly-educated citizens of
the former Soviet Union, or illiterate and miserably poor Haitian
peasants and Chinese who cram into the holds of ships to be smuggled to
our shores." It don't prove a thing, Bill!
4)
5) W. Mandel averred:
6) In no such country (socialist) did the living standard ever exceed
what the longer-established capitalist countries attained, and in their
later years the growth rates of the Communist-governed countries
declined.
7)
8) Tom notes:
9) Once again W. Mandel has accepted the wall street definition of what
constitutes a high standard of living. When Paul Robeson was living in
the USSR he stated that he "would rather be a street light in the Soviet
Union than a Negro in the United States. Which I took to mean that by
ANY definition, the people in the USSR had it better than the Black
population of the U.S. This is still true in many ways in comparison
between the U.S. and Cuba. The mortality rate for new mothers and new
babies and for the population as a whole is BETTER in Cuba than it is in
Harlem or among Black residents of the USA - or Indians or Latinos.
Ditto with the literacy rate and availability of housing and education.
And that is in the face of being virtually the sole survivor of
socialism in the world and facing the constant threat of invasion and
subversion by the mightiest armed juggernaut on the face of - and in the
history of the world.
10) If "standard of living" is gauged by the amount of the world's
energy and resources that is consumed - certainly the USA comes out way
on top. But much of that does not transfer to quality of life or
"standard of living" Surely the security of virtually full employment
and assured health care and readily available day care and all of the
social guarantees must be factored in to any meaningful determination of
"standard of living".
11)
12) W. Mandel says:
13) China's living standard, although on average still very low, has
risen by leaps and bounds since the restoration of capitalism, still
incomplete.
14)
15) Tom says:
16) The removal of the Iron Rice Pot (the social safety net) has left
millions of Chinese unemployed and alienated. It is true that as in
the USSR there are a new class of millionaires and many who are more
prosperous than they were before. I don't know where W.Mandel gets his
Chinese statistics, but all of the sources that say what he says is true
are those that are approved by the US government - and the current
regime. How often do you switch on your TV and find a spokes person
for the unemployed of China of those who have been wiped out by the new
system of private accumulation?
17)
18) W. Mandel says:
Of course the New Economic Policy was introduced to get the country's
economy going again. What did that was return to the market in the
production of what the people themselves wanted: consumer goods of every
kind, agricultural, industrial, pharmaceutical, surgical.
19)
20) Tom says:
21) This is a unique interpretation that W. Mandel gives to the New
Economic Policy. It is certainly NOT what Lenin had in mind - And it
has nothing to do with the furor that swelled up in regard to it.
The NEP was a palliative token that was handed to the privileged
elements of the old Tsarist regime - and it was considered to be
extremely temporary. It formally acceded to the notion that more
skilled people should receive more - much more - than the non skilled.
And the reason for that was the fact that 80+% of the population of the
USSR was illiterate. And in order to build a modern nation based on
technology as well as labor, it was necessary to retain as many of the
old technical and intellectual classes as possible - as well as win
against the counter revolutionary White armies. Even Leon Trotsky -
named the head of the Red Army - was forced to recruit from the old
officer caste (with commissars looking over their shoulders) to
successfully organize an effective defense. When confronted by the
Politburo about having tsarist officers in positions of authority in the
Red Army, he flat told them that it was the only way that it could be
done and offered his resignation if they reversed the policy. And
Russia was suffering a "brain drain" like none other before or since,
even though there is always some of that in the wake of a revolution.
The NEP was instituted to turn around any further of this kind of
emigration to France and Germany and the US, etc. - so that with this
bootstrap maneuver there could be established a USSR that was the second
largest producer of material goods and the best educated political body
on the planet. It also allowed a very few private companies to emerge
when it served the interest of the workers state.
22)
23) What Stalin did was to immortalize the inequalities that were
ushered in on a temporary basis. And in doing so he gained the
overwhelming support of this privileged layer of the USSR. This was
the layer that turned the country over to the imperialists in the final
analysis. And many of the managers and directors then became the
private owners of the "for profit" enterprises that the workers had
entrusted them with.
24)
25) W. Mandel says:
26) Not one surname of anyone who was ever a member of the Political
Bureau of the Soviet Communist Party, the real power from the Revolution
until 1991, is to be found among the Russian oligarchs of today. Most of
the latter were not even managers or bureaucrats, but were
highly-educated people, including academics.
27)
28) Tom reiterates:
29) this privileged layer of the USSR. This was the layer that turned
the country over to the imperialists in the final analysis. And many
of the managers and directors then became the private owners of the "for
profit" enterprises that the workers had entrusted them with.
30) This was the layer that turned the country over to the
imperialists in the final analysis. And many of the managers and
directors then became the private owners of the "for profit" enterprises
that the workers had entrusted them with.
31)
32) W. Mandel says:
33) An actual majority of the oligarchs are Jewish, because traditions
of knowledge of how to do business remained strongest among that people.
34)
35) Tom has wondered:
36) Perhaps the reason that a few Jewish oligarchs are Jewish might be
because there may have been private financing from abroad that became
available to buy up the worthless "stock certificates" that were issued
in the privatization process. Certainly the Zionists were active in
the USSR recruiting people to go to Israel and carrying on extensive
anti Soviet campaigns in the United States. The prominence of these
few Jewish capitalists at the top of the capitalist garbage heap does
not mean that the capitalist turn was essentially Jewish. The
preponderance are Russians who were part of the old apparatus.
37)
38) W. Mandel admits:
39) Certainly, children of such people (bureaucrats) have done well in
the new system thanks to long-term family connections and the
regrettable privileges their parents had to a minor degree under Stalin
but increasingly under all his successors in Soviet times. Some
Soviet-era managers have done well, in cases where such individuals
actually were good executives.
40)
41) W. Mandel says:
The total number of people killed by Yeltsin's shelling was 400, a
figure tiny even by the standards of the American Revolution,
42)
43) Tom says:
44) Of course - the workers power was ceded without much of a fight.
However, It seems pretty clear that that shelling was when quantity
turned to quality and workers power was crushed. I wept!
Apparently W. Mandel cheered.
45)
46) W. Mandel says:
Tom insults the workers of the U.S., Canada (so close to his Seattle),
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, western Europe, and South Korea by
contending that their superior living standard comes solely from
imperialism.
47)
48) Tom says:
49) I AM a worker in North America - have been since I worked for 10
cents an hour carrying and bagging groceries in the mid thirties.
And I have never crossed a picket line and have been a union organizer
at various times in my life. However, there is nothing that does away
with the fact that the wealth of this nation was built on the robbing of
it from its aboriginal population and genocide toward them and dozens of
other cultures around the world and the enslavement and transport of a
free labor force from the continent of Africa which wreaked havoc and
destabilized the population of that continent until this very moment and
left the Black residents of the US an oppressed people. This is also
true of the other cornerstone imperialist powers, namely England upon
whose empire the sun never set. And its arch rival on the world
scene France and the other fundamental colonial power, Germany.
50)
51) W. Mandel says:
52) As to the situation on the North American continent, I have
participated in militant actvities, North and South, on behalf of
African-Americans, from 1931 to today, and appreciate Tom's reference to
my efforts in the struggle to free Mumia. I was of minor assistance to
Chavez' huelga. I have the respect and close personal friendship with a
former Black Panther who served nine years in prison for his activities.
I admire and have the respect of a major Native-American intellectual
with a lifelong record of militancy on behalf of his people from his
early days as a workingman and union activist as well as his years in
Mississippi as an activist professor of Indian Studies at Tupelo who had
his life nearly beaten out of him in the demonstrations of the Sixties.
53)
54) Tom says:
55) It is only because that W. Mandel IS a general progressive that I
take such strong exception to his prettifying of "the market" as a
rational and just adjudicator in the current world. It is actually
the struggle against the market that unified one of the most militant
and earth shaping outpouring that happened right here in Seattle
recently. That struggle against "the market" is one of the
fundamental unifiers of the Third World against the big and dominant
capitalists. And it is especially compelling that W. Mandel was at
one time a clarion of wisdom and insight in relation to the socialist
system in the USSR that I trouble my self to answer him in this way.
56)
57) In solidarity,
Thomas W. Warner
58) Secretary Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee - a Task Force of the
Church Council of Greater Seattle - for identification
8923 2nd Ave. N.E.
Seattle WA, 98115
59) (206) 523-1720
60) warner at scn.org
61) http://www.seattlecuba.org
62) .
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