January 7, 1919 – This date marked the beginning of Argentina’s “Bloody Week” (AKA Tragic Week) in Buenos Aires. Workers (led by Italian anarchists) were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day and were fired upon by the authorities, leaving four dead and nearly 30 wounded. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. A General Strike was called and strikers were attacked by trade union reformists and paramilitary groups collaborating with the police. By January 16 the strike was crushed, with as many as 700 dead and 2000 wounded, many of whom were Jewish-Russian immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.(From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)January 7, 1939 – Tom Mooney, a labor activist wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, was freed after 22 ½ years in jail, granted an unconditional pardon by Governor Culbert Olson.(From the Daily Bleed)
On this day
Latin America: Remembering the dictatorships
From Entdinglichung:
From a recent interview with the former Argentine military ruler Jorge Videla found on World War 4 Report , during the military regime were 30,000 political activists, especially the left-Peronist guerrillas and the communist PRT-ERP but also many trade unionists and members of other organizations of the Left, were murdered, often by “disappearances”:
“Our objective” in the March 24, 1976 coup that started the seven years of bloody military rule “in what discipline to anarchized society,” Videla explained to Reato. The generals wanted “to get away from a populist, demagogic vision, in relation to the economy, to go to a liberal market economy. We wanted to discipline unionism and crony capitalism. “Argentine business owners were directly involved in the killings, Videla added, although” they washed their hands “of the actual violence. ”They said, ‘Do what you have to do,’ and later they would add some on. How many times they told me, ‘You’ve come up short, you should have killed a thousand more, 10,000 more’! “
From the archive of the UNHCR:
Arrival of a group of refugee from Chile to be resettled in Switzerland
UNHCR/ D.A. Giulianotti/ 1976
“UNHCR began work in Chile in 1973, a week after the overthrow of the government of Salvador Allende. Immediately after the coup, the then High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadruddin Aga Khan, sent a cable to the military junta reminding them of Chile’s obligations to protect refugees. As soon as it had opened its office, UNHCR began helping thousands of refugees from other countries who had earlier fled to Chile, and who now were being detained or felt threatened under the new government. UNHCR staff established inviolable “safe havens” inside Chile where these refugees could be lodged, protected and assisted while new countries of asylum were arranged. Several appeals were issued asking third countries to open their doors to these refugees. In 1973-74, UNHCR Santiago managed to find resettlement for about 2,600 foreign refugees, helped those opting for repatriation to return to their countries of origin, and assisted the ones who chose to remain in Chile.
At the same time, UNHCR staff in neighbouring countries had to cope with an influx of tens of thousands of Chileans escaping military repression. In all, UNHCR provided protection and assistance to more than 200,000 Chileans in surrounding countries. In the years that followed, UNHCR focused on reunifying the families of fleeing Chilean refugees.”
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 104 (1996)
Related articles
- Chile: Mapuche Still Face Exclusion And Inequality (eurasiareview.com)
Music Mondays: Yiddish tango
Continuing last week’s Yiddish theme…
Zully Goldfarb: “Papirosen“
This is a song about a boy selling cigarettes on the street, hoping he will not die of cold like his sister did.
Divina Gloria: “A Shoa Daine”
Argentine vocalist Divina Gloria, dancing by Schwee Miguel and Tango Ganas, courtesy of Yiddishkayt LA. The song, as sung by Shifra Lerer, appears on the album Yiddish Tango, as do some of the other songs I’m posting today.
Metropolitan Klezmer: “Yiddish celluloid closet”
This video interweaves Metropolitan Klezmer with Edgar Ullmer’s New York Yiddish film “An American Matchmaker”, and brings out the queer subtexts.
Jose Derasner: “La Cumparsita”
A Yiddish version of “La Cumparsita“, the classic tango by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, as performed by Jose Derasner.
Jacob Sandler: “Tsvey Shvartsen Oygen”
This is a medley including some of the previous songs and others, setting them in chronological context from Buenos Aires to the Warsaw Ghetto to Auschwitz and beyond.
Poumatised
An extract from SlackBastard’s Bloggy Tuesday:
Gathering Forces is another blog what I think I’ve referred to before — but, now that I search for it, actually haven’t, I don’t think — that raises some interestink questions. If anything I wrote made the slightest difference to the success of their project, I’d wish them luck. It doesn’t, so I won’t.
Poumista is a blog I’ve referred to before, but as it’s totally neat-o, I thought I may as well do so again. It draws together a phantastic array of sauces on anarchist / Marxist / socialist history, and, like any good library, infoshop or second-hand bookshop, invites you to become lost in its wares, only to realise years have passed, and you’ve wasted your life reading. (And then you die.)
Stalin’s Moustache is all about Stalin and his moustache. Rather cleverly, the writer’s obsession with the facial hair grown on the upper lip of Uncle Joe is disguised by his authorship of various blogposts, articles and even books, seemingly dedicated to exploring such notions as socialism, biblical studies, politics, theology, philosophy “and so on”, but which the discerning reader, armed with the relevant machinetranslation, will soon discover are really all about Stalin (and, moreover, his moustache).
Stalin is alleged to have remarked that ‘Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege’. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’ is a phrase often credited to P.T. Barnum (1810–1891), an American showman. ‘Never give a sucker an even break’, said W. C. Fields.
There then follows a long piece by Jorge Semprun which I highly recommend. Read it.
More links below the fold. (more…)
Poumahoola
Galician metal workers on the barricades. Interview with Venezuelan anarchists of El Libertario.
Tragic presents:
Antisemitism, Human Rights and Acceptable Jews in Buenos Aires.
Alternative histories:
Yugoslav “self government” by Dan Jakopovich. Otto Bauer on film. Notes on the Portuguese revolution. A little theory by Malatesta.
Iconography/iconoclasm:
Lenin’s butt remodelled. The equivalence of totalitarianisms: no Che on Polish t-shirts.
Fascism and anti-fascism:
Don PalabraZ is a Subversive Historian. mister word’s latest post recalls the day in 1938 Joe Louis defeated Max Schmeling for the heavy-weight boxing title. Curiously, despite being championed by a dead incestuous coprophiliac dicktator, and acting as a mouthpiece for the Nazi regime, Schmeling was:
Compassionate and Modest
…On Kristallnacht, Schmeling took an enormous risk and hid the two teenage sons of a Jewish friend in his Berlin hotel room. The boxer claimed to be sick and did not allow any visitors. When the opportunity presented itself, Schmeling smuggled the two boys out of the country. Henri Lewin, who became a Las Vegas hotelier, credits Schmeling with his life; characteristically, the modest Schmeling made no mention of this episode in his own autobiography.
Below the fold – From the archive of struggle, no.24: (more…)
Anarchist reading room
I. Especifismo
From Machete 408:
An informal reader has been put together on especifismo, the anachist tradition and practice from Latin America that speaks for the need to form specifically anarchist orgnaization and for ’social insertion’ within social movements. With similarities to the currents of Anarchist-Communism and Platformism, the especifists argue for a particular understanding of the charactor of anarchist organization and relationships with social movements. With roots going back to the period of dictatorships in the 1980’s, knowledge of the especifist tradition has only reached North America within the last several years.
The reader can be found here and begins with introductory articles (though I think the second one it could do without) and is followed with a series of interviews and translated documents and theory peices. Other projects to translate and gather documents and history related to this tradition are underway.
Contents:
Introductions
Especifismo: The anarchist praxis of building popular movements and revolution organization in Latin America – Adam Weaver
Building a Revolutionary Movement: Why Anarchist Communist Organization? – Adam Weaver
The organizations
The Social Question: Latin American Anarchism and “Social Insertion” – Michael Schmidt (Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation, South Africa)
NEFAC Interviews The Federacao Anarquista Gaucha (FAG Brazil) – Red Sonja (North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists-Boston)
Who We Are, What We Want, The Path We Follow – Coletivo Comunista Anarquista (Brazil)
Anarchist Advances in Uruguay and Brazil -from Rojo y Negro (CGT, Spain)
The Principles of the Forum of Organized Anarchism -Fórum do Anarquismo Organizado (Brazil)
Theoretical discussions
The Need of Our Own Project – Libertarian Socialist Organization (Argentina)
The Specific Organization – Jaime Cubero (Centro de Cultura Social, Sao Paulo)
Materialism and Idealism – Anarchist Collective of “Zumbi dos Palmares” Forum of Organized Anarchism (Brazil)
Theory, Ideology, and Historical Materialism - Internal Education Secretary of Libertarian Socialist Organization (Brazil)
II. Anarcho-syndicalism
I’ve been poking around the website of the anarcho-syndicalist Workers Solidarity Alliance. They’ve got quite a good library, with some classic stuff, although mostly available elsewhere:
- Workers Power & the Spanish Revolution (pdf) by Tom Wetzel
- The American Labor Movement: A New Begining by Sam Dolgoff (@ IWW.org)
- Anarcho-Syndicalism (html) by Rudolf Rocker
- Anarchism and Power in the Spanish Revolution (html) by Murray Bookchin
- Bolsheviks and Workers Control by Maurice Brinton (@ Spunk Press)
- The Founding of the First International (html) by Mikhail Bakunin
- Marxists and Spanish Anarchism A reply to various Marxist criticisms of Spanish anarchosyndicalism, compiled by Iain McKay. (@ flag.blackened.net)
- Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution (html) by Peter Rachleff
- Towards a Fresh Revolution by the Friends of Durruti Group, 1938. (@ WSM, Ireland)
Members of the IWW Agricultural Workers Organization take a vote in the early ’20s.
