Leib Davidovich Bronstein (Trotski) y la cuestión judía

By Arlene Clemesha at Plumas Socialdemócratas A.C:

La trayectoria y las ideas de Trotsky con relación al judaísmo presentan un múltiple interés. Primero, obviamente por el propio origen judío de Trotsky. Pero también se debe tomar en consideración el peso del antisemitismo en la tradición histórica rusa, en especial como política de gobierno de la autocracia zarista; el amplio uso del antisemitismo en la lucha de Stalin contra la oposición trotskista en la URSS, como mostró recientemente Dimitri Volkogonov; y finalmente la importancia del Holocausto perpetrado por el nazismo, como paradigma de la barbarie contemporánea. [READ THE REST – IN SPANISH]

Mika Etchebéhère, POUM Militia Captain

From Larry Gambone:

Abridged and roughly translated…
It has been 16 years since the death Micaela Feldman de Etchebéhère , an Argentinian woman who commanded a column of POUM militia in the Spanish Civil War. A friend of Julio Cortazar, Alfonsina Storni, Andre Breton and Copi, her extraordinary history is little known. She not only fought in this war but also lived through all the ideological adventures of the 20th Century.

A child of Russian Jewish immigrants, she grew on the stories of those revolutionaries who had escaped the pogroms and jails of Tsarist Russia. Born in 1902 in Moises Ville, she became an anarchist at age 15 in Rosario. Later in 1920 while at university she encountered Hipólito Etchebéhère, who became her compañero. Together, their lives were committed to militant action. They were first involved in the group “Insurrexit” influenced by both Marxism and anarchism. Then they joined the Communist Party, but were expelled two years later for their disagreement with the party leadership and their support for Trotsky, although they did not join or form a Trotskyist group. Mika then traveled through Patagonia collecting first-hand reports of the massacre of peasants and gauchos by the army. (see Patagonia Rebelde LG)

1931 saw them in Europe, first to Spain,, 1932 in Germany where they witnessed the rise of Nazism, then in 1933 to Paris where they were involved with the revolutionary group, Que Faire. Three years later they were back in Spain where they joined a POUM motorized column. Hipólito was given command. One month later he was killed at Atienza. Because of the machismo, at first Mika had difficulties being taken seriously. The militia men protested that In other companies the women wash and mend the men’s socks. Mika replied The women who are with us are militia members. We fight together, men and women, equal, and nobody better forget it! And we are all volunteers!

Little by little, she overcame her lack of knowledge of military strategy and assumed the commanding role in the column. She crawled through the trenches on her hands and knees through the mud, gathering arms, keeping the revolutionary spirit alive among the militia as she fought beside them. She was then made Capitan and fought on the fronts of Sigüenza, Moncloa, Pineda de Húmera. With the defeat by the fascists she fled to France, but returned to Argentina before she could be arrested by Vichy.

Mika returned to France in 1946. In Paris in 1968, Mika was seen getting students to wear gloves as they dug up paving stones to throw at the cops, since their hands would be clean and there would be no evidence if they were arrested. The policeman who later escorted her to her house had no idea that the handbag of this 66 year old, elegantly dressed lady was stuffed full of dirty gloves.

Taken from the Venezuelan anarchist blog Initiativa Communista

Rudolf Rocker

From Bob From Brockley:

This month is the 50th anniversary of the death of the great Rudolf Rocker, one of my heroes. The Jewish East End Celebration Society (JEECS) is holding an event at Toynbee Hall [in London] on Sunday to mark this. There is a walk in the morning (details below) and a celebration in the afternoon.

Rocker was a non-Jewish German anarchist bookbinder who lived for a couple of decades in the East End of London as the “rabbi” of the Yiddish anarchist and labour movement there. He later lived in Germany, where he was a key figure in the syndicalist movement, and then in upstate New York, where he was associated with the Freie Arbeiter Stimme group and the libertarian education movement. His great works include The Tragedy of Spain, The Truth About Spain, Anarchism or Sovietism and his magumn opus Nationalism and Culture. [MORE]

Literary Geniuses and Their Vintage Typewriters

At Poetic Home. Extract:

George Orwell: Remington Home Portable

George Orwell was an overworked journalist around the time he began working on “1984.” It has been said that his Remington Portable (model #2) was his “right hand man,” and that his preoccupation with both the machinery and “1984″ led to his early demise. By the time the novel was packaged up to send to the publishers, Orwell’s physical health had deteriorated, and he collapsed – never to pick up a pen or use the typewriter again.

There are several photographs in circulation of Orwell seated at the Remington. The typewriter is easily identified by the gold lettering above the keys, and by the retractable toolbar which was intended to lower the profile of the machine for travel.

George Orwell at his Remington via Orwell Today

Orwell’s diaries get interesting

He’s in Tangiers now:

Two buildings here flying Spanish Republican flag, including one called La Casa de Espana, some sort of club, displaying the usual Government posters. Some shops display Franco posters (the Arriba Espana poster almost exactly like a Government one). Writings on wall not common and pro-Franco and pro-Government ones about equally common, the latter perhaps slightly more so. Generally simply Viva or Muera Franco, or U.H.P., or C.N.T.F.A.I., or very rarely U.G.T. No initials of political parties except the F.A.I., the Phalange and once the J.S.U. All these inscriptions invariably Spanish. No clue to attitude of Moors. (See newspaper cutting Petit Marocain of 15.9.36.) (b)¹

Poverty here not extreme for an oriental city. Nevertheless an immense development of mendicancy, the whole town living on the tourist trade. Not many actual beggars but countless touts for curio-shops, brothels etc. Most people speak Spanish, many French and all those connected with the tourist racket speak some English. Local physique very good, especially the young men both Moors and Spaniards etc. In spite of Europeanisation almost all Moors wear the burnous and fez and most of the younger women are veiled. Estimated earnings of longshore fishermen about 3d. an hour.

Seventy years, no.2

Anarchist writers – The Spanish Revolution: 70 years on

Workers’ democracy

The Commune has published two 1950s ILP pamphlets from the 1950s:

socialism and workers’ councils (1957) and nationalisation: a socialist analysis (1958) both counterpose industrial democracy to nationalisation by the bourgeois state, and pose the question of how the working class can rule both economically and politically.

More (via La Bataille Socialiste):

• 1920 Trade unions in Soviet Russia [ILP] pdf externe
• 1920 The I. L. P. and the 3rd International [ILP] pdf externe
• 1921 Oil and Finance in Turkey, Persia and Mesopotamia [ILP]
• 1928-06 A debate between the SPGB and the ILP lien externe
• 1936-10 The basis of revolutionary socialism [Brockway]
• 1937-07 The CNT as I Saw It [Brockway]

Voir aussi sur les nationalisations:

The Labour Government 1945-1951 vidéos

Le réformisme du “Programme commun” en France (1974)