WE MUST NEVER FORGET: THE FBI IS AN AGENT OF STATE REPRESSION

Harry Targ

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided homes of activists and issued subpoenas to some of them in Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere on Friday, September 24. These FBI actions reminded me of a book I read by Regin Schmidt, a distinguished Danish historian, called Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, University of Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000. Schmidt carefully documents the role of state repression and FBI conduct in the 20th century. I wrote a review of the book which appeared in Socialism and Democracy, Summer-Fall, 2002, pp.212-214. The review, printed below, suggests that progressives need to understand the continued connections between social movements and state repression.

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The young lack a sense of history-of the Cold War, of anti-communism, of the vibrancy of progressive movements in the United States. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, older activists discoursing on their history at first engaged in long needed self-criticism. The self-criticism then shifted, however, to blanket rejection of our progressive pasts—our victories as well as our defeats, our brave and honorable moments, and particularly a recollection of the hegemonic power of the U.S. state as a primary cause of our defeats. Plainly the horrific record of state repression in America is being forgotten by the older radicals and is unfamiliar to the younger ones.

Regin Schmidt’s book can help enormously in revisiting and reconstructing the role of state repression in manipulating, subverting, jailing, deporting, and killing leftists in the twentieth century. Schmidt has provided us with a data-rich account of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation took on its special role in crushing the left in America. His book is about the origins of the FBI in the old Bureau of Investigation in 1908 and its transformation into a state weapon in the struggle against perceived Bolshevism, anarchism, and communism in the aftermath of World War I. It is also about the continuity of state repression from the era of the Palmer Raids after the world war to Cold War America.

Schmidt argues that recently declassified information points to new explanations for the FBI’s rise to prominence. Some researchers view the agency’s rise as a response to mass hysteria, placing the root cause of anti-communism in the public at large. Schmidt, however, shows how popular attitudes about the Bolshevik/communist/anarchist threat emerge only after Attorney General Palmer and the FBI launched their campaigns of harassment, arrest, and deportation. In short, anti-communism as a public ideology was the creation of state institutions.

Another body of scholarly and journalist literature places primary, indeed sole, responsibility for FBI misdeeds on the shoulders of its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover. While Schmidt sees Hoover as the major protagonist in the FBI drama, he grounds Hoover’s conduct in the context of state policy and bureaucratic interest.

Further, most studies of the FBI emphasize its role in shaping anti-communism after World War II. Schmidt, however, takes the reader back to the first Red Scare and the Palmer Raids for the origins of anti-communism. And, he claims, the campaign was constant from then through the Cold War period. The FBI and anti-communism are less visible from the mid-1920s until the depths of the Great Depression only because of the diminution of radical activities.

Schmidt clearly states his central thesis early in the book and demonstrates its accuracy through historical examination:

Just as the mushrooming federal agencies, bureaus, and commissions were employed to regulate the economy and ameliorate the most severe social consequences of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, (so also) the state during the first decades of the century increasingly used its resources to control, contain, and, in times of crisis, to repress social unrest and political opposition. Thus, the institutionalization of the FBI’s political activities from 1919 was at bottom a part of the federalization of social control in the form of political surveillance.

This book provides an engaging, rich detailed history of how the FBI served the social control functions of the state: harassing the left, supporting federal, state, and local politicians in their anti-communist campaigns, and responding with sympathy to corporate requests for assistance. It covers the campaigns against the IWW, the 1919 strike wave, the Palmer Raids, the Seattle General Strike, and the deportation of radicals in the early twenties.

Red Scare is an important book. It should be read by older progressives to refresh their memories of real state repression in the United States. The book should be passed along to young activists, most of whom were not old enough to remember FBI harassment of Central American solidarity activists in the 1980s. And this book should be included as supplementary reading in university classes (and study groups) on U.S. history, American politics, and social movements.

Finally, the book makes crystal clear an important reality of struggles for social change. Social movements do not fall apart solely because of ideological rigidity or factionalism or egotism. The errors that come from our ranks have to be understood in the context of a continuous pattern of state repression. The sorry record of the FBI in the United States must not be forgotten. Red Scare will help us remember.

MIDWESTERNERS GATHER TO DISCUSS HEALTH CARE AND BUILDING A PROGRESSIVE MAJORITY

Harry Targ



(Generally articles in this blog constitute commentary on politics, economics, and culture. From time to time I attend meetings that I believe may have substantive interest for readers beyond those in the organization. Because panelists addressed issues of health care and building a progressive majority, I thought it appropriate to include here my summary of the discussions that took place).

Approximately 28 labor activists, activists for single payer health care, gay rights, an end to mountain top removal, voter rights for ex- felons, students for socialism, and campaigners against racism and war in Afghanistan came together on Saturday, September 19 in Louisville to share information and action plans at the semi-annual Midwest Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism meeting. Participants were young and old, Black and white, long-time grassroots organizers, educators, health care and social work professionals, and a professional musician and published novelist.

Discussion was organized around three broad themes. First, attendees received a report on the national convention of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) which occurred in late July, 2009 in San Francisco. Report-backs from Marilyn Albert, Harry Targ, and Eddie Davis emphasized the enthusiasm, excitement, and renewed commitments for building a progressive majority and envisioning socialism that came out of the convention. People were informed of the new multi-racial, multi-age leadership that was elected at the convention and how that body engaged in a fully open revision of a “Goals and Principles” statement for the 21st century that was adopted for the years ahead. Eddie Davis presented an exciting slide show of images of the convention which captured the enthusiasm of most people who were there.

Then, the Midwest meeting addressed the two substantive issues of the day. Long-time health care activists initiated morning discussion on the healthcare crisis. Marilyn Albert, founding member of CCDS, registered nurse, labor organizer, and single payer activist since the 1970s, made a powerful argument for supporting HR 676 or other single payer bills. She argued that the various versions of the “public option” will not adequately address the health car needs of the American people and may in fact make the situation of many worse by having a limited and flawed piece of legislation. In addition, if a new program is adopted by the Congress and President that fails to provide affordable health care for all Americans, unencumbered by insurance companies, the single payer movement might be set back for years.

Kay Tillow, Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare, reported on the fact that despite mainstream media stories to the contrary, the single payer health care movement is as strong as it has ever been. She reported returning from the national convention of the AFL-CIO that a single payer system is broadly supported within the labor movement. International unions, state AFL-CIOs, local labor councils, and individual locals have publicly endorsed HR 676. She distributed data provided by Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.PNHP.org) that compared a single payer amendment to HR 3200 as proposed by House democrats. It pointed out that with a single-payer system everyone in the United States would be automatically covered, while the more limited bill would leave 20 million uninsured, and tens of millions underinsured. HR 676 would also cover everyone who needs health care in the United States with no exceptions for undocumented workers.

After the two presentations lively discussion occurred, for the most part involving assessment of the single payer movement in the context of political opposition from so-called Blue Dog Democrats, Tea Baggers, insurance companies, and the mainstream media. The panelists provided much useful information, compellingly made the case that progressives must continue work in the single payer movement, and convinced most participants in the discussion that the single payer movement had come a long way from the 1970s when Congressman Ron Dellums from the Bay area introduced a precursor to HR 676.

Jim Glenn, Kentucky director for Organizing for America, participated in the last part of the morning discussion. He made it clear that many Obama supporters also support a single payer health care system and Obama himself would not be opposed to it either if HR 676 got to his desk for signature.

The afternoon panel addressed “The Crisis and Building the Progressive Majority in the Heartland-Race, Class and Gender.” While the panel presentations were more varied, in the end they led meeting participants to the point of discussing how activists need to come together to address the varied issues that drive our political work. Pem Buck, Professor of Anthropology, Elizabethtown Community College, Kentucky, presented a paper on how “whiteness” and race have been used to divide the working class. An attack on racism, Buck suggested, must involve an attack on whiteness, which in the United States became a juridical concept to justify privilege and class rule. There was discussion from the audience about “white skin privilege” as it applies in a practical manner.

Thomas Lambert, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, Indiana, presented results of a study he had done that showed the continued relevance of Marx’s theory of exploitation. Using contemporary national and global data, the Marxian formula that emphasizes capitalism’s expropriation of the surplus value produced by workers remains an excellent predictor of levels of inequality within countries and in the international system. Higher rates of exploitation in the Marxian sense, he concluded, lead to greater inequality. (The papers presented by Pem Buck and Thomas Lambert can be found at the Midwest Regional meeting link at http://www.cc-ds.org/ ).

K.A. Owens, chairperson, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and co-chair of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, spoke of the historical election of Barack Obama and what it has meant to African-Americans, gays and other sectors of the society who have lived in discrimination. He then suggested that there is much work to still to be done. Along with grassroots activism, progressives need to work to revise our language and how we relate to each other. He used as an example the typical way in which people great each other for the first time. People are asked “what do you do?” Along with visible codes communicated physically as to race, and gender, “the what do you do question” signifies class. And, as with responding to people by virtue of race and gender, responses to the job/employment question shapes peoples reaction to others in class terms. Owens argued that we must transcend race, gender, and class in our organizing.

Bob Sloan, East Kentucky author who has written such novels as Nobody Knows, Nobody Sees: A Novel of Appalachia, described the horrific consequences of mountain top removal for workers and communities in East Kentucky and West Virginia. He described how he and other artists were mobilized by Wendell Berry to launch a campaign to stop this odious practice. He claimed that the campaign is having some success. He urged all of those who are engaged in building a progressive majority to use whatever media outlets they can to get the word out about health care, the devastating consequences of war, racism, and sexism, and issues like mountain top removal. Even though the national media is a monopoly, Sloan said, local media, public broadcasting, and other print and electronic outlets have open spaces for news and views. They are eager to fill their spaces and we on the left can help them in that regard.

In the final brief period, participants in the meeting thanked the Kentucky hosts and organizers of the panels. All agreed that progressives from the region need to continue meeting regularly to share insights and plan more collaborative political work. The next meeting was tentatively set for March 27, 2010. Participants agreed to discuss the feasibility, travel and expenses, for hosting the next meeting in Cleveland, or whether Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania should host their own regional meeting while Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois CCDS members meet in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Pem Buck’s book on class, race, and gender in Kentucky is called Worked to the Bone: Race, Class, Power and Privilege in Kentucky, Monthly Review Press.

Bob Sloan’s web site is at http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

An interview with Bob Sloan on mountain top removal can be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKpfTVNUv10

REMEMBERING PAUL ROBESON 60 YEARS AFTER THE PEEKSKILL RIOTS

Harry Targ

On September 4, 1949, an angry crowd surrounded the 20,000 friends of Paul Robeson who had come to hear him in an open-air concert at Peekskill, New York. After the event right-wing, anti-communist inspired mobs attacked supporters who were leaving the event. These attacks included smashing the windows of Pete Seeger’s automobile with several family members inside. Sixty years later we remember the great progressive Paul Robeson, his struggles for justice, and his refusal to bow to the politics of reaction.

The Young Robeson

One of the giants of the twentieth century, a citizen of the world, an actor/singer and activist for justice, Paul Robeson has been virtually erased from popular consciousness, a victim of the vicious anti-communist hysteria of the 1940s and 1950s.

Paul Robeson, an African-American, was born to Maria Louis Bustill and William Drew Robeson in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898, 33 years after the close of the civil war and two years after the United States Supreme Court declared in Plessy vs. Ferguson that separate institutions for Black and white people were constitutional. New Jersey, while not segregated to the extent of the deep South, was hostile to the rights of Black people.

Robeson was born into a family with a long-standing commitment to struggle for justice. His mother’s ancestors participated in the underground railroad, bringing escaped slaves from the South to the North. Her family included ministers, teachers, and artisans in the Northern free Black community. His father was a slave who escaped to the north and joined the Union army. As a minister educated at Lincoln University, Robeson’s father defended the rights of Black people in the New Jersey communities where he worked.

Many years later when he was politically active, Robeson would refer to the experiences of his people struggling against slavery and oppression to be free. He likened the struggles of his ancestors to the Black people of his day, and also to factory workers seeking labor rights, and peoples all round the world who were struggling to overthrow European colonial empires.

The young Robeson studied hard, was coached in elocution by his demanding father and performed so well in school that he was admitted to Rutgers University in 1915, only the third Black ever to enter that institution. Robeson graduated in 1919 as valedictorian, champion debater, and two-time All-American first-team football selection.

Robeson attended law school at Columbia University from 1919-1923 but decided against a law career because of the racism he faced at a preeminent New York law firm.

While he attended law school, Robeson began appearing in plays and found his way to the influential Provincetown Players of Greenwich Village. Robeson’s artistic career was successfully launched by his performances in two of Eugene O’Neill’s most important and controversial plays, “All God’s Chillun Got Wings” and “Emperor Jones.” From there his reputation and visibility spread.

By the late 1920s, he appeared in “Porgy,” “Stevedore” and “Showboat,” where he sang “Old Man River,” a song that would have deep political significance for him later on. On tour in Europe in the late 1920s and starring in a London production of “Othello,” in 1930, Robeson had become a star of worldwide proportions. During the 1930s, he would appear in eleven films, mostly British productions, further solidifying his global reputation as an actor.

As his reputation was soaring in the theatre of the 1920s, Robeson came to the realization that the rich musical heritage of his people, then called Negro Spirituals, needed to be celebrated and performed. He thus launched a singing career that would be his most enduring contribution to U.S. culture and, at the same time, would serve as a vehicle for him to participate in the struggle of Black people to achieve their freedom from racism and Jim Crow segregation. Over the next thirty years, he would learn at least a dozen languages and would celebrate the musical traditions of peoples from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, as well as the United States.

The Politicization of Paul Robeson

By the mid-1930s, Robeson’s outlook concerning the world around him and how the artist must relate to that world had changed significantly. Always aware of racism and segregation, Robeson began to see the oppression of his people as similar and related to the world of anti-Semitism, colonialism, worker exploitation, and attacks on the first socialist state, the Soviet Union.

Leaving a London theatre after a performance of Showboat in 1928, Robeson encountered a massive march of Welsh miners who had come all the way from Wales to demand better wages and working conditions. Robeson spoke to their group and joined their struggle. The mutual love and respect Robeson and the Welsh miners developed for each other would last for the rest of his life.

But it was the escalating Spanish Civil war, fascist armies fighting to overthrow a democratically elected government, that led Robeson to declare his commitment to political struggle on behalf of the dispossessed. In a speech given before the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief at Royal Albert Hall on June 24, 1937 he proclaimed: “I have longed to see my talent contributing in an unmistakably clear manner to the cause of humanity. Every artist, every scientist, must decide NOW where he stands. He has no alternative.” The artist he said “must elect to fight for freedom or slavery.”

Robeson spoke out for workers, walked their picket lines, and sang to gatherings of trade unionists in auto, steel, shipping, meat packing, electrical, and mining industries who were demanding the right to form unions during the massive organizing drives of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). He sang of that great IWW labor singer/ organizer, “Joe Hill.” And he sang songs championing racial justice.

Red Scares

After World War II, Robeson met with President Truman and demanded that he take a stand against segregation and support anti-lynching legislation in the South. He already had spoken out against the exclusion of Blacks from major league baseball. Opposing the Cold War and Truman’s refusal to stand against segregation in the South, Robeson joined the campaign of third party candidate Henry Wallace, of the Progressive Party of America, who was running for president in 1948.

Robeson had often visited the Soviet Union, befriended the great Soviet film maker Eisenstein and had spoken with admiration about what appeared to be the lack of racism there. After World War II and as the Cold War was heating up, the U.S. government and rightwing groups launched a campaign to stifle the voice of Paul Robeson because of his sympathies for the Soviet Union and his strong advocacy for racial justice in the United States. He was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thugs vandalized and beat attendees at the summer Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York. Government agents pressured concert impresarios to stop sponsoring Robeson concerts. And when his public access to audiences declined in the 1950s, even Black churches were pressured to cancel Robeson visits. The centerpiece of the effort to muzzle Robeson was the decision of the State Department to revoke his passport in 1950. He was forbidden to leave the United States even though he still was a beloved worldwide figure. His passport was not reinstated until 1958 when the Supreme Court ruled that the State Department did not have the right to confiscate the passports of citizens..

Despite his not being able to travel, working people around the world continued to support Robeson. Canadian trade unionists from 1952 through 1955 organized four Robeson concerts at the border between the state of Washington and Canada. Robeson performed from the U.S. side and Canadian workers listened to his music from their side. Robeson welcomed the Canadian workers at the 1952 concert singing his signature song, “Old Man River,” from Showboat. He sang the lyrics he had revised from the original version in the 1928 musical-from stereotyping of Black people as docile to Black people as fighters for their freedom. Robeson began to insert the newer progressive lyrics in the 1930s when his own political consciousness had begun to change and for the rest of his life he saw the new lyrics as emblematic of his own political transformation.

In 1957, Welsh miners organized a chorus in a London studio and sang to Robeson listening in New York using the then new long distance telephone lines. They always remembered his support for their struggle and they wanted to demonstrate to him and the world their opposition to the efforts of the United States to stifle the voice of Paul Robeson.

After Robeson’s passport was reissued he resumed worldwide travel in the late 1950s. He fell ill in 1961, returned to the United States and for the most part retired from public life.

Robeson believed that peoples everywhere shared common musical forms and common struggles: workers, peoples of color, colonized peoples, women. He celebrated their differences but insisted on their human oneness. Perhaps we need to rediscover that vision again today. He died in 1976 but his spirited call for human solidarity is just as precious today as it was in his lifetime. And, as at Peekskill, those who support human solidarity must be prepared to “hold the line” against reaction.

"Hold The Line”:

Let me tell you the story of a line that was held,
And many brave men and women whose courage we know well,
How we held the line at Peekskill on that long September day!
We will hold the line forever till the people have their way.

Hold the line!Hold the line!
As we held the line at Peekskill
We will hold it everywhere.
Hold the line!Hold the line!
We will hold the line forever
Till there’s freedom ev’rywhere.
Words by Lee Hays; Music by Pete Seeger (1949)

"ECONOMIC CRISIS, THE CHANGING WORKING CLASS, AND PRAXIS": A Panel Introduction

(This statement was prepared as an introduction to a panel at the Working Class Studies Association Conference, June 5, 2009, Pittsburgh)

Harry Targ

The thirty year trajectory of growing income and wealth inequality, stagnant real wages, and job loss have been exacerbated by the deep economic crisis of 2007 and beyond. Literally millions of jobs are being lost in manufacturing and service while formerly so-called “middle class” workers, salaried employees, are experiencing an economic marginalization historically reserved for workers on the shop floor, the restaurant, or the health care facility. The effects of job and income loss are spilling over to destroy entire communities. Youth and people of color, as always, experience economic crisis two or three times the magnitude of others. All but the ruling class is becoming “proletarianized.”

This panel will address the depths of the economic crisis and what it means for class in the United States in the twenty-first century. It will particularly address the connections between economic crisis, the changing nature of class, and political practice: campaigning, mobilizing, consciousness raising, building a progressive majority, and envisioning socialist alternatives.

As we address the context in which mobilization may lead to reforms, worker consciousness raised, and class conflict becomes class struggle, I wish to raise a few points at the outset of our panel.

First, the 2008 presidential campaign mobilized a broad array of people, many of whom never participated in any political activity before. New generations of party activists, particularly youth, and trade unions were mobilized. Scores of issue-oriented groups such as those concerning the environment, health care, anti-racism struggles, and gay rights worked alone and in concert with others to defeat right-wing forces who had dominated the political system since the 1980s.

Second, out of the campaign a number of activists, and their organizations, vowed to continue their work, mostly at the grassroots level, to promote a progressive agenda. They took the new president at his word when he invited citizens to pressure him to demand significant policy changes. In the months since his inauguration, it has become clear that President Obama has embraced a “pragmatic” decision-making style, avoiding taking clear and progressive positions on issues, while waiting to see how the constellation of contending political forces mobilize to demand change. Groups as varied as the Progressive Democrats of America, Move On. Org, various Obama groups, and a variety of single-issue groups networking with others have emerged or been reenergized; groups such as The Apollo Project, the Blue-Green Alliance, and United for Peace and Justice. This time has become a “teachable moment” and an “actionable moment.”

Third, groups on the left who come out of various Socialist and other Left traditions have been engaged in reevaluating their political visions and their relationships with the swirl of political activism that has emerged over the last 18 months. The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, for example, is holding its national convention this summer to address both participating in Building a Progressive Majority and envisioning Socialism.

Fourth, perhaps three material conditions most dramatically underlay this new 21st century context; depression, environmental devastation, and war. Each leads to organizational needs. The response to depression requires building new working class movements that begin with the revitalization of the trade union movement. The response to environmental devastation demands a radical transformation of the political economy away from unbridled, unplanned growth to an economy that creates life-sustaining work and human development. Finally, the response to war requires a mobilization against the “permanent war economy,” an economy that depends on war to sustain imperialism abroad and aggregate demand at home.

Fifth, progressives need to incorporate in their theory and practice an understanding of the three ways in which people have been organized, stratified, and segmented in modern times. These include understanding class, race, and gender.

Finally, before we despair about the depths of the economic crisis, the potential for destruction of life on earth as we know it, and the continuing legacy of war and violence, we need to remember how far progressive forces have come over the last 18 months. For example, there is evidence of a changing consciousness among the American people. A recent document presented by the Campaign for America’s Future, “America: A Center-Left Nation,” reports that majorities of American’s favor significant changes in public policy on a variety of issues. Respondents to a national survey indicate that government action is required because of growing economic problems; business needs to be more regulated; too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few large companies; corporate influence over government should decline; health care should be a government responsibility (54% for single payer); and gays should have equal rights.

As Eric Lotke wrote summarizing the findings:

“The media still calls America a “center-right” nation, but ‘center-left” is closer to the truth. On issues ranging from health care to energy, the public is more progressive than people think.”

“This report should give people the courage to push ahead. The danger is not going too far, too fast, too overreaching. The danger is in not doing enough. The American people want to achieve the promise in Obama’s great speeches, not the compromise forced by conservatives in both parties.”

The task before progressives is clear; working with growing majorities of people to make this new political consciousness into an effective political force to change the United States.















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