A Devilishly Smart Pope

A DEVILISHLY SMART POPE

One of the books I'm reading now is John D. Barrow's 'The Book of Nothing'. The subject is  a look at the concept of 'nothing', the void, emptiness, zero, the vacuum and so on. There's actually quite a bit to say about nothing, and book ranges from a history of the mathematical sign for zero, through the 'philosophic concept' of nothingness, to the idea of the vacuum in physics, its explanation by the 'ether' and the eventual overthrow of that concept. Temperatures (absolute zero) and the place of the vacuum in quantum mechanics, relativity and cosmology come on stage, and the book ends with a return to the philosophic concept itself. Yes, quite complex, and I've barely gotten to chapter 2. Nice to have a roadmap to a blank space. I'll be reviewing the book when done.

But one of the matters that did come up was the story of Pope Sylvester II, one of the few admirable holders of the keys of Peter in the Middle Ages. This is a story appealing enough to shove its way to the front of the 'Molly Line'. Sylvester II was born Gerbert de Aurillac (945 - 1003). He reigned as Pope from 999 to 1003. Yes the Pope in the Chair during the turn of the millennium. The world didn't end, and Gerbert/Sylvester was definitely one of the more capable Popes of the age. A lot of his accomplishments were political and hardly bear mention here. Defending the property of the Church. Playing off one ruler against another though he was usually in alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor of the time.  The politics of Italy at the time were particularly chaotic, and once both he and the Emperor had to flee Rome during one of the revolts. He even tried to reform the Church's organization and reduce abuses such as simony, concubinage and nepotism. This was an Herculean task, and even with the assistance of St. Jude (the patron saint of the impossible) the Church remained just about as corrupt as always. He did, however, succeed in significantly increasing the Church's title holdings. Maybe this goal was in direct contradiction to the idea of making the Church into a more 'Holy' outfit. He also played a major role in the Christianization of Eastern Europe, appointing Metropolitans for both Poland and Hungary, and in the later case naming that country as a 'Kingdom'. Thus the Crown of Hungary became dependent on the Papacy.


His political accomplishments were minor compared to his intellectual contributions to European culture. He had early on spend considerable time as an envoy to the far more civilized Muslim states of southern Spain, and he turned his natural curiosity to good effect there, absorbing much of the culture of Andalucía. When he returned to France he was appointed head of education for the Archdiocese of Rheims, and from there he significantly elevated the clerical level of education throughout the French Kingdom.

 When his patron died he was considered the natural successor, but the Capetan monarchy had other ideas, and a relative of the King was appointed in his stead even though Gerbert was a supporter of Hugh Capet whose reign marked the end of the Carolingian dynasty. Barrow has this matter somewhat confused as he lists this Episcopal position without mentioning that Gerbert's appointment was overthrown. Consistent with the political level of the time the King's appointee was later removed because of suspicion of treason to his sponsor. Gerbert who initially was himself accused of treason to the House of Capet was reappointed, but this was challenged and his appointment declared invalid. When he did finally become Pope he pretty well washed his hands of the matter by declaring his competitor as the legitimate Archbishop. Barrow also confuses another appointment of his, as Archbishop of Ravenna, supposing him to be the 'Abbot' of Ravenna. All this is quite forgivable as the politics of the time, clerical and lay, were by their very nature confusing.

Gerbert was lauded for his scholarly contributions in a number of fields. He became the tutor of both Emperors Otto II and his son Otto III, and, as mentioned above, he was elevated to the Papacy with the support of the latter. Gerbert was a true polymath. He was the accepted authority in the liberal arts in his day and a major influence on theology. He was also something of an engineer, designing a hydraulic organ that didn't require air to continually be pumped in as it played. He is also credited with advances in the art of clock making due to one which he designed for the Cathedral of Magdeburg. Even this is confused. Some sources such as the 'Catholic Encyclopedia' say that he was the inventor of the pendulum clock. Others say that his clock was mechanical but weight driven rather than using a pendulum. Still others say that his clock was actually simply a sundial. It was, however, in the field of science and mathematics that he made his greatest contributions.

Gerbert was credited with a number of innovations. He introduced the abacus to Europe, and also the use of the Arabic/Indian number/decimal system. Both were necessary foundations for the later rise of commercial enterprises in the Renaissance. Hard to do proper accounting with Roman numerals. Not that they were always appreciated. In 1299 the decimal system was outlawed in Florence supposedly because it was more vulnerable to fraud. The worry about this matter delayed the adoption of decimal numbers in northern Europe until the sixteenth century. For Gerbert, however, they were a Godsend, and he was the foremost expert on mathematics, geometry and astronomy of his day. Much of this was based on what he had learned in southern Spain even though he was creative enough in his own right.

He is credited with the reintroduction of the 'armillary sphere' to western Europe. This is a 3D model of the heavens, and fitted with viewing tubes it was an early prototype of the telescope. It should be noted that such a sphere would imply that the Earth itself was a sphere. Not that the idea of a flat Earth was universal in Medieval times, but it was common enough even though the use of spheres such as this proliferated.

Barrow's book corrected a misconception of my own, one that I had held for more than a few years. I knew that Sylvester II was a remarkably educated and knowledgeable man well ahead of his time. I also knew that one of the medieval Popes had been dug up from his grave and the corpse put on trail. I'd always assumed that the uncommunicative defendant was Sylvester. During his lifetime and after his death rumours circulated that he was in league with the Devil, that he had even constructed a bronze head that would answer questions posed to it. Sort of an early robot I guess. I assumed that this was the reason for the exhumation. Wrong I was. The corpse was that of one Pope Formosus, and the charges were much more mundane. After the guilty verdict was pronounced the hapless cadaver was chopped to pieces, burnt and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. That will teach him.

The accusations of witchcraft would certainly be a likely medieval explanation for Sylvester's brilliance, but no - he stayed in the ground. Not that he rested easily though. The legends of his life followed him into the grave, and typically they are also confused. One legend says that when a Pope is due to die that Sylvester's bones rattle in the tomb. Another says that the walls of the crypt weep on the sad occasion. I guess there's no reason they can't both be right.

JOAN PEIRÓ BELIS

JOAN PEIRÓ BELIS

     The following brief biography was originally published at the website of the CNT of Puerto Real in Spanish. The original Spanish version can be found there under their 'Biografias' section.

     Joan Peiró, glass worker, anarcho-syndicalist intellectual, and Minister of Industry during the second Spanish republic, was executed by firing squad on July 24, 1942 at Paterna (Huerta Oeste, Valencia). He was born on February 18 in the working class district of Sants in Barcelona. He began work in a Barcelona glass factory at the age of 8 an d didn't learn to read and write until he was 22. He continued to work in the glass sector and along with other compañeros founded the Glass Cooperative of Mataró, a thing he never abandoned.

     In 1907 he married Mercedes Olives, a textile worker, with whom he had three sons (Juan, José, Llibert) and four daughters (Aurora, Aurelia, Guillermina, Merced). As he explained his union militancy began in 1906, and he began to hold positions of responsibility from 1915 to 1920 as Secretary General of the Spanish Federation of Glaziers and Crystal Workers and director of La Colmena Obrero (organ of the unions of Badalona) and El Vidrio (publication of the federation of glassworkers).

     Because of his intellectual acuity he later became editor of the newspaper Solidaridad Obrero (1930) and the daily Catalonia (1937). Very influenced by French revolutionary unionism he began taking on positions of responsibility in the CNT after the Sants (1918) Catalan Regional Congress. Thanks to his capacity for work, organizing skills and prestige he held the highest offices in this organization.

     At the Congreso de La Comedia (1919) he defended industrial union federations which were rejected at the time (in favour of geographical federations...mm). During the 1920s he suffered the repression unleased by the state and the employers and was arrested and imprisoned inSoria and Vicoria. In 1922 he was elected General Secretary of the CNT. During his term the Conference of Zaragossa was held where the resignation of the CNT from the Red Internation Federation of Unions was approved and membership in the reconstituted AIT/IWA was accepted.

     At this same Congress, along with Salvador Segui, Angel Pestaña, and José Viadiu, Peiró defended the "political motion" which was widely criticized by the more orthodox sections of the organization. He settled in Mataró in in 1922, and in 1925 he guided the establishment of the glass workers' cooperative that he had previously intended to organize. Under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera the CNT was outlawed, their offices closed and their press suspended. Many militants were arrested and Pieró was imprisoned in 1925, 1927 and 1928. In the last year he was again elected Secretary General of the CNT.

     He criticized the UGT for their advocacy of  "mixed commissions" during the dictatorship and also Pestaña with whom, however, he agreed on other matters. He also criticized the more anarchist union sector, and despite the fact that he joined the FAI he was never militant in it. On the contrary he defended a more syndicalist mass organization and opposed the action groups that a minority of militants controlled. In 1930 he signed the "Republican Intelligencia" manifesto and received much interal criticism which led him to withdraw his signature. He defended industrial federations up to the 1931 CNT Congress in Madrid where he won mass support against the FAI theses.

     At this Congress he supported the presentation of the "Position of the CNT Towards the Constituent Cortez" proposal which defended the idea that the proclamation of a republic could mean an advance for the working class. The proposal was adopted with some modifications despite the opposition of some FAI sectors who saw it as support for bourgeois political machinations. Also in 1931, along with 29 other prominant CNTistas among them Angel Pestaña, he signed the Treintista Manifesto which analyzed the social and economic situation of Spain and criticized both the republican government and the more radical sectors of the CNT.

     The reaction to this led to the expulsion of Pestaña from his position on the national committee of the norganization and the schism of the Sabadell unions. These later gathered others who formed a bloc called the "Opposition Unions". Although Peiró participated in this split he had no outstanding responsibility, and he tried to build bridges to avoid the final rupture.

     Reunification occured in 1936. After the fascist military rising Peiró served as vicepresident of the Antifascist Committee of Mataró, sending his sons to the front. He defended the entry of the CNT into the governments of Catalonia and Spain and proposed a state form of a federal social republic when the war ended. Along with Garcia Oliver, Federica Monteny and Juan Lopez he was one of the four "anarchist" (my emphasis-mm) ministers in the government of Largo Caballero where he was Minister of Industry.

     In this position he drafted the decree of expropriation and intervention in industry and designed an Industrial Credit Bank. Many of these projects were annuled or diluted by Negrin. With the fall of the Caballero government he returned to Mataró and the Glass Cooperative. He also dedicated himself to giving lectures on his steps in government and publishing hard articles against the PCE for its actions against the POUM.

     In 1938 he re-entered the government now headed by Negrin although not with the rank of Minister but rather as Comissioner of Electric Energy. He upheld an "anti-defeatist" attitude and proposed a certain revision of anarchosyndicalism in light of the development of the revolution and the war. He crossed the French border on February 5, 1939, and was briefly held in Perpignon from where he went to Narbonne to reunite withy his family. Later he moved to Paris to represent the CNT on the Coalition for Spanish Refugees with a mission to free Spanish CNTistas fromFrench concentration camps and facilitate their transfer to México.

     He tried to flee after the Nazi invasion but was arrested when he went to Narbonne. e was returned to Paris where the French authorities issued a deportation order so as to remove him from Gestapo action and thereby go to the unoccupied zone and from there to México. He was, however, arrested again by nazi troops and taken to Trier (Germany). In January of 1941 the Francoist Ministry of Foreign Affairs  requested his extradition. This happened on February 19 of the same year in Irún, violating French and international law. He was transfered to the custody of the Security General in Madrid where he was interrogated and suffered maltreatment (he lost some teeth).

     The start of the trial was exceptionally delayed, and he was transfered to Valencia in April 1941. In December of that year a summary trial opened at which Peiró had statements in his favour from institutions and people of the new regime (military, falangists, clergy, judges, prison officials, businesmen, rightists and even a future minister under Franco, Francisco Ruiz Jarabo).

     Even so his repeated refusal of the government proposal to be head of the Francoist unions determined his sentence. In May of 1942 the prosecuter presented his charges. A month later Peiró was assigned a defence lawyer by the military. On July 21 the death sentence was pronounced. On July 24, 1942 he was shot along with six other CNTistas at the firing range of Paterna. Some of his published works include The Path of the National Confederation of Labour (1925), Ideas About Syndicalism and Anarchism (1930), Danger in the Rearguard (1936) and From The Glass Factory of Mataró To The Minister Of Industry (1937) and Problemas y Cintarazos (1938).

    

    

    

TERESA MAÑE MIRAVENT

 

Teresa Mañe Miravent - Mother of Federica Montseny

     The following is a translation from Spanish. The Spanish original is available at the Biografias anarquistas section of the website of the CNT Puerto Real. Any errors of translation are entirely my responsibility.

     Born on November 29 1865 in Cubelles (Garraf, Catalonia) - until recently believed to be in Vilanova  i la Geltrú- the educator, activist and anarchist propagandist Teresa Mañe Miravent, better known under her pseudonym Soledad Gustavo. Her wealthy family ran the Garden Hotel in Vilanova i la Geltrú, known as the "Three Girls Hotel" as the three daughters of the family were busy attending to customers. Her father was a staunch supporter of federal republicanism and was proud of the relationship he maintained with Pi i Maragall. Teresa began studying teaching in 1883 in Barcelona and in 1886, with the help of the freethinker Bartomeu Gabarro of the Federalist Democratic Centre, opened the first secular school in Vilanova. She was a member of the Confederation of Lay Teachers of Catalonia. During this period she collaborated in El Vendaval with the federalist republican tendency. Through contacts with freethinkers she met José Pujals Lunas, Teresa Claramunt, Tarrida del Mármol, Pere Esteve and other leading anarchist militants. She participated in propaganda tours and public events and collaborated on the libertarian publications they edited (La Tramontana, El Productor, La Tormenta, etc.). In 1889 she won a prize at the Second Socialist Contest in Barcelona for her work 'Free Love' and became a spokeswoman for anarchist ideas along with Ricardo Mella, Anselmo Lorenzo and others. Through a poetry reading at a secular funeral she met Juan Montseny whom she later married in a civil ceremony on March 19, 1891, shortly after such marriages were legalized.

     The couple settled in Reus where Montseny came from, and they opened a coeducational secular school and both became teachers. Teresa's sister Carmen also lived with them in Reus, sharing all the difficulties of their anarchist activism until her death. Montseny wrote a pamphlet in defence of prisoner Paulino Pallas who had been arrested in connection with the September 24, 1893 bombing of the Cambios Nuevos in Barcelona. Montseny was arrested for this, and Mañe began a campaign for his release. Once released, however, he was rearrested in 1896 as part of the 'Trial of Montjuic'. From his cell in Montjuic Montseny wrote letters to the press, with various pseudonyms, proclaiming the innocence of the accused. Mañe was responsible for taking these letters from prison and mailing them to the press. She also made the necessary arrangements to achieve the release of all detainees. It was from one of his signatures to these letters that Juan Montseny became Federico Urales. Montseny was released but was exiled to London, along with Teresa Claramunt and Tarrida del Mármol. Mañe joined him in 1897 and found work as an embroiderer. In order to reopen their case they returned clandestinely on November 28, 1897. Montseny lived in Madrid and Mañe in Vilanova. In a short while she, along with her parents, Lorenzo and Antonia, and her sister Carmen they also moved to Madrid. While they lived there her parents died, and her daughter Federica Montseny was born in 1905.

     While in Madrid the couple edited La Revista Blanca (1898-1905) and later Tierra Y Libertad (1902-1905). Mañe performed the function of administrator even though this was not legally permitted to women at the time. In 1901 she spoke, along with Azorín and Urales in a series of conferences at the Madrid Ateneo on "The Future Society" in relation to anarchist ideas. In addition she actively participated in campaigns for the defendants in the Juarez Trials and the Mano Negro case. She participated in a tour of Andalucia in this defence camaign, staying at the home of Rosa Sanchez. The couple also actively assisted in the defence of Francisco Ferrer i Guardia wrongly accused of responsibility for the events of La Semana Trágica. When a legal conflict with Arturo Soria, the creator of the 'Ciudad Lineal of Madrid whom they accused of fraud and deception, broke out they left for Catalonia in 1912. Their intention was to found an academy in Barcelona's Horta district, but the boycott of local reactionaries led them to devote themselves to living on a farm in Cerdanyola. There Mañe did a lot of translations (Louise Michel, Cornelissen, Labriola, De la Hire, Mirabeau, Praycourt, Sorel, Marguey, Lichtenberg, Lavrov, Donnay, etc.) and copied texts for theatre companies.

     In Catalonia they once more edited La Revista Blanca and Tierra Y Libertad. They also set up various other publishing projects: 'La Novela Ideal'  which published two novels, eventually 600 in  total with a circulation of 50,000 copies; 'La Novela Libre' with more extensive stories and a circulation of 30,000 copies, the monthly 'El Munda al Dia' and a new journal 'El Luchador' which lasted until the civil war. Mañe was responsible for managing these journals while Montseny and her daughter wrote articles, novels, memoirs, etc.. Little by little the leadership of Federica became evident, and Mañe faded into the background. During the Civil War colon cancer began to undermine her life. In 1939 the family crossed the border into exile in France where they parted from each other. Mañe, ill, broke her leg and was taken by ambulance to the hospital of St. Louis of Perpiñán (northern Catalonia) where she died alone of cancer on February 5, 1939.

     Teresa Mañe published numerous articles in La Revista Blanca and in its supplements and extras. Her contributions may also be found in other anarchist periodicals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: 'El Corsario', 'Los Dominical del Libre Pensamiento','El Obrero', 'Redención', 'El Cosmipolita', 'Justicia y Libertad', 'El Trabajo', 'La Tramontana', etc.. Of her works we can highlight 'The Future Society' (1889), 'Las Preocupaciones de los Despreocupados' (1891 with Urales), 'Dos Cartas' (1891), 'A Las Proletarias' (1896), 'El Amore Libre' (1904), 'Los Diosas de la Vida' (1904), and 'El Sindicalismo y la Anarquía: Politica y Sociologica' (1932) among others.

THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY

The Dark Side of Christian History

The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9

     This is the sort of book that I had to force myself through. It was not so much the purported subject matter but rather the author's not-so-well-hidden agenda. This is not an overview of the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches except insofar as these can be slotted into Ellerbe's real purpose. This purpose is to argue against Christianity and for pop-religious New-Age "spirituality" with a thin veneer of corrupted feminism. The author makes her intentions abundantly plain in the Introduction for fostering "sexism, racism, the intolerance of difference and the 'desecration' of the natural environment". It would be hard to find such a crystal clear expression of trendy leftism outside of the academy. Social class is conspicuous by its absence. So is the concept of hierarchy in general, the role of government and individual freedom (beyond sacred differences deified by a subculture). There is a vague bow to "self-determination" but no indication that this might extend to the infidels outside of the politically-correct charmed circle. It almost certainly doesn't.

     The author genuflects in her introduction to the fact that there were "alternative Christianities" in the early centuries of the Church. As might be expected from the blindfolded world view of the 'New-Age' she lavishes particular praise on the Gnostics. She also mentions the Essenes. As might be expected her knowledge of these theologies is incredibly superficial, probably drawn from other neo-mystic books that bear the same resemblance to reality as Stalinist propaganda does. The Gnostics, in the majority of cases amongst their crazy-quilt writings, were far more "anti-nature" than any orthodox theologian could ever be. Despite the lies of the orthodox their beliefs were quite ascetic, and their "hidden knowledge" consisted of an over-elaborated mythology the knowledge of which was supposedly the key to escaping the inevitably corrupt world. I know...consistency and facts are part of that great evil "science" that also has to be abolished for the dreaded New Age to dawn. Ellerbe gets well into this later.

     The author goes on to belabour the misogynist nature of early orthodox Christianity. No doubt true, but the Christological content of the early disputes is simply ignored. It's of no interest to her purpose. The economic interactions of Church and state in the Roman Empire are slighted in favour of ideological argument (or assertion). This assertion continues through the first part of the book, and the author's only digression from passing over heresies other than her favourite ones is a condemnation of the Church's disapproval of Origen's idea of reincarnation. There is little doubt that this is part of the author's ideology/theology. We also get a discussion of sex, free will and compulsion/authority though, once more, innocent of what the people at the time considered important. History is supposed to be history, not an ideological "read-back".

     Ellerbe then passes on to medieval times. She states rather than proves that it was the influence of the Church that led to the decline of the West in this period. Sort of extending Gibbon way beyond his wildest ambitions. She goes so far as to say that the practice of "bleeding" in medieval times was due to "the Monks". Go figure ! She mentions many of the "sins" of the medieval Church and misses many more. No doubt Christianity was not a "creative force" in this period, but the author implies that it was responsible for the vast picture of western decline. Barbarian invasions are, of course, irrelevant. The reality was that Christianity and its influence were contradictory , as the Marxists are fond of saying. Some of its actions were beneficial and some were malevolent. Such fine distinctions, however, escape the author.

     The author cites the monumental corruption of the medieval Papacy, something that is well established. The very corruption of the Renaissance Popes, however, was progressive in its own way. The logic of the times also dictated that the Papacy become a secular power, and many of its crimes were for "reasons of state" rather than the abstract motivations that Ellerbe likes to move in. In the end the Church was pretty much a mirror of the secular powers that it alternately fought and allied with, no better nor no worse. The atrocities that happened were typical of the age and might have been worse under some other sort of ideological "guidance" such as that of a more Gnostic Church. Ideology at the time was very much subservient to power politics.

     Ellerby passes a severe judgement on the Protestant Reformation. She denounces the common Protestant theories of free will (or lack thereof) and original sin without recognition of the disputes within Protestantism about such matters. She dates, strangely enough, the concept of an unitary God as opposed to a multiplicity of saints from this era. The veneration of saints is identified with the pantheistic, many faced. view of divinity that she favours. Yes, it is a bit of a stretch. She also notes the supposed rise of a more severe asceticism  which presumably is connected to the ideas of predestination and denial of free will. Once more remember the Gnostics that she has a superficial acquaintance with for how it could have been worse.

     In Chaper 8, The Witch Hunts: The End of Magic and Miracles" the author really hits her stride. Whatever she imagines the "witch craze" was actually a reversal of early Church opinion which opined that most of what was called "witchcraft" was ignorance and superstition. Pretty true actually, though such "witchcraft" was considered orthodox when properly covered with a Christian veneer. The campaign against "witchcraft" was never so extensive as the author imagines.

     The Inquisition played a prominent role in the "witch hunt". Whatever the author says however, the main motive behind this was self-interest and bureaucratic expansion. The so-called "witches" only came into the purview of the 'Holy Office' during its decline when it was running out of real victims. The author (deliberately ?) refuses to examine the extent of the Inquisition's dealing with "witches" and how they compare with its total business. She relies only on anecdote and insinuation. Whatever Ellerbe's sympathies the mass of Inquisitorial victims were "heretics" rather than "witches" if for no other reason than that the estates of heretics were a better source of plunder. I guess, however, that this would spoil the author's narrative of a contest of ideas as opposed to one of interests.

     In Chapter 9 Ellerbe makes her purpose quite clear again with the title 'Alieniation From Nature', Uh huh ! She makes the ideological assertion that a Christian view of the world as "sinful" (once more a step down from her beloved Gnostics) led to some sort of "separation" that became a leitmotif of western society. Oh well, I guess that the vast majority of people who lived in rural areas until recent decades were "obviously" alienated because of this presumed ideology. Just to be obvious the author u8ses this opportunity to sing a little paean to pre-Christian paganism. This was supposedly "non-alienated". Yes, I'm sure !

     The author moves on to the modern age in Chapter 10, 'A World Without God'. In this chapter the author outdoes any of her Jesuit opponents by attempting (and failing in my opinion) to twist facts and logic to say that the modern science that has disproved so much of dogmatic religion is itself a mere development of said religion. Yes, it is quite a stretch, and an accusation that sticks much more to New-Age religiosity than to any secular viewpoint. But if logic and facts are "bad things" and (cough, cough) "alienating" then you can "prove" anything you so damn well please.

     Of course we come face to face with the usual chintzy mystic "proof" of such a thing via a misinterpretation of the quantum world that the author has only a child's version of. Sighhhh ! It seems to occur pretty well everywhere in such a world. The author quotes a person named E.H. Walker to this effect;

     "...the universe is 'inhabited' by an almost unlimited number of conscious, usually non-thinking (oh, non-thinking consciousnesses - mm), entities that are responsible for the detailed working of the universe"

     Once more, uh-huh. God, or gods if you like, as cosmic obsessive compulsives. Ellerby fails to see the humour is such a statement. For those who are interested you can look up this "authority" that the author quotes. For instance you can see his tax-dodge "Cancer Institute" via 'Charity Navigator' where the "fund-raising" expenses are quoted as $10,149,158, the cost of "Administration" (mostly his widow actually) as $457,040 and the tiny, little beast of "programs" at the end as $290,174. There again you can look Walker up on Wikipedia. This long time US military researcher no doubt did his research in an "ant-sexist, anti-racist respect for 'difference' and the natural environment" manner. It has to be true by the worldview of the author because he is "spiritual". I hope his victims in the Third World appreciate such a refined soul.

     I guess the reader can estimate how much I disliked this book. From the opening when she presents her opinion that controlling people through "dictating and controlling their spirituality is the most (sic) insidious and damaging slavery of all" her agenda is quite clear. In a backhand way this book presents a bare-bones account of the "dark side" of Christianity, but the historical facts are treated superficially because of the much more important (to the author) need to fit them into her ideology. It would have been better to present a more thorough history rather than spend effort in trying to hammer square pegs into round holes.

Russia in Revolt

RUSSIA IN REVOLT: THE FIRST CRACK IN TSARIST POWER

     'Russia in Revolt: The First Crack in Tsarist Power' by David Floyd. Macdonald Library of the 20th Century, Macdonald and Co., London 1969

     Good old history light ! The Macdonald Library of the 20th Century is a series of brief books about outstanding events, personalities and trends in that century. The series ranges through the alphabet from 'The Anarchists' to 'Woodrow Wilson'. All are heavy on pictures and light on text, each one readable in one day. Despite their brevity they can be very useful introductions.

     This volume examines the events of 1905 and 1906 in Russia, the "rehearsal" for the Revolution of 1917. It begins with a backgrounder on the personality (or lack thereof) of the Tsar, Nicholas II, who came to the throne in 1894. He was supremely arrogant despite lacking anything to be arrogant about. His lack of sense and disconnection from his people was exemplified by his handling of events during his coronation in Moscow in 1896. Close to 2,000 people were trampled in a stampede due to poor crowd control. The coronation went on as if nothing had happened, and it was followed by a gay evening party at the French Embassy.

     Count Sergei Witte, later Minister of Finance and then Prime Minister, remarked acidly on the events of that day and on how Nicholas was the tool of a series of disastrous advisers;

     "His Majesty would not tolerate about his person anyone he considered more intelligent than himself or anyone with opinions different from those of his advisers"

     Witte was called upon to pull Nicholas' chestnuts out of the fire more than once and promptly dismissed when crisis had passed.

     With a coterie of flattering courtiers and his wife Alexandra (herself under the bizarre influence of Grigori Rasputin from 1905 on) as his main "advisers" Nicholas was in charge of a vast and varied country that was undoubtedly the most difficult European state to govern. The system of government rested on the Ministry of the Interior which controlled a network of Governor-Generals, Governors, and a byzantine network of numerous police forces that interfered in much of the daily life in Russia. This system exercised a rigorous censorship, and was the heart of a program of  'Russification' directed at the non-Russians who constituted a majority of the Empire's population.

     Count Witte (Minister of Finance 1892-1903 and Prime minister 1905-1906) wrote about the nobility who surrounded the Tsar;

     "The majority is politically a mass of degnerate humanity, which recognizes nothing but the gratification of its own selfish interests and lusts, and which seeks to obtain all manner of privileges and benefits at the expense of the taxpayers in general which means mainly the peasantry."

     Leave out the last phrase, and this would be a pretty apt description of most politicians.

     Witte felt that Russia's interests would be best served by rapid industrialization. His main opponent in the government was Vyacheslav Pleve who rose through the ranks of the police to become the Minister of the Interior in 1902. An assassin's bullet relieved Witte of this problem in 1904.

     Meanwhile opposition to the autocracy had begun to grow in the zemstvos, local elected municipal councils and also in the dumas in urban areas. Both were elitist groups. Illegal political activity was carried on outside of them by the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), strong amongst the peasantry, and the Marxist Social Democratic Party which recruited mainly amongst intellectuals and workers. Both the countryside and the developing urban areas were rife with discontent.

     The author describes the vast economic changes that Russia was experiencing. The rural areas were chronically economically stagnant which retarded progress. All segments of the Empire's population, from the landlords to the poor peasants, experienced problems. Periodically the government would pay attention and set up investigative commissions. The state, however, refused to admit the need for radical reform. Lacking any incentive or ability to improve their production peasants responded by migration to the cities or to new lands in Siberia. The number of landless peasants increased, and a rural proletariat developed.

     In contrast to the rural areas Russian industry forged ahead. Foreign capital, especially from France and Belgium, flooded in. Technique improved, but living and working conditions were "appalling". Economic crisis also came to Russia in the late 19th century. This was followed by spontaneous strike waves which culminated in a general strike in 1903. Unrest was also spreading to the peasants.

     The cauldron boiled over with defeat in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. By the beginning of the 20th century expansion of Russian influence in Europe was unlikely, and the government turned to the Far East. The defeat of China in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese war opened Manchuria to Russian penetration. Russia built the Chinese Eastern Railway across this province. In 1898 the Russians also obtained a 25 year lease on the Liaotung Peninsula and the right to build another railroad from Harbin to Port Arthur on said peninsula.

     Other European powers objected to this expansion, but Russia offered seemingly sincere promises to withdraw in the (indefinite) future. Russia also began to expand its interests in Korea which the Japanese considered an area of their own special interest. The Empire refused to compromise with the Japanese, and in February of 1904 Japan broke off diplomatic relations with Russia. On February 8 they attack the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur with torpedo boats. They returned four days later to finish the job. The Russian fleet was severely damaged and was trapped within the heavily mined port.

     Despite the racist overconfidence of the Russian government Russia was at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the Japanese. The Russian military command was divided. The cautious Kuropatkin advised avoiding pitched battles, but it was not until October 1904 that the Tsar finally agreed to remove the reckless Alexeyev from the theatre of war. Later the Russians were defeated both on land and once more at sea. In the Fall of 1904 the Russian Baltic Fleet departed to the other side of the world. It was destroyed in May of 1905 at the battle of Tsushima. Meanwhile the Japanese had taken Port Arthur. In August 1904 the Russians were defeated at Liaoyang despite outnumbering the Japanese. The Empire's troops retreated to the north where a stalemate of exhaustion and lack of supply for both armies resulted.

     The war ended in August 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth. Count Witte negotiated for the Russian government. He returned home to a country in chaos. The 1905 Revolution had begun.

     While the Imperial government was entertaining fantasies of a "little victorious war" (Pleve) the workers were facing rising prices and falling employment. In a typically Russian surrealistic scenario workers in St. Petersburg were initially led by the priest Father Gapon who was actually a police agent. This "police socialism" that was meant to contain proletarian demands got a little out of hand.

     At the close of 1904 the owners of the Putilov Engineering Works in St. Petersburg some of their more radical workers. This brought the entire workforce out on strike. By default Gapon's 'Assembly of the Russian Workingmen' assumed leadership, and on January 22 he led a procession to present a petition to the Tsar at the Winter Palace. Unknown to them the Autocrat of All the Russias had already decamped. Also missing was the infamous Plave who had been assassinated the previous July. The police did nothing to prevent the various workers' contingents from assembling, but they laid a plot to intercept them and suppress them with the army's assistance. Brief orders to halt were followed by gunfire from the troops. Gapon, following the Tsar's example, promptly fled. The crowds, however, reformed and made their way to the Winter Palace. Here as elsewhere in the city they were met by volleys of gunfire.

     In the end an unknown number of people were killed. Official reports said about 130. Journalists produced a list of 4,600 dead and wounded. Illusions about the Tsar were shattered. As Witte, who witnessed some of the events, said;

     "There were hundreds of casualties in killed or wounded, among them many innocent people. Gapon fled and the revolutionaries triumphed: the workmen were completely alienated from the Tsar and his government."

     Despite his nonchalance about the events Nicholas was actually persuaded to "do something" by General Dimitri Trepov, the Governor-General of St. Petersburg. The Minister of the Interior Prince Sviatopolk Mirsky decamped (a common Russian habit) and was replaced by Alexander Bulygin. The Tsar agreed to meet with a delegation of "responsible workingmen". They were read a little sermon and sent to the kitchens for a free meal. Soon after the revolutionaries assassinated the Governor-General of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Presumably he didn't decamp fast enough.

     Unrest spread throughout the towns of Russia.Strikes multiplied. The Putilov works remained on strike, and they were supported by most of the town - even the professional and business classes. Nicholas ignored his advisers when they suggested he call some sort of representative congress. Eventually the Putilov strikers returned to work, but in the countryside strikes continued. They were the most violent in non-Russian areas of the Empire. The most significant struggle was at the textile centre of Ivano-Vosnesenski, "Russia's Manchester", where the workers set up the first Soviet. Peasants had begun to seize estates. Landlords decamped.

     Army discipline began to crumble. Aeries of mutinies occurred, all the way from Warsaw to Vladivostok. The most famous of these was the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in the Black Sea Fleet. A protest at the quality of food served in the seamen's mess escalated when the Admiral in charge ordered 30 of the protesters shot. The firing squad refused the order, and in the end most of the officers were "decamped" overboard. The sailors were at a loss about what to do. They sailed for Odessa where there was a citywide strike in progress. While there the Navy sent the rest of the Black Sea Fleet against them, but when the Potemkin sailed out to give battle the other ships turned tail and "decamped". The Potemkin's supplies were running low, and they set sail once more for Constanta in Romania where they found refuge and internment.

     The political opposition also became more organized. In both the provinces and the Zemstvos the liberals called for a Constituent Assembly. The social democrats wasted most of their time in internal squabbles, but the SRs were quite active, both alongside the liberals and independently of them.

     When Witte returned from the peace treaty negotiations in September the Tsar had no choice but to call on him to hopefully restore order. Despite his efforts the peasant rebellion grew, and the government was helpless. Non-Russian minorities agitated for their independence. Egged on by a painfully slow demobilization more and more army units mutinied.

     Over and above this the industrial workers did what no other class could do. Encouraged by the partial success of a general strike in Finland they began a general strike in Moscow in October 1905. This spread along the railway lines to St. Petersburg and Kharkov. Soon it had spread throughout the Empire.

     "The strike then quickly became general, spreading throughout the empire, so that by the last days of October the whole railway system, which then amounted to more than 40,000 miles of  railway was at a standstill, and life in most large cities, especially those with an industry of any importance, came to a halt. Even Peterhof, where the Tsar was staying at the time, could be reached only by sea from St. Petersburg, and it was from there that, as usual in time of trouble, Nicholas summoned Witte."

     Would Witte's efforts be enough ? By this time the idea of the Soviets had spread. The first St. Petersburg 'Soviet of Workers' Deputies' met on October 25, 1905. The initial count of deputies rose from 30 or 40 to 562 at the height. The first Izvestia was its bulletin. Other cities followed the example. The Soviet alternative power, especially in St. Petersburg, grew through most of November 1905.

     Witte applied all his skill. He managed to persuade Nicholas, reluctant as he was, that the only sensible course was to make concessions. On October 30, 1905, the 'October Manifesto', drawn up by Witte and his ally Alexei Obolensky, was signed by the Tsar. It promised the beginnings of representative government and civil liberties, but it was (deliberately ?) vague on detail.

     The Manifesto was denounced by the revolutionaries as an exercise in deception, hiding future brutality and repression. Events were to prove them very much correct. In the aftermath of the Manifesto, despite continued existence, the Soviets withered. Further strikes were poorly observed. In the end the Soviets abandoned calling for them.

     Witte saw his opportunity. On December 9 he had Nosar, the President of the Petersburg Soviet, arrested. The Soviet elected a Troika to carry on his work, but didn't act further. Heartened by this Witte, on December 16, had whomever he could locate of the entire membership of the Soviet (about 200) arrested also.

     The Petersburg Soviet expired, but there was one final clash. Those members of the Soviet who had escaped, along with the Social Democrats and the SRs, called for a political general strike. It met with good support especially on the railways. On December 20 a general strike was called in Moscow.

     The Moscow Soviet, still in existence, essentially controlled the city. The loyalty of local military units was doubtful. The government arrested whatever strike leaders they could. Street battles began between strikers and police. The authorities didn't dare to call in the troops.

     Petersburg replied by sending more reliable units to Moscow. The Muscovite workers, especially in the Presnya district, fought valiantly even though outnumbered. The support expected from the rest of the country was feeble. The Soviet decided to end the strike in the waning days of December. The military and police killed hundreds. Thousands were exiled to Siberia, and much of Moscow was reduced to rubble.

     The Revolution was over. The government proceeded to a mopping-up operation in the rest of the Empire. By the end of January 1906 most of the rebellions had been suppressed. The parliamentary aftermath was anticlimactic.

     The new Constitution promised by the October Manifesto was despised by the nobility, police and Church. The leftists were openly skeptical. Only the liberals in the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) Party, under the leadership of Pavel Milyukov, tried to make it work. In the first elections in March there were severe property qualifications for the vote. The Social Democrats and the SRs boycotted the election.

     Meanwhile the government, despite Witte's objections, pushed through a number of measures designed to hamper both the elections and the new Duma. In May Witte resigned after doing the ungrateful Tsar one last service, negotiating a 2 1/2 billion franc loan from France that saved the Russian state from bankruptcy.

     Despite the Tsarist efforts the new Duma was elected with a large peasant bloc that unexpectedly sided with the left against the reactionaries. The Cadets held the largest voting bloc. The right was greatly outnumbered.

     The new Duma convened on May 10 and promptly passed an 'Address to the Throne' that was basically the full program of the Cadets. Nicholas refused this request, and the Duma voted no-confidence in his government. The deadlock lasted 73 days, and on July 21 the government dissolved the Duma. Attempts to hold an 'alternative Duma' in Finland became the occasion for the virtual suppression of the Cadets.

     A new Prime Minister, Peter Stolypin, called new elections, but the second Duma was even more left wing than the first. The Social Democrats and the SRs abandoned their boycott and with the support of another faction, the 'Labour Group', they consituted a large body to the left of the Cadets. Stolypin dissolved the second Duma and tightened the electoral laws even further. It worked. The 3rd and 4th Dumas were solidly conservative and lasted from 1907 to 1917. Autocracy had been preserved.

     The book ends here. It appends a chronology, index and a list of suggested readings. All three are welcome additions. This book is a good brief introduction to the events described and is well worth the read.

    

    

    

Syria- A Short History

                                                                                                                                                                               

 

SYRIA - A SHORT HISTORY

By Phillip K. Hitti, Colier Books, New York 1961

 

This book is an abridgement of the author's previous work 'History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine' (1951). Before the present 'Arab Spring' and the subsequent civil war in Syria this country wasn't of great interest to the average person. This had not, however, always been the case. In the past Syria and its Lebanese gateway had at time been very much in the centre of events.

 

     The author opens with a brief synopsis of Syria's history, and continues with an overview of its climate and topology. There are five general zones in the land. Despite the general misconception Syria is far from being an unremitting desert.

 

     Hitti begins with the prehistory of the area and goes on to the Semitic origins of the population. This was shared by the Babylonian Empires and the Phoenicians. Syria from the beginning had the misfortune of being a crossroads for empires and migrations. On the other hand the country's position lent itself admirably to commerce. Its language, Aramaic, became a lingua franca of not just the area itself but also of the Persian Empire.

 

    A gradual infiltration of Hellenistic influences began shorty before the conquests of Alexander the Great and accelerated thereafter. This continued with Greek colonization and the Seleucid Empire, but crumbled under subsequent Roman, Partian and Arab pressure and the persistent rebellions of the Jews. Pressure developed from the Arab Nabateans with their capital at Petra south of the Dead Sea. Under Pompey in 64 BC all of Syria was organized into a single Roman province. The area was rapidly becoming an agricultural/horticultural centre. An important textile industry developed, and the area remained prominent in international trade. Syria's upper classes remained Hellenistic from the time of Alexander until the total victory of Islam in 633-640 AD.

 

 

     The Muslims fanned out in all directions from what they had made their Syrian base. They went southwest to Egypt and east to Mesopotamia and Persia. The newly conquered populations often welcomes the Arab armies as being an improvement on their previous rulers, and they certainly proved more tolerant than Byzantine Christianity. Soon, however, factions developed within Islam. Under the first caliph, Muawiyah (proclaimed in 661) Islam split between Shia and Sunni. The Sunni capital of Damascus was able to assert hegemony, but the split became a lasting source of conflict within the Islamic world.

 

     The caliphate pressed eastwards into Central Asia and westward across the North African littoral. The northern frontier, however, remained blocked as the Arabs and Byzantines fought back and forth across Asia Minor. The Arabs reached Constantinople twice, but were unsuccessful both times.

 

     Shortly before his death Muawiyah appointed his son Yazid as his successor thereby introducing the dynastic principle into the Caliphate. This became one of the reasons why Muawiyah has been unpopular amongst subsequent Muslim historians. Before this time Islamic traditions came to refer to his predecessors as the "righteous Caliphs".

 

Despite almost unrelenting internal conflict under this Umayyad dynasty the Muslim Empire reached its maximum united extent. Victory came in both the Indus Valley in the east and in the west where a Muslim army of only 7,000 defeated a Visigoth horde of 25,000 in Spain in 711. The conquest of half of Spain was accomplished in 6 months. The advance was halted more because of petty dynastic jealousies than for military reasons. The Sunni/Shia schism persisted, and the Shia developed an ideology that was possibly more totalitarian than the Sunni and certainly more bizarre.

 

     The end of the larger Umayyad caliphate came about because of this division. In 750 Damascus was captured by the Shiites, and the Abbasid caliphate was established. One of the heirs of the Umayyads escaped the inevitable slaughter and made his way to Spain where he established an independent caliphate in Cordova.

 

     Under the Abassids Damascus lost its central position in Islam, and the capital of the new dynasty was established in Iraq. The new caliphate was considerably more bloodthirsty and theocratic than the old. It was also more oriented to Persia as opposed to Arabia where Mecca and Medina sunk in importance along with Damascus. Syria and other Muslim provinces proved restive under the new caliphate in Baghdad, but the Abassids were successful in repressing this discontent.

 

     The rule of Baghdad is often represented as a "golden age" of the Islamic Empire, based upon the growth a an extensive literature in translation. Much of this translation was accomplished by Syrians. At the same time in Syria itself Aramaic was evolving into an unique dialect of Arabic.

 

     The Abassid dynasty died a slow death, undermined by Turkish conquests. In 877 Ahmad ibn-Tulun, a Turkish deputy governor of Egypt marched into Syria, and the area became a frontier for Egypt. After years of war the Caliph was forced to recognize both the independence of Egypt and its suzerainty over Arabia. Meanwhile the Fatamid dynasty arose in present day Tunisia and rapidly extended its rule eastward to include Syria. Just to emphasize the back and forth nature of the times the Fatimids were also Shiites, though of a much more tolerant strain than the Abassids.

 

     The subsequent history of Syria was once more a never ending succession of dynastic conflicts which ended with Turkish rule. By the time of the Crusades Syria was partitioned between the Egyptian Fatamids and several petty Turkish emirates. Meanwhile a storm was rising in the West. Following a Papal call in 1095 150,000 crusaders set out for Palestine in 1097. The force, once the Byzantines were (gratefully !) free of it fractured as various leaders hove off to establish their own states. The First crusading horde descended on the eastern Mediterranean littoral. The heart of Syria itself was never conquered, but divisions amongst the local Muslim statelets left the invaders free to sweep on to Jerusalem. There the "soldiers of the Cross" perpetrated a massacre that left a black mark on history.

 

     The history of Syria itself and the so-called 'Holy Land' was bound up with alternating periods of alliance and opposition between 'the Franks' and the local Muslims. This was ended with the growing power of Egypt's Saladin of the Ayyubid dynasty who rapidly became master of Syria as well. He then moved on to retake Palestine. Christian attempts to recover lost ground failed. Meanwhile in Egypt the Ayyubids were replaced by the Turkish (more or less) Mamluks. These rulers checked the Mongol invasion which had swallowed up the eastern area of Islam.

 

     A lasting effect of the Crusades was to shift the Middle Eastern balance of power from Shites to Sunnis. The political chaos of the era and Mamluk rule ended being disastrous for both Egypt and Syria. Despite the persistence of some commerce the population of Syria fell to 1/3rd of its previous level. The Mongol khan Tamerlane took both Damascus and Aleppo, and in 1402 he defeated the Ottaman Turks at Ankara.

 

     Internal strife ended Tamerlane's brief empire, and Syria became a bone of contention between the Ottamans and the Mamluks. Meanwhile in Persia the Safawid dynasty came to power. In 1516 the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks and in 1517 occupied Egypt itself. They were to remain in control of Syria for 400 years.

 

     The Ottoman Empire reached its height in the reign of Sulaymin I ('The Magnificent') when it stretched from Morocco in the west to Mesopotamia in the East. It also took in most of the Balkans. Syria failed to prosper under the corrupt rule of Ottoman pashas (deputy governors), and the central government in Istanbul cared little as long as tax farming gave sufficient loot.

 

     Trade withered as the 'age of exploration' allowed western commerce with the Orient to bypass the Middle East. What little trade there was was increasingly dominated by foreigners - Venetian, French and English. The western barbarians had returned. The French were most successful, and much later they went on to govern the area as a protectorate. Ottoman rule was punctuated by several rebellions, especially in Lebanon, and once more Istanbul paid little attention as long as taxes were collected. In 1860 France occupied the Levant.

 

     European ideas and culture gradually penetrated the area in the course of the 19th century. The economy began to expand. Western culture spread. Population grew. A worldwide pattern of emigration developed as the Lebanese sought their fortunes elsewhere. In the homeland ideas of democracy and nationalism took hold. Syrian nationalism developed as part of pan-Arabism. In the areas that it still held the Ottoman Empire became more and more repressive. The unpopularity of the Turks led to the dismemberment of the Empire after WW1. Non-Turkish areas were ceded by the Ottomans, but by the treaty of Serres (1926) Turkish rule was replaced by the French mandate over the entire Syrian area. Independence was put off to some unknown future. The French proved to be as unpopular rulers as the Turks had been. Pushed to the limit by the treachery the population rebelled in 1925-1927.

 

     World War 2 gradually eroded French control, and the French grudgingly ceded more power to the locals. In 1948, however, the state of Israel was created and was supported by western powers. This led Syria to a growing friendship with the USSR.

 

     This book ends with the creation of the short-lived United Arab Republic with Egypt's Nasser as head of state. The more recent history is very much the story of the Arab-Israeli wars and the coming to power of the Assad rulers. The present civil war in Syria is the stuff of current events, though the friendship of the regime and Russia continued through many vicissitudes.

 

     I found this book very interesting as it dealt with many subjects of which I had only a passing acquaintance. I don't know if others would also enjoy it. To some degree it clarified the matter of the various Muslim caliphates, something I have always found confusing. It helps that the author has constructed a good balance of government and social history, and such matters can be set in a firm basis of socioeconomic reality.

 

     The book lacks any attempt to draw "general lessons" from the history except for perhaps a highlighting of the persistence of custom and economic interest under the surface changes of politics. The writing is clear and coherent. There are, however, only two maps included, insufficient in my opinion, and there are no other illustrations. This makes for what some might find to be a rather dry narrative. Still the book has its attractions.

 

    

NORMAN BETHUNE AND BLOOD TRANSFUSION: A GREAT CANADIAN LIE

     If you visit pretty well any Canadian government site, or one receiving its funding from the government, you will come across the claim that the Canadian Communist surgeon Norman Bethune founded the first mobile blood transfusion unit in the world during his brief stay in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. This claim was set forth by Bethune himself, and it has been repeated by such institutions as Library and Archives Canada, Parks Canada, The Canadian Encyclopedia and the National Film Board. The reality is quite different, and to their credit both Wikipedia and the Centre for Blood Research briefly mention the actual facts. What were they ? In Catalonia the reality is well known.

     On July 17, 1936 the Spanish Civil War began with a military rising against the government of the Republic. The government dithered and procrastinated. The Spanish working class and peasantry, however, responded with vigor, and the rising was soon defeated in the major industrial areas in Spain, in Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid and the north of the country, excepting Galicia. This resistance was the signal for a far ranging social revolution that was the most profound of the 20th century. The centre of this revolution was perhaps Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, where on July 19 the anarchosyndicalists of the CNT thoroughly defeated the uprising. Soldiers listened to the pleas of the people, and turned their guns on officers and recalcitrant units. Other desertions from the paramilitary forces followed, and the general in command of the rising, General Goded, flew from the island of Majorca to a speedy arrest.

     When the dust settled it was generally the workers of the socialist UGT and the anarchist CNT who held most of nonfascist Spain, excluding their allies amongst the nationalist Basques. Anarchist organized forces, with a minor contribution from the left communist POUM and an even more minor contribution from the communist controlled PSUC, set out for the Aragon front to attempt to recover the city of Saragossa, lost to the rising because of misplaced trust. Most of the advancing anarchist columns delayed by wasting time securing rural areas, and only the unsupported Durruti column ended up facing the fascists near to the city. The Aragon front was the most active in the early days, and fighting was chaotic and improvised on both sides. It is there that the story of front line blood transfusions began.

     In the rear of the anarchist front in Barcelona the Catalan doctor Frederic Duran i Jorda organized the first mobile refrigerated blood transfusion unit as an extension of a blood bank in Barcelona, the Barcelona Transfusion Unit. The first units of blood were carried to the Aragon Front in refrigerated trucks in September of 1936. All of this was organized under the dual influence of the CNT Syndicate for Sanitary Services, an outgrowth of the Syndicate of Liberal Professions, and the anarchofeminist Mujeres Libres who took a particular interest in health care. In Catalonia the anarchist doctor Felix Marti Ibanez became director of medical services and social assistance. Decisions about medical services were made by the plenary assembly of the Syndicate. Eventually the "informal leadership" of the CNT/FAI allowed Federica Montseny to become federal Minister of Health in the Madrid government.

     Despite the continued unwise compromises of the anarchists and efforts of sectarian control by the Communists that reduced efficiency and approached treachery the Catalan blood transfusion service remained operative and became, in essence, THE unit of Republican Spain. Communist attempts to control and actually subvert this system began early, even in Catalonia. Some hospitals ended up being controlled by the Communist front PSUC with help from their foreign network. In November of 1936 socialist members of the British Medical Unit resigned from their positions with the Communist controlled Spanish Medical Aid (British organization in supposed solidarity with Spain). They complained that the SMA was "entirely Communist in outlook", and cited the conspiratorial tactics of the Communists that poisoned the atmosphere of  the unit at the Aragon Front. Extreme coercion was applied to these non-communist socialists to join the PSUC Communist front. The resignees complained of several instances where this mania for control damaged the effectiveness of their unit. As if true-believer Communists could care.

     It was in this atmosphere that the late-comer Norman Bethune arrived in Spain in November of 1936. By this time the mobile blood transfusion units which he is credited with establishing were already a functional concern. Every innovation with which he has been credited by Canadian (and Stalinist) authorities was already in place. Mobile blood transfusion at the front - credit the Catalans. Refrigerated transport units - credit the Catalans. There is one thing where is was actually innovative, and I will deal with this soon. Aside from this his only idea was that the blood transfusion service should be "centralized". This is, of course, standard Stalinist procedure, but in Spain it came up against an improvised libertarian system that actually worked. It was also part and parcel of the favouritism that plagued the Spanish Republicans as Communist dominated units were allotted supplies that were denied to anarchist or independent socialist formations. This reached its apotheosis during the May events of 1937 and Lister's march through Aragon where anarchist units at the front saw their base destroyed by Communist controlled units that the Party thought could be better employed destroying its Republican opposition than in fighting fascists.

     The centralization option hardly lived up to its promise of efficiency. By the time he left Spain in July of 1937 Bethune had reduced the Spanish transfusion service to almost total chaos. This was not only because of his extremely unpleasant personality, attested to by pretty well all of his acquaintances before he left for China where he was hailed as a Saint by the Maoists. It was also because of his willing role as a Stalinist tool. His epigram to Spain was that "all those anarchist bastards should be shot". His party friends did their level best in the course of the civil war/revolution to carry this out, and they also added, or emphasized, dissident communists such as the POUM and "uncooperative socialists" who didn't see dictatorship as a sacred goal.

     Bethune had left the mess behind him, and despite the political reservations the central Spanish government had only one place to turn if they were to have a blood transfusion service that worked at all. Dr. Frederic Duran I Jorda of Barcelona, the originator of all that Bethune is credited for, became the director of blood services for the Spanish State. He continued in this function until the victory of Franco, and he later settled in Britain. His contributions were cited (with no mention of Bethune) by Dr. Janet M. Vaughan, the architect of blood services in Britain in WW2 in the British Medical Journal. Bethune got no mention because he deserved none. Stronger words such as saboteur might be appropriate.

     Where was Bethune's contribution unique, at least in the context of Spain ? It was the rather grim use of blood harvested from dead bodies for use in transfusions. Dr. Duran I Jorda was familiar with the technique which he dismissed as impractical and dangerous. His familiarity came from reading medical reports from the Soviet Union, and in 1937 he issued a pamphlet in which he stated that the reports from the USSR were heavily "political", and his objections to the real technical problems.

     The use of blood transfusion began in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, and was pioneered by Lenin's friend Alexander Boganov. Bogdanov died in 1928 of a "transfusion accident". Maybe. By 1930 his organization had expanded from Moscow to Leningrad, and another Soviet, Sergei S. Yudin, began the use of cadaver blood in 1930. Yudin published his results in 1936, though, as with anything from Russia at the time, the encouragement for "good news" was a life or death matter for the person involved. Yudin's work had been widely trumpeted in the Communist press and when Bethune visited Moscow in 1935 he may or may not have had first hand knowledge with the process  during visits to various Soviet hospitals and clinics. In any case in February 1937 in Spain he stated that he would "use the latest Russian-American methods of blood transfusion".

     Be that it may another Communist doctor from England, Reginald Saxton, was probably more of a driving force behind the use of post-mortem blood than Bethune was. It it hard to say because the records of the Madrid blood transfusion unit under the reign of Bethune are notable for their abscence. Saxton later in September 1937 published an article in The Lancet in whiuch he extolled the use of dead body blood "as described by S.S. Yudin". It never happened. By this time under the directorship of Duran I Jorda  the non-political, often fatal, problems of cadaver blood led to a recognition of reality despite the political sympathies of the Communists. In the meantime, however, under Bethune use of cadaver blood became routine via the practice of the American (Communist !) geneticist who joined Bethune's team in Madrid. This culprit left Spain in May 1937, but transfusion of blood harvested from corpses continued at least in the Madrid zone well into 1938. Its use elsewhere in Spain awaits further historical research given the opposition of Duran I Jorda and the routinely conspiratorial practices of the Communist Party.

     What can we glean from this ? First of all is that Bethune's "contribution" to the attempt of the Communists to centralize (and control !) the use of blood transfusion is rather a "contribution" that is entirely sectarian and not medical. Second the real technical "contribution" of imitating ghouls by draining dead bodies of blood would have been seen much earlier had it not been for sectarian politics. This practice continued despite the efforts of an opponent nominally in charge of the blood transfusion service. Credit conspiracy. Given the historical and present practice of harvesting organs for transplant from those whom the government in China executes one should wonder about the source of the cadaver blood used in both the Soviet Union and under Communist influence in the Spanish Civil War. Human life is, after all, cheap to those who wish to build the Marxist Utopia.

     Note in Proof: This will be followed by a longer (shudder) examination of Bethune in Spain with all the appropriate references. As I mentioned the true story is well known in Catalonia, but I only read Spanish, and I will have to ask for help in translation. I have no desire to comment much on Bethune's earlier career in Canada and the USA except as it relates to his Spanish myth. Nor do I wish to comment much on the later Maoist hagiography of him in China where he may or may not have achieved humanity. The purpose of this piece is to attack a pervasive state-sponsored myth in my own country, Canada, and to correct some widely held falsehoods about the status of Bethune. At this point I do not presume to know the political opinions of Duran I Jorge. All that is demonstrable is that he was not Communist. My own opinion is that he was a Catalan nationalist of liberal opinions. I stand to be corrected on this matter.
    

HISTORY:

ROSA PARKS:

On this date Rosa Parks (1913-2005), the mother of the American Civil Rights Movement was born. On December 1st 1955 she refused an order from a bus driver to give up her seat for a white and "move to the back of the bus". This led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that was the first action of the civil rights movement in the USA. The notice for this anniversary was from the Daily Bleed. To learn more about Rosa Parks see this Wikipedia entry.

TODAY IN HISTORY:

CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY JOSE MARTI BORN:

On this day in 1853 Cuban revolutionary José Marti was born. An early advocate of both independence from Spain and resistance to the imperialist designs of the USA, Marti advocated a socialism that while still statist was considerably more libertarian than what "socialism" generally stood for in the 20th century and especially more libertarian than the present dictatorship in Cuba.

Notification from the anarcvhist timeline The Daily Bleed (which gets a serious Molly endorsement).

LITERATURE:

SO THEY NEVER DID LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER:

I have recently finished 'The Collected Fairy Tales Of Hans Christian Anderson, and am about 80% through 'The Collected Fairy Tales Of The Brothers Grimm'. Lots of things could be said about these collections. The most obvious one is the bourgeois pietism of Anderson which creates a much"grimmer" picture than the bucolic peasants of the Grimm tales.

One little example, however stands out to me. I am reading direct translations from the Danish and German, and guess what ? The phrase "and they lived happily ever after never appears. I suspect it was a Victorian invention to sanitize death out of the originals. Here's a few examples of how the Grimm tales end:

1)"During the rest of their lives the farmer and his wife were tormented by a guilty conscience and spent their days in poverty and misery. (The Poor Boy In The Grave)

2)"The king drowned, but Hans married his daughter and became the king" (The Griffin)

3)"And the ungrateful son had to feed the toad every day; otherwise it would have eaten away part of his face. Thus the son wandered about the world without a moment of rest" (The Ungrateful Son)

The book purlates with such endings, some grimmer than others. About the closest one gets to the traditional fairy tale ending that we grew up with would be statements like, "...and so they lived happily until they died". I'm not a literary historian by any means, and so I am left to wonder when and why the classic fairy tales were bowdlerized.

TODAY IN HISTORY:

ANNIVERSARY OF 'THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES'

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It was today in 1859 that Charles Darwin published 'The Origin Of Species'. It can be argued that this has been the most influential book of the modern age. Today pretty well anybody involved in the sciences is a "Darwinist". This doesn't just apply to the obvious disciples such as biology, anthropology or archeology. Evolutionary thought is now a paradigm in fields as far apart as cosmology, geology and even chemistry.

Those who refuse evolutionary thought are a tiny minority, at least outside of the USA. On the left there are a tiny number of academics who deny that evolution has anything to do with humans. On the right the USA is the only country in the world where large numbers of people oppose the idea of evolution for religious reasons. In a strange twist of "survival of the fittest" America still has to come to terms with its high class university system bleeding India, Russia, China, Japan and Korea for talent while at the same time religious obscurantism helps to keep the public school system in the USA as substandard.

PERSONAL:

THEN AND NOW:

As part of the cleanup that never ends I recently came across a series of old publications ie the 'Discussion Bulletin' published by Frank Girard down Michegan way. The issues in question date to the late 80s/early 90s. Appreciate what this means. This was pre-internet days when a decently working photocopier was the height of technology. Unfortunately Frank never had access to such a good machine, and the DB usually came out looking exactly like what it was ie a photocopy effort.

The DB, however, was never meant to be an 'outreach' publication. As an expelled member of the American DeLenist 'Socialist Labor Party' Franks' idea was that there was no great reason why the various strains of libertarian socialism should remain apart from each other. The DB was an attempt and a noble one at just such a dialogue. Frank has not been with us for many years now, and in his absence the barriers on the libertarian left remain what they have been for decades.

Perhaps Frank's dream is an impossibility because any "union" would have to plaster over wide gaps in terms of tactics (and "theory" of course insofar as 'theory' is far too often the only action that far left groupuscles engage in). I also wonder if many of the organizations who wrote items for the DB in those days are also just as deceased as Frank.

Looking back I find that the first thing that comes to my mind is just how trivial all the disputes in places such as the DB were. By this I mean 'unimportant'. It was very much a matter of individuals speaking to organizations that had less than 50 members worldwide and their replies. Not that the dialogue wasn't at a high level; indeed far higher than the nonsense that comes out of academic leftydom these days. Almost all the people contributed to the DB were far removed from that hothouse.

As one of the participants in this project I also found what I wrote at the time quite trivial. It was not a hopeful time. The revival of anarchism via the "punk scene" was very much a tiny baby at the time. Seattle and the internet were (not so) far in the future. The situation nowadays is so incredibly different. In those days of yore pretty well everyone who claimed the anarchist labels felt an overwhelming sense of "responsibility". It's quite different today when anarchist bookfairs are occurring in what are actually small cities, and anarchism has to all intents replaced Marxism as the default theoretical position for younger people as they enter the wild and wacky world of activism.

When the ideology that you hold demands proselytizing you feel a much greater sense of responsibility when it is small compared to when it is large. Once there are is a certain number of people involved in any project it relieves the burden on all in such a group because if you can't do it somebody else who can is near at hand. There is actually a great amount of peace in recognizing that you are NOT indispensable, that whatever mistakes you make can easily be corrected by others. I love it.

I also love the fact that the anarchist movement has expanded beyond belief from when I first adopted the ideology in the early 70s. I can remember the state of the anarchist movement in Canada in those days. In terms of sheer naked numbers and geographical penetration what exists today represents a growth of between one and two orders of magnitude. I am always thrilled when I see a notice of an anarchist bookfair in a town that this amateur geographer has never heard of.

How to sum up ? Having lived through the growth of anarchism in the past few decades I am pleased, but I am also worried about certain trends in the movement. What non-CGT anarchism has achieved is actually only an acceptance ie a long term general sympathy from what hovers around 0.03% of the population. That's better than what I saw in my day, but it is also far less than what I estimate in Spain where, courtesy of the CGT, perhaps 5% of the population has a long term favourable view of anarchism. Anarchism, however, has even here for better or for worse crossed a threshold. It is now possible for a person to immerse themselves in some "counter-culture" of which anarchism is a part and be deluded about their actual strength because they cannot see beyond their social circles.

Of course I also know that such things as "victory", "influence" and "popularity" are things that are just not thought about amongst a certain section of anarchism in North America. Mostly because they are very happy to be separated from (and in their delusions superior to) the average person in their locality. All these people care about is their absolute certainty in what they believe this month.

I do also recognize that many of the faults I find with a certain (mostly American) anarchism is simple intellectual laziness. The history about the futility of 'terrorist tactics' is there for anyone to view. The revolutionary verbiage comes crashing up against the fact that the great 99% in most industrial countries wants to try no such thing. Neither do they generally listen to any left wing, let alone anarchist, comment. All of which, of course, is a call for people to reform their writing style both in terms of content but also in terms of tone.

All of which doesn't say that anarchism has no future. It merely says that along term view is necessary to appreciate BOTH how anarchism has grown and just how much further it has to go.

CANADIAN HISTORY:

THE 'ON TO OTTAWA TREK' 75 YEARS ON:

Tomorrow, June 6, will be commemorated as the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the 'On To Ottawa Trek' in Vancouver BC (the trek actually began on June 3). At the height of the depression in 1935 unemployed men were housed in "relief camps" in remote areas of western Canada under the aegis of the Department of National Defence. In these camps workers laboured for 20 cents a day on public works, and the conditions were so atrocious that the Relief camp Workers' Union began a strike in April 1935 demanding such basic things as the provision of first aid equipment in the camps and the abolition of Section 98 of the Criminal Code that essentially made being unemployed a crime.

Eventually the strikers decided on travelling to Ottawa en masse to present their grievances to the federal government. This was known as the On To Ottawa Trek, and the hundreds who hopped freight trains in Vancouver to head east had swollen to three thousand after passing through various prairie cities by the time they reached Regina Saskatchewan on June 14. By this time the federal government had become a little nervous especially as the major population centres lay further east from this gathering throng. They invited 8 leaders to travel on to Ottawa to negotiate with the government providing the mass of the trekkers stayed in Regina.

While the protesters remained camped at the Regina Exhibition Grounds the 8 leaders met with Prime Minister R.B. Bennett on June 22. It didn't go well in Ottawa as the meeting degenerated into a shouting match before the 8 strike leaders were evicted from the premises. meanwhile back in Regina the government had chosen its battleground well as the city was the site of the major RCMP training grounds. Not only were the rail lines blocked to the trekkers but roads were also occupied by RCMP roadblocks determined to keep the protesters in Regina. Like most people in Regina to this very day the trekkers were desperate to get out of Regina (hey I used to live there).

The strike leaders arrived back in Regina on June 26. The protesters were essentially imprisoned in that city with no way forward and no way back, living in the open at the Exhibition Grounds. A public meeting was called for July 1 (then Dominion Day and now Canada Day) at the downtown site of what is now the Regina City Police Station. Only about 300 trekkers showed up, but they were supported by up to 2,000 local people. The meeting went peacefully enough until 8:17 pm when hidden squads of RCMP and Regina City Police came out of hiding and charged the crowd. The crowd fought back, and the battle continued for four hours in the downtown area. The police began using live ammunition. The final death toll was one plain clothes policeman and one striker. The striker died in hospital, and the hospital files were deliberately altered to conceal the cause of death, but this was later exposed. The police claimed 39 injuries in addition to their one death, but denied that they were responsible for the death of the striker.

In the aftermath the Exhibition Grounds were surrounded by police officers with machine guns, and a barbed wire stockade was erected around the area. The inmates of what had now become a prison camp were denied any food or water. The provincial government of Saskatchewan meanwhile was none too happy that the feds had chosen their capital city as the battleground. They invited strike leaders to negotiations. The negotiators were briefly arrested by the enraged police but released under pressure from the Province. Premier Gardiner sent a telegraph message to the federal government accusing the police of "precipitating a riot" while the Province had been negotiating with the strikers. In the end the Province got its way, and food was delivered to the strikers and arrangements were made to transport them back west free of charge to whatever destination they chose.

Meanwhile in Ottawa fantasy ruled supreme as the government claimed that the strikers rather than the police had opened fire. Prime Minister Bennett summed up the view of his Conservative government when he stated that the Trek was "not a mere uprising against law and order but a definite revolutionary effort on the part of a group of men to usurp authority and destroy government". It would be nice if this was true, but it wasn't. Because of their actions during the Trek- and for many other reasons of gross mismanagement and callousness during the depression- the federal Conservatives were reduced in the election later that year from 139 seats to a rump of 39, and the Liberals became the new government with a large contingent of the 'Progressive Party' from the west acting s allies on the left. The work camps were soon dismantled and replaced by seasonal camps operated by the provinces who paid more to the men.

For more on the On To Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot see the website of the On To Ottawa Historical Society and the Wikipedia entry on this episode in Canadian history. Meanwhile from the National Union of Public and General Employees is the following item about how the beginning of the trek will be commemorated out in Vancouver.

CHCHCHCHCHCHCH
Rally Sunday marks the famed ‘On to Ottawa Trek'
Thousands of young men rebelled in 1935 against Depression era relief camps and helped bring about a national unemployment insurance system.

Vancouver (9 June 2010) - Workers will mark one of the most important anniversaries in Canadian labour this Sunday in Vancouver - the 75th anniversary of the On to Ottawa Trek. The British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU/NUPGE) is encouraging members to join in the celebration and commemoration.


The 1935 'On to Ottawa Trek'

A rally will be held at 1 p.m. in the city's Crab Park to raise awareness about modern-day poverty and to remember what happened to poor young workers 75 years ago. Crab Park is located at the north foot of Main Street where the trek began in 1935. The rally will feature speakers and the dedication of a plaque to mark the historic site.

Following the ceremony, a delegation will make a modern journey On to Ottawa to talk to the government about homelessness issues and the need for a national housing program.

The original trek began on June 3, 1935, when legions of young men, rebelling against poor working conditions and low wages in Depression era relief camps, boarded boxcars in Vancouver and headed for Ottawa to deliver an historic protest message to the federal government.

Hundreds of 'Trekkers' boarded Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) boxcars near the foot of Main Street and left the city. By the time they reached Regina, their numbers had swelled to more than 3,000.

Sadly, they were met in Regina by a wall of RCMP officers dispatched by R. B. Bennett, the unsympathetic Conservative prime minister of the day. The intervention prevented the Trekkers from continuing onto Ottawa. Only one of their leaders was permitted to travel on and meet with Bennett.

When the meeting proved fruitless, the remaining Trekkers in Regina rebelled on July 1 (then known as Dominion Day) in an uprising that was put down by arguably the most infamous and oppressive police riot in Canadian history.

But there was a price to pay for Bennett in his coldness and indifference to the plight of the working people. His Tory government was crushed in the next election, reduced from its 134-seat majority to a paltry 39 seats in the House of Commons,

The Liberal government that replaced the Conservatives then set about addressing many of the concerns raised by the Trekkers. Relief camps were abolished and the first steps were taken to set up what eventually became a national unemployment insurance system.