Last member of the Abraham Lincoln brigade dies

Good.

There's such s mix bag with this sort of thing.

I'm not knocking Petey, he's a decent bloke

In an age when those serving military causes are
Wrap in patriotic clothes, Internacionalistas seem to ring different, unique,
and so forth While true in many ways, some were not do nice and aided the cause if Stalinism in some of the most negative ways. I don't know this guys history, so I can't say

So we are sad when those who fought fascism die. Yet recognize that not all who fought the evil were friends of free socialism and free communism

iexist

fnbrilll

Good.

To far, dude to far

Learn about the Lister Brigades and you'll get a flavor of the feeling

iexist:

From a letter to the IWW from a soldier of the anarchist Durrutti column

Spain is a wonderful country. At present it reminds me of the stories I have read of the O.G.P.U. [secret police] in Russia. The jails of loyalist Spain are full of volunteers who have more than a single-track mind. I know one of them from Toronto, a member of the L.R.W.P. [North American Trotskyist grouping- FNB] I wonder if they will bump him off. The Stalinists do not hesitate to kill any of those who do not blindly accept Stalin as a second Christ. One of the refugees who came over with me from Spain was a member of the O.G.P.U. in Spain, which, by the way, is controlled by Russia. Every volunteer in the Communist International Brigade is considered a potential enemy of Stalin. He is checked and double-checked, every damn one. If he utters a word other than commy phrases he is taken "for a ride." This chap (ex- O.G.P.U.) is like all the other commies coming out of Spain, absolutely anti-Stalin and anti-communist. He skipped the country by flashing his O.G.P.U. badge on the trains etc.

So cheer on libcomers! You're celebrating the people who would kill you.

[Double Post]

"An eye-opening account of time served in the great battles of our century—for workers’ rights, against Fascism, Communism, and racism—Jumping the Line is the life story of an American original. William Herrick chronicles his adventures and misadventures on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, in (and very much out of) the Communist Party, driving a tractor on a communal farm in Michigan, jumping the line as a hobo, organizing African American sharecroppers in Georgia, at work with Orson Welles, and immersed in his own writing.

Herrick chronicles a life of great conviction and great disillusion. He went to Spain in 1936 to fight against the Fascists and there witnessed the horrifying acts that Fascists and Communists alike committed, before he was felled by a near-fatal wound. Here he tells about the life that led him, a working-class Jewish kid from New York, into the idealism and then the murky politics of this internecine conflict. From the bloody fight in Spain he takes us to the battlefields of the Communist movement in the U.S., where he found himself parading up and down the garment district of Manhattan, denouncing his former comrades.

When Paul Berman interviewed Herrick in the Village Voice in 1986, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, Herrick’s remarks so incensed other veterans of the Abraham Lincoln battalion that they picketed the paper. What William Herrick has to say doesn’t always go down easily. But for those who like the truth, with a dash of wit and a healthy dose of history, it can be exhilarating."
http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0423.htm

I'm going to be transcribing some of that @Black Badger. Its a section where the American IB commanders execute some POUM youth in front of Herrick to get him back on CPUSA line.

Spain is a wonderful country. At present it reminds me of the stories I have read of the O.G.P.U. [secret police] in Russia. The jails of loyalist Spain are full of volunteers who have more than a single-track mind. I know one of them from Toronto, a member of the L.R.W.P. [North American Trotskyist grouping- FNB] I wonder if they will bump him off. The Stalinists do not hesitate to kill any of those who do not blindly accept Stalin as a second Christ. One of the refugees who came over with me from Spain was a member of the O.G.P.U. in Spain, which, by the way, is controlled by Russia. Every volunteer in the Communist International Brigade is considered a potential enemy of Stalin. He is checked and double-checked, every damn one. If he utters a word other than commy phrases he is taken "for a ride." This chap (ex- O.G.P.U.) is like all the other commies coming out of Spain, absolutely anti-Stalin and anti-communist. He skipped the country by flashing his O.G.P.U. badge on the trains etc.

Wouldn't the bit you bolded, though, suggest that the problem isn't the people who joined the International Brigade, but those who controlled the Brigade?

Doesn't this passage also suggest that most of the people who left Spain after fighting in the International Brigade came away with an anti-Stalinist stance? How do we know the dude who died isn't one of them?

Then why should libcomers celebrate International Brigades @Chili?

Petey wrote:

but could we not conflate the members of the Abraham Lincoln brigade with the OGPU? i admire that when fascism was on the march, some americans were willing to pick up a gun to fight it, both communists and wobs.

This. Many people joined the IB with the intention to fight fascism. Not all of them were our enemies.

petey

but could we not conflate the members of the Abraham Lincoln brigade with the OGPU? i admire that when fascism was on the march, some americans were willing to pick up a gun to fight it, both communists and wobs.

But the OGPU was conflated (embeded) into all the International Brigades including the ALB. You cannot separate the two.

fnbrilll

Then why should libcomers celebrate International Brigades @Chili?

I'm not sure I follow?

I don't think anyone is celebrating the International Brigades. A lot of people - from a lot of different organizations and for a lot of different reasons - joined the IB. Some were surely Stalinist douche-bags who'd put an anarchist up against the wall. A lot of them weren't and I'm sure some of them were/became solid comrades.

Given than, I just think it's not cool to be so flippantly dismissive of this dude's death.

fnbrilll

petey

but could we not conflate the members of the Abraham Lincoln brigade with the OGPU? i admire that when fascism was on the march, some americans were willing to pick up a gun to fight it, both communists and wobs.

But the OGPU was conflated (embeded) into all the International Brigades including the ALB. You cannot separate the two.

I think the key word in Petey's post was members.

I mean, I was in a union embedded with the Democrats. Does that mean I can't be separated from the Democratic Party?

Arguably, volunteers in Spain do bear some responsibility for joining a Stalinist-controlled organization, but I also think for a lot of Americans the ALB was the easiest way to get to Spain to fight against fascism. For that, I don't hold all individual members responsible for the actions of the IB.

Chilli wrote:

but I also think for a lot of people it was the easiest way to get to Spain to fight against fascism

For a lot of people it was the only way.

The problem with you IB apologists is that we're not talking about naive kids joining the IB in 1936. Berg was promoting the IB's politics up till his death. He represented the political program of Stalinism in Spain.

Yeah, fnbrill, you need to make it more clear. your first post seems based on the logic of 'fuck him and fuck everyone who fought in the International Brigades' while your last post seems to say 'fuck this guy who was a Stalinist til his death'. I dunno anything about this guy but your point makes more sense if it's the latter rather than the former imo..

Berg was promoting the IB's politics up till his death. He represented the political program of Stalinism in Spain.

What evidence do you have for this? Just what I can glean from the obit, this doesn't seem explicit. I mean, the fact he would say his proudest moment was getting elected to an NAACP position and not fighting in Spain suggests liberalism a lot more than Stalinism.

I'm with fnbrill, more or less, rather more than less. Berg says when he went to Spain he was politically clueless. OK, he went to fight fascism. But the sad truth is that ain't quite enough.
That's one.

And when he comes back? Still politically naive? Not quite. He joins the CP. He stays in the CP for a period of time. That's two.

Because this guy was the last survivor of the ALB... so what? Who cares? We're supposed to reflect on that class struggle because he was the last "survivor" of a brigade that was in fact organized to pre-empt a social revolution? OK, let's do that. Let's reflect on a class struggle where "solidarity" was expressed by suppressing social revolution. That's three, and that's the truth.

Warts and all, comrades, warts and all. Marx had 'em; Engels too. CLR James, and Lincoln, and the CNT... warts and all.

@Chili

Perhaps doing Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade events in 2012?