Sandy English

Librarian, writer for @wsws_updates; Educators Rank-and-File Committee

[Sandy English @Sandy_English]

Leon Trotsky 1918:

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

François Couperin (1668) – Great French Baroque composer, whose work “bears a double mark,” the French and Italian traditions. In the harpsichord work, a “perfectly realized synthesis reveals a sensitive, tender musician whose humor often masks a secret yet profound melancholy.”

[Sandy English @Sandy_English]

Mamdani’s redevelopment plan for NYCHA complex in Chelsea spills into DSA https://t.co/PrAR3Btk6K via @gothamist

[John Wilson @JohnWilsonWSWS]

#History #indonesia #Communism

100 years ago: Indonesian Communist Party leads uprisings

 On November 12, 1926, the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) led revolts by workers and peasants in Batavia (now Jakarta), Padang, Bantam and Surabaya against the Dutch colonial government which had ruled the southeast Asian island nation since the 18th century.
The PKI had been active among workers, especially railway workers, in 1925 and led a series of strikes, most of which were broken by the Dutch colonial government. In places like Padangpandang, Emmahaven, and the Ombilin coal-mining hub, railway employees organized under the Railway and Tramway Employees Union (VSTP) served as underground liaisons and organizers. However, their action was continually hampered by police measures and preemptive dismissals by the railway.

During the 1926 revolt, armed insurgents from the PKI launched coordinated assaults in Batavia. Militia stormed the main telephone and telegraph exchange, attempting to paralyze intercity communications, and marched toward the central government buildings, police posts and Glodok prison to free political prisoners and seize weapons. Government street patrols and local garrisons responded with rifle fire, repelling the insurgents after localized shootouts. Colonial forces foiled attempts to sabotage railways and prevent the transport of troops.
The armed actions in the urban center such as Batavia and Surabaya, however, failed to mobilize the working class.
The PKI had already retreated from the urban working class and focused its work in the countryside, where the uprisings of 1926 proved to be largely isolated revolts. The forces that rose up were not organized factory workers, but peasants, rural traders, village youth and Muslim religious fanatics mobilized against land-tax surveys and livestock head-taxes.

On the day of the rebellion, Islamic rebels allied with the PKI across Bantam, a predominately rice-growing region on the western tip of Java, put on white religious garments to signify martyrdom and assembled in small units near major mosques and communication junctions, carrying bludgeons, cutting weapons and homemade explosives. These revolts, too, were quickly suppressed by the better-armed colonial police and military.

The administrative and judicial apparatus followed up with mass arrests, summary dismissals, and administrative exile to the Boven-Digul penal camp. The PKI organization was almost completely destroyed and did not re-emerge as a major, legal open party until after the Japanese occupation and the onset of the Indonesian National Revolution in 1945, by which time it had become thoroughly Stalinist. Later it become responsible for the much greater defeat of 1965.

[IMAGE: A meeting of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) Batavia commissariat, in present-day Jakarta, 1925 ]

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

As hundreds of Mexican Social Security Institute workers marched on the Zócalo Monday against their union and the Sheinbaum government, autoworkers at GM Silao urged them to build rank-and-file committees and unite their fight with that of the entire working class.

[John Wilson @JohnWilsonWSWS]

JW: the headline could almost have been “Israel starts tortured process to form government to continue torture, war and genocide”

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Israel starts tortured process to form the next war and genocide government
https://t.co/T6r0Qk4OdX

… Should Eisenkot fail to form a government, Herzog could turn to Netanyahu to form a national unity government or call fresh elections. Either could leave Netanyahu in power for months.
What is at stake in all these scenarios is the formation of a government able to carry out Washington and Tel Aviv’s war agenda. The election campaign was largely fought as a contest between two war criminals over how best to prosecute the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and extend it to the West Bank, and continue the ongoing wars against Lebanon, Syria and above all Iran.

Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the UN’s International Criminal Court, while Eisenkot joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet for eight months to prosecute Israel’s war on Gaza. It was Eisenkot who formulated, in 2008, the Dahiya doctrine that calls for the use of overwhelming, disproportionate force against civilian infrastructure in enemy-controlled territory that has become Israel’s standard operating procedure.

Both camps, the ultra-nationalists and supposed “liberal” Zionists, fought a racist campaign against the Palestinians. They are all committed to the continuation and expansion of the wars against the Palestinians and back US President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, pledging Israel’s services as Washington’s proxy in its bid to dominate the resource-rich region.

[Palestine Highlights @PalHighlight]

Former US President Joe Biden and and his wife Jill Biden had objects thrown at them as they left Trinity College Dublin, where pro-Palestinian protesters had gathered. Irish police arrested at least two people.

[Socialist Equality Party (US) @SEP_US]

Democratic Socialists of America member Janeese Lewis George elected mayor of Washington, DC https://t.co/Hf83sPiNUM

[MikeHeadWSWS @MikeHeadWSWS]

Netherlands: Over 200,000 join fourth Red Line demonstration in Amsterdam against Gaza genocide and rearmament https://t.co/pAzp4pu2Qc

[Sandy English @Sandy_English]

At least 5 killed, including children, as floods swamp Gaza’s tent camps https://t.co/UFesBckLuu

[Sandy English @Sandy_English]

Federal judge rules Mamdani administration must give ICE names of Bronx shelter residents https://t.co/bySr1O8fWl via @gothamist

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

The return of measles in the US and the bipartisan dismantling of public health. A thread:

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

This week in #history: November 9-15

🔸US-backed Northern Alliance captures Kabul as Taliban forces collapse
🔸Indian parliament writes Indira Gandhi's emergency dictatorship into law with Stalinist support
🔸US Army spreads inflated atrocity claims in Korean War;
🔸Communist Party of Indonesia leads uprisings against Dutch colonial rule

https://t.co/enrLEFg4LE

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

Elijah Lovejoy (1892) – Newspaper editor and abolitionist martyr. In the St. Louis Observer, he criticized the powerful interests protecting slavery and was murdered by a mob in 1837 in Alton, Illinois. John Brown responded, “I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

On November 9, 1918 the revolutionary uprising of the German working class against war and monarchy shook capitalism to its foundations. The SPD leadership organized one blow after another against the revolutionary workers, culminating in the murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht.

[Socialist Equality Party (Australia) @SEP_Australia]

“People are sleeping outside and all the money is going to war. It’s disgusting.”—Joel, a warehouse worker spoke to SEP campaigners in Melbourne’s north

[Sandy English @Sandy_English]

The return of measles in the US and the bipartisan dismantling of public health https://t.co/iuZeEVamhW

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

Democrats pledge to work with Trump. After the massive repudiation of Republicans in the elections, the Democratic Party has launched a campaign to rescue the Trump administration.

[Socialist Equality Party (US) @SEP_US]

Why Study the Russian Revolution?

Today marks 109 years since the Russian Revolution. We are posting here the text of a lecture delivered Saturday, March 11, 2017, by David North

https://t.co/cocCA5YIPY

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

The October Revolution substantiated the materialist conception of history as formulated by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. Its objective development also substantiated the perspective elaborated by Trotsky between 1906 and 1907, the theory of permanent revolution.

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

The seizure of power by the Bolshevik Party in October 1917 and the establishment of the first workers’ state inspired an immense development in the class consciousness and political awareness of the working class and oppressed masses throughout the world.