By PETER MOLENAAR
Born to the Iron Range, once upon a time, Helvi Savola and Helen Kruth would, in their later years, take up residence in an apartment complex on the north edge of what is now Ventura Village. Peace and friendship with the Soviet Union was central to their vision of Peace on Earth. In Fact, they had been close associates of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (the “Rebel Girl”) who, in 1916, had witnessed striking Mesabi Range miners being clubbed and shot. (Note: an historical marker which honored Elizabeth, was recently taken down by Republican Party operatives.)
Believe it or not, the words above are intertwined with a somewhat violent event which took place recently at 4200 Cedar Ave., home to Women Against Military Madness. Medea Benjamin was in town! Medea has co-authored: War in Ukraine—Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. Here is one review: “Careful, informal, judicious… an invaluable guide” —Noam Chomsky. Why then was Medea assaulted by a group of “anarchists”, led by an erstwhile representative of the Communication Workers of America? Hey, the assailant’s parents had been members of the Communist Party!
What is an anarchist? An anarchist might, or might not, foresee the eventual collapse of the capitalist system but, in any case, he or she rejects the conception of a ‘worker’s state’ as a facilitator of socialist transformation. (By ‘state’ is meant: the law enforcement aspect of governance.) Ironically, the intended honorific “free state” is an anarchist postulate which, in the real world, would be a state unfettered from ‘democracy’, i.e., a fascist state!
So then, how might two Communists rear up an “anarchist”? Actually, I knew the guy’s parents when he was still a kid. Jim was the stepfather who, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union declared: “I have been discredited!”. Such was the individualistic response to the ‘revolutionary exhaustion’ of a people who had been subjected to inconceivably horrific warfare, coupled with the constant threat of war… culminating with the shipment of U.S. weapons to Osama Bin Ladin’s warriors in Afghanistan. Sadly, it seems our assailant’s parents were inadequately grounded in ‘dialectical-materialism’.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn—Statement at the Smith Act Trial, 1952: “We will prove to you that it is not the Communists who have advocated or practiced force and violence, but that it is the employing class which has done both throughout history…” It is then a matter of principle: workers are not the initiators of violence. Hopefully, the Peace Movement will make this clear to the CWA.
Hey, does everyone remember Zbigniew Bryzezinski? I suppose not. Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives… this was his book, a book which still circulates within the upper echelon of academia, the State Department and C.I.A., the book which posits a vision of financial control of Eurasian landmass resources. Hence, a proxy war for the purpose of degrading Russia, a war which need not have commenced. Read Medea’s book, please. Yes: Stand with the Ukrainian People! Stop the War!
