communism

The Curious Case of the Communist Jell-O Box: The Execution of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg

gwen — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

What could possibly be the connection between imitation raspberry Jell-O, communism, and the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? I was intrigued. After all, what self-respecting leftist would not be interested in the case of the Rosenbergs, who at the height of the Red Scare were convicted of smuggling secrets to the Russians? The Curious Case of the Communist Jell-O Box (CCCJB) is a political zine by Michael Hoerger and Mia Partlow, which folds out into a full-sized poster, but for maximum enjoyment you have to read it as you unfold. In other words, the story unfolds as you do.

The authors use the theme of the Jell-O box to great effect. This seemingly innocuous product and its unlikely association with communism initially lighten the darker themes of espionage and subsequent execution. The ubiquitous gelatin dessert box then takes on a more sinister significance when presented at trial as a sophisticated communications device. Yet this evidence, which was central to the prosecution’s case, was never recovered, and unsurprisingly when shown a replica under cross-examination and asked whether they recognized the box, the witnesses all answered “yes.”

In CCCJB, Hoerger and Partlow write that the show trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were used to fuel public paranoia about communists and lefties in order to give the FBI and its leader, J. Edgar Hoover, greater powers to infiltrate and use extralegal means to quell any real or apparent leftist threat. If you read closely, you’ll see that the writers do raise the possibility of our late-defendants’ guilt, but it seems there’s a larger message in this zine—the unnecessary demonizing of the left or anyone who dares to raise the virtues of truth and justice.

Your inner geek will be tickled pink with reproductions of the now-declassified transcripts from the 1950 Grand Jury trial and a declassified CIA memo that supplies background material on how to counter pro-Rosenberg propaganda. The collage of period newspaper clippings and sensational headlines from both sides of the political spectrum with their scratchy and at times illegible letters give the zine a genuine 1950s look and feel.

CCCJB left me wanting to find out more about the Rosenbergs and the two children they left behind, and a link to further reading about the case would have been appreciated. But overall this was a well-planned undertaking and a lot of entertainment for just two bucks. I checked out the authors’ website, and they have other food-related political zines with their own declassified documents… excellent… excellent!

Written by: Heather Leighton, December 21st 2010

Dream of Ding Village

caitlin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Yan Lianke

Grove Press

Grandfather Ding is the patriarch of the family that founded Ding Village. He dreams of a world that sometimes comes true and sometimes should but doesn't. Both of his sons are ne’er-do-wells, one a crooked, arrogant man who becomes a high level Communist cadre with boatloads of money, the other a layabout who makes nothing of his life. The older son makes his money from being a “blood head," a man who buys and sells blood in the rural communities and ultimately infects an entire Chinese province with AIDS through contaminated blood. As the community dies, the son creates more and more abusive schemes to increase his wealth and moves to an opulent house in the city.

Villagers sell their blood to buy things like a particular brand of shampoo. In the end, all monies are invested in death—buying a casket—and the grandeur of death becomes far more enticing than the reality of living. The future is sold off for the past by blind followers of corrupt leaders.

The grandfather at first follows the directives of the party as much as his son, only he achieves its goals through more humane means: by convincing the citizens it is good for them. Is this better? Does it make his manipulation any less blameworthy? A benign dictator is still a dictator, and is perhaps even worse than an outright hostile one, because the victim doesn’t even know what he's lost and has no way to fight back against an unidentifiable enemy.

Grandfather Ding makes two unsuccessful attempts to convince his son to take responsibility. The more he tries to do good, the worse it gets for him. As the village descends into Lord of the Flies savagery, the one story of true love does nothing to soften the blow. It’s all about money. The grandfather is left with no options to combat evil but a final act of desperation.

While this is a critique of communism, it might as well also be of the U.S. since the “trickle-down” eighties, the “me” nineties, and the “never ending war” of the naughts. At the core of any concentration of power—call it communism or capitalism, patriarchy or religion—is corruption and greed.

The book alternates between the dream states of the grandfather, as told by his dead grandson, and the waking nightmare of a dying village and the shame of his own family. The family conflict illustrates the counterpoint of the extremes of wealth and poverty and the struggle between power and humanity, problems faced in the contemporary U.S. as well as China. The author uses repetition as a rhetorical tool to emphasize the cyclical nature of these problems, but sometimes he uses it too much. Overall, though, the writing is lyrical and often beautiful, with vivid descriptions of the living conditions of rural China.

The village dries up and dies as the people do, and the corrupt son continues to accumulate wealth off the misery of others—in his case blood, death, marriage in the afterlife (in the case of the U.S.—disease, wars, private prisons). The son convinces himself he’s a philanthropist. The father, a janitor, convinces himself he's a professor. What’s real? When is a dream true?

Written by: Dianne Post, December 5th 2010

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Belle Yang

W.W. Norton

I jumped at the chance to review Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, an unconventional graphic memoir from writer/artist Belle Yang. While I am no expert on graphic literature, I did devour Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series. With this medium, I enjoy (and envy) the way an artist can show emotions through inked illustrations, and use words more sparingly. Further, there is an intimacy created on the page, because the typeface and conversational style evoke a personal journal lying on a nightstand.

Yang is a Chinese-American woman, and her story, in part, tells of the identity struggles she experiences in separating from the Chinese traditions of her immigrant parents. When she travels to Beijing for art school, Yang has a chance to learn cultural history while not being bound to it.

At the outset of her tale, we see the source of Yang’s title: her Chinese name, Xuan, means “Forget Sorrow.” When Yang was thirty years old, she sought shelter from a violent boyfriend by moving back to her parents’ home. While there, she began to give shape to her father’s childhood stories in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, World War II, and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Yang writes, “I have a voice in America. I won’t waste it.”

The art in Forget Sorrow is tender, powerful, and moving. One ink illustration that stands out is Yang’s nightmare about her abuser, which captures a feeling of stark terror. In contrast, Yang’s illustrations also evoke tenderness between father and daughter, a feeling of comfort for him as he shares painful memories.

Yang’s story demonstrates ways in which strength comes from relationships. Her father’s tales are painful at times. Under communism, family relationships were made subordinate to party affiliation. Important aspects of tradition, such as honoring elders, did not apply if those elders were deemed to be landlords or capitalists. The political side of Yang’s family story makes it very clear that social change should not come at the cost of human life or dignity.

Through telling her family’s story as well as exercising her voice and her artistic vision in Forget Sorrow, Yang found new freedom. As a writer, artist, and woman, she shapes her own future.

Written by: Lisa Rand, August 23rd 2010

The Lacuna

admin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Barbara Kingsolver

Harper

A Barbara Kingsolver novel can often be defined in just one word: captivating. In her first work of fiction in nearly a decade, The Lacuna delivers (in true Kingsolver style) with intricate characters, potent settings, and a sturdy construction built on extensive research. The end result seems so effortless, but Kingsolver’s strength in The Lacuna lies in her use of an unassuming main character by the name of Harrison William Shepherd to viscerally guide the reader through pivotal historical events in Mexico and the United States beginning in the late 1920s through the early 1940s.

The story of Shepherd’s life is that he belongs nowhere and to nobody. Born in Virginia to a small-time federal employee and a Mexican flapper, Shepherd’s entire life experience is shaped by always feeling like a foreigner no matter where he lives. Matters aren’t helped by having parents who show little interest in him (Shepherd’s friend Leandro comments, “Mi’jo…your mother can’t even remember the day she gave you birth.”), and he exists perpetually on the periphery due to his reclusiveness and homosexuality.

Yet in Shepherd, who is naturally drawn to and gifted at writing, the reader has the perfect observer in the tumultuous events that surround his life. Although he tries his best to live an unassuming life, his talents lead him to fascinating interactions with historical figures like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky. Later in his life, he becomes part of history as a famous American writer.

What’s incredible about Shepherd is that he never has an agenda. While he does care deeply for Kahlo, Trotsky, and Rivera, he never becomes immersed in any ideology to the same degree as his friends. In fact, when he eventually moves to the United States, Shepherd always seems to give his birth country the benefit of the doubt. For instance, Shepherd responds to a letter from Kahlo regarding the Japanese internment by writing, “Don’t listen to nonsense, Frida. The idea of putting American Japanese in concentration camps is fantastical…Have faith in our Mr. Roosevelt…he is our own kind of Lenin, charting the new American Revolution.”

But despite Shepherd’s faith in the American government and his struggle against celebrity once he becomes a famous author, the sweeping effect of senator Joseph McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts eventually set their sights on Shepherd. It starts small with an article about Shepherd containing false information about his political beliefs and then snowballs until his fans nationwide have joined the crusade against him. The scene is reminiscent of recent history where campaigns were led against musicians who voiced anti-war sentiments, and events like bulldozing a pile of Dixie Chicks CDs became a threatening way to silence artists unless they wanted to risk their careers. Even one of the few close friends Shepherd has completely severs their relationship after learning of Shepherd’s supposed political leanings without asking for Shepherd’s side of the story.

Shepherd’s story is a telling reminder of how easily some become swept up in a political ideology without really knowing any of its substance. Kingsolver summarizes this beautifully through Shepherd’s friend and legal advisor, Artie Gold. Gold says, “What these men are doing could become permanent…You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what’s broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it’s broken, you are automatically disqualified.”

Although the story is mainly told through diary entries and letters written by Shepherd, Kingsolver illuminates this time in history. Despite much of the novel being politically oriented, it does not sway toward becoming preachy. Instead, the reader is left with a beautifully written story and many questions to ponder.

Written by: Beverly Jenkins-Crockett, April 24th 2010

Women in Power in Post-Communist Parliaments

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:01:00 +0000

By Marilyn Rueschmeyer, Sharon L. Wolchik

Indiana University Press

Reading the title of this book, Women in Power in Post-Communist Parliaments, one pictures Chancellor Angela Merckel standing alongside Presidents Obama and Medvedev. Then, East German women swimmers, intimidating and Frankenstein-esque, and hearty Russian farmers, resilient with scythes in hand march across the landscape of one's mind, all of them serious and dour in shades of grey and brown. As the vision morphs back into post-communist parliaments, Yulia Tymoshenko, the current Ukrainian prime minister, appears blonde and leather clad, sitting astride a motorcycle in campaign posters. The free-association, in a dance now, takes you to Russian mail-order-brides, flirtatious and malleable, then models tall and leggy. Aside from Merckel and Tymoshenko, there is little that is overtly useful to understanding women in power in post-communist parliaments.

By not focusing on the post-communist superstar, this book draws a nuanced picture of the various women serving as members of parliament in the post-communist era. Focusing on six countries, including East Germany (as integrated into Germany) and the Ukraine, all but one (Russia) are members of the European Union, and all but one (Russia again) presently appears to be making strides towards further liberalization.

The book is divided into two sections: the first section focuses on the research and the second on the people. Both sections are dry and difficult to read, but the second part provides a human component with the inclusion of interviews with, and essays by, the parliamentarians themselves. Because of its personal nature, the second section pushes you past the farmers and models. As the women describe their routes to parliament and their work there, they create an account of their experiences with and in power that is comparable to those of women in the West.

These women are not self-described feminists, and they deny that definition in the Western sense. Most of the women became involved in politics as a result of spousal or communal pressure, not of their own volition, and their political identification is one of party and not gender. Their work focuses on family issues of pensions, pay, daycare, and education. The female parliamentarians focus on feminine issues only when they do not interfere with the party line.

The women and their work are best summarized in the words of a female Bulgarian parliamentarian as “gender empowerment,” that it is in the interest of women to have women in parliament to air their views on social issues in what she describes as a sort of “enlightened self interest” drawing attention to the issues one can expect to win, and not wasting one’s breath and seeming hysterical. The dancing women will not be experiencing fainting spells, but they will also not be leading brazen charges.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, January 12th 2010

Kanchivaram: A Communist Confession

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Directed by Priyadarshan

Spier Films

There are two times in a Hindu's life when one is supposed to wear silk: at one’s wedding and at one’s own funeral. In the village of Kanchivaram (Kanchipuram), the silk weavers are only ever able to have enough silk to tie the toes of the dead together, and no daughter of a weaver has ever worn a silk sari on her wedding day. Kanchivaram tells the story of a man of change. Weaving silk for a pittance, as his father did before him, Vengadam wants nothing more than to weave his daughter a silk sari for her wedding day. Though obstacles are thrown in his way, for Vengadam, this promise, once made, must be kept at all costs.

The tension of the promise to his daughter Thamarai hangs in the air throughout the film as only the viewers and Vengadam know how it is to be fulfilled. Before she is able to walk, the money for the sari is gone, and the father has become the lowest of low: a thief. He steals silk so that he may weave the sari himself in his cow shed. Time goes on and little change comes to the village, even with the resident writer teaching classes. The writer is a communist and he teaches the weavers about the power of unity. As Thamarai comes of marriage age and falls in love, so has the proletariat ripened to strike. The father strays from his promise.

Thamarai and her mother were loved by Vengadam above all; however, they are not equals but supplicants to him. The spheres of belonging are clear. The men leave for work daily and the women tend to the home. Even with the arrival of communism in the village, the women’s traditional condition of reliance on men does not change. After her mother’s death, Thamarai comes to take care of Vengadam, and he still expects no change.

In watching Kanchivaram, one cannot help but sense that much of the everyday monotony of subjugation is lost without adequate translation. In a film which has to do with the decimation of the past, little of it is conveyed. Yes, the main points are to be found—promises made should not be broken and custom often outweighs idealism—but the beauty of the monotony which the filmmakers work so hard to convey is nowhere to be found.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, August 8th 2009

Left Forum 2009 (4/17-4/19/2009)

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:02:00 +0000

Pace University

New York, New York

Left Forum is an annual meeting of liberal intellectuals, academics, activists and students hosted by a New York City college or university. The conference is divided up into panels that take place in classrooms scattered across the campus. As I sat listening and astutely taking notes at the first panel I attended, a sudden feeling of nostalgia washed over me. I couldn’t help but feel transported back to my years as an undergraduate. Choosing panels was like choosing between courses. There was everything from “Long Term Strategies for the Left," to the more specific “The Challenge of Right-Wing Populism in Northern Core Capitalist Countries.” Like everything seemed in college, the choices were abundant.

Of the many panels I had the chance to attend, two in particular stood out. The first, “The Iraq War in Perspective” offered a dynamic spattering of writers, activists, and journalists who had been in and out of Iraq since the beginning of the U.S. occupation. Initially I was struck by the lack of an Iraqi presence on the panel: every one of the speakers was an American male, and with the exception of one, they were all white. This is something that Left Forum seems to struggle with: balancing elite academic ideologies with the actual people implicated in the theories. Despite this, the speakers offered what they experienced on the ground in Iraq, much of which is not reported through the U.S. media. Eight years after the launch of the invasion of Iraq, we are no closer to withdrawal than we were when we began; from the failure of the anti-war movement in America, to the foreshadowing of Obama’s foreign policies, the panelists painted a bleak portrait of the situation in Iraq, which is a picture you will not find on the front page of the New York Times.

The second panel, “The Culture Wars & Sexuality” grappled with the social and political restrictions on sexuality and identity politics. Betty Dodson—who is widely known as a sex educator, author, and artist—was effervescent. A witty woman in her eighties, she dominated much of the conversation with talk of the need for self-pleasure in sexual fulfillment. The panelists also spoke about Proposition 8 and raised serious questions about whether it should be a flagship cause in the gay rights movement. One of the most informative panelists, Bianca I. Laureano, worked with the sex-positive website Latino Sexuality, and was the first in the group to directly address the issue of race in the context of sexuality. It was refreshing to have a young, female panelist of color, and her experiences added exponentially to the dialogue.

Ultimately, the nostalgia I initially experienced persisted throughout the conference. This feeling was not just a result of physically being transported to a university; rather, it was the cocoon-like nature of Left Forum. From the communist publications being distributed at the front door to the inside leftist jokes about the implications of Obama’s foreign interactions, I felt as though I were in an intricately constructed liberal bubble. The attendees at the conference largely represented the fringes of political norms, but for a few days, surrounded by peers, they were in the center of a liberal terrarium.

Despite the institutionalized nature of such an academic gathering where certain voices go unheard, there was much to be gained. Having the opportunity to engage in dialogues with an array of highly respected academics, activists, intellectuals, and students is immeasurable. Many times those sitting in the audience next to me had just as much to offer as the panelists themselves and questions from the audience blossomed into beautiful diversions that would never exist outside of the surreal world of Left Forum.

Written by: Lizzy Shramko, April 26th 2009

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones

admin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:43:00 +0000

By Carole Boyce Davies

Duke University Press

Still unknown to many, the life story of Claudia Jones is equally inspiring and heartbreaking. Guilty of being everything she was labeled, Jones maintained many overlapping identities—feminist, Black Nationalist, Communist, and journalist—working in the early to mid-twentieth century on a wide array of equal rights causes. Her activism a precursor to much of the 1960s American counterculture resistance, for which we often remember recent history’s leaders of color. Jones’s political life in the United States and abroad is memorialized in Carole Boyce Davies’s new book that recognizes this astounding woman and her great achievements. With an excellent academic and personal balance, Davies thoroughly investigates and reveals the short life of a remarkable leader whom we could all seek to emulate for her work in radical, feminism, anti-racist politics.

Originally from Trinidad, Jones moved to Harlem when she was eight years old and grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression. A strong young woman, she became active in the Communist Party and spoke all over the nation about an anti-capitalist agenda. Often persecuted during the McCarthy era, and arrested several times, she maintained a clear vision and held to her beliefs that the Communism she knew was practical and possible. After being deported from the United States in the 1950s, she settled in London and immersed herself in the British Communist Party.

Jones is often noted for having founded both the UK’s _West Indian Gazette _and the Notting Hill Carnival, a Mardi-Gras-like celebration of Afro-Caribbean talent that continues to this day. Working to make Caribbean heritage the active part of British identity it has since become, Jones found solidarity in many radical political circles doing allied work. Her work as a writer, activist, and political leader is on par with many of the greats we know by name today, and this sort of tribute writing should be only the beginning in better understanding her role in the marriage between modern Marxist structures and Black history.

How overdue this chronicle of her life and work truly is. As Davies points out in the introduction, Jones is buried next to Karl Marx—to his left, to be precise, “an apt metaphor…her location in death continues to represent her ideological position while living.” Without spoiling this sometimes-scholarly read, it is a must-have for activists and academics alike. Be prepared for a sad ending, but the tales along the way supplement hope when the unfairness of life can seem too much.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, April 8th 2008

The Mark of Cain

admin — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:55:00 +0000

Directed by Alix Lambert

Pink Ghetto Productions

Although prison life is a dreary subject and Russian prison life even more so, The Mark of Cain is a film anyone interested in post-communist Russia must see. The documentary features interviews with Russian prison inmates. Director Alix Lambert examines the changes Russian prison tattoo art has undergone since the fall of communism and winds up vividly capturing both the changes in Russian prison life since the fall of communism, and the problems Russian society faces as it grapples with its communist past.

During one scene, a prison administrator proclaims, “To speak of the history of our correctional labor institution, it’s worth going back to the year 1930” as a statue of Lenin is shown. He goes on to give a brief history of the modern prison system. Then an elderly inmate complains that tattoos have no meaning anymore. He proudly shows off his tattoos of Joseph Stalin and Vladmir Lenin. A younger inmate then implies that prison tattoos do still have meaning when he says, “Certain questions just don’t have to be asked…If a person ends up in prison again then those tattoos will say a lot about them.”

The conditions of Russian prisons are actually worse now than they were during the communist era, as is the present economy. Lambert expresses just how dismal the conditions in Russian prisons are in a scene where a bowl of watery soup the color of vomit is shown as an inmate says, “And you live off of that.” Another inmate remarks that family and friends bring inmates extra food because if they only eat the prison food they will have a “lack of vitamins.”

In another scene, a Russian criminology expert says, “The first testimony of terrible torture came in 1989.” He goes on to describe the "cell-press,” a particular torture method used by communists where an inmate was placed in a small cell with other inmates who were allowed to do anything they wanted to him. The past becomes not so distant in the next shot when an inmate describes the torture methods currently used in prisons, and the ‘cell press’ is included in his list.

Despite the dark subject, this documentary captivates you. Alix Lambert is to be commended.

Written by: Gina-Marie Cheeseman, July 7th 2007