book notes
L'extrême droite contre les femmes, Jo de Leeuw and H. PeemansPoulet (Eds.), Editions Luc Pire, Brussels, 1995
This collection of papers presented at a recent seminar on Women and the Extreme Right organised in Brussels is an exhaustive analysis of the rôle of "the woman question" in far-right ideology (Hugo Gijsels) and the attraction of a number of women to these extremist views (Ann Carton on Belgium's Vlaams Blok, Fiammetta Venner on the far-right electorate in France).
How to unravel this paradox? Colette Guillaumin demonstrates the negative side to naturalism, the 'common religion' of a ignored women's viewpoint. Magda Michelsens argues that a culturalist approach can challenge the traditionalist ideology of the far right. While Bérengère Marques-Pereira shows the slide from nationalism to anti-feminism as a key pole of right-extremist ideology.
Back on more familiar, but no less important ground, Michel Husson outlines the economic and social crisis which underlies the growth in extremist views. Hedwige Peemans-Poulet looks in detail at the fiscal and social reforms which, in the context of this crisis, have helped cultivate a familycentred ideology, aiming to persuade women to remain in the kitchen.
Reviewed by Maxime Durand Del Moncada a Chiapas: Historia de la lucha armada en América Latina, Daniel Pereyra, published by Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 1995, 254 pages.
The title and chapter structure are intended to focus attention on one specific experience, that launched by the EZLN just over two years ago. But this Argentinian author's work is in fact much more ambitious. It has great documental value, though it is no mere collection of texts. Pereyra has condensed into some 250 pages the entire history of guerrilla movements in Latin America, over the last few centuries, and including the present day. No more, no less. And no country and no guerrilla movement escapes his meticulous work.
Scientific rigor combines with the viewpoint of a left veteran, a front-line participant in the evolution of the armed movements of Latin America. This book is hard to put down. Pereyra puts the guerrilla phenomenon which continues to characterise this content into context, and interprets it, from an "engaged" standpoint.
The book is dedicated to "los desaparecidos". But it is not simply a proud record, or a list of dates of the various armed groups. Del Moncada a Chiapas leads us, documents in hand, through the economic, political and social reality of Latin America. It examines the role of the US in the continent. It discusses the various coups d' etat. Pereyra also explores the differences between armed and politio-military movements. He analyses their social origin and their method of struggle. He also considers the contradictions and limitations.of the counterinsurgency operations and peace processes
Pereyra's work is without a doubt the most complete publication on this subject to date. It demonstrates the common thread linking the first indigenous struggles against colonisation with the struggle which the EZLN and other guerrilla forces continue today. This book demonstrates the possibility that armed struggle will continue to emerge, as long as the New World Order continues to condemn most people in the countries of Latin America to repression and misery.
Reviewed by Roberto Montoya
Reprinted from El Viejo Topo #1/1996 Macedonia: Its Disputed History, by Neil Simpson,
A useful contribution to the ethnic and nationalist debate which developed among progressive Australians during the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Self-published. Available for US$ 23 (inc. postage) from the author at PO Box 121, Victoria 3068, Australia tea Fars by Daniel Sulk, of a
Ignace Reiss: Life and Death of a
Ignacy Poretski was assassinated by Stalin's agents near Lausanne Switzerland on 4 September 1937. A Ukrainian Jew, and a member of the Polish Communist Party, he was better known as "Ludwig" or "Reiss:" the names he used as director of the Soviet spy network in Western Europe.
Six weeks before his death, Reiss wrote to the central committee of the Soviet
Communist Party, resigning his position, and returning the Order of the Red Flag he had been awarded in 1928 for services to the proletarian revolution. "It would be against my dignity to wear this medal, alongside the murderers of the best representatives of the working class," he wrote.
The collapse of the Tsarist and Austro-
Hungarian empires during WWI, and the growing white terror had thrown Poretski's homeland into chaos. His brother joined the army of Poland's Marshal Pilsudski. Ignacy joined the Russian revolution.
By the time he understood the danger the Stalinist bureaucracy represented to the revolution, "Reiss" was already established at the head of the spy network in Western Europe. The Stalinist betrayal of the Spanish revolution finally convinced him that Soviet power had degenerated. He resigned, knowing that killers would be despatched to hunt him down. "I should have written this letter a long time ago," he wrote. "Until now, I marched with you. Not one step more! Those who remain silent now become Stalin's accomplices, and betray the cause of the working class, the cause of socialism...
"I still have enough force in me to start all over again. And this is what we must do if we are to save socialism...
Reiss never considered going over to the imperialist enemies of Soviet Russia, who would have welcomed a uicior of his rank with open arms. Instead, he tried to convince his colleagues in the network that they too should break with Stalin. His superior Krivitsky, refused to listen (but deserted ten years later, to work for the American secret service in the cold war).
Daniel Künzi's film documentary places this fascinating fragment of history in its context: the young militant who reacts to the disastrous capitulation of social democracy at the outbreak of WWI; the Communist who accepts a secret mission to defend and extend the revolution, and the seasoned revolutionary who breaks with Stalinism and seeks to build a new, Fourth International.
Vanessa Redgrave narrates the English version, which includes a number of interviews with Reiss" contemporaries.
Reviewed by Jan Malewski Order from Daniel Künzi, 5 rue Dancet, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
International Viewpoint 33