Lenin's State Monopoly Capitalism

_{Meyerhold's production of The Bathhouse by Mayakovsky, March 16 1930}

"The methods of Taylorism may be applied to the work of the actor in the same way as they are to any other form of work with the aim of maximum productivity."

_{Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold, 1922}

In my post on Battleship Potemkin I posted about the Kronstadt sailors revolt of 1921. At the 10th Party Congress of the Bolshevik Party Lenin declared; "Enough Opposition", and the Red Army crossed the ice and attacked the revolting sailors.

At the Tenth Congress, as the Kronstadt soviet was being crushed by arms and buried under a barrage of slander, Lenin attacked the radical-left bureaucrats who had formed a “Workers’ Opposition” faction with the following ultimatum, the logic of which Stalin would later extend to an absolute division of the world: “You can stand here with us, or against us out there with a gun in your hand, but not within some opposition. . . . We’ve had enough opposition.”

Ironically their demands were then used by Lenin to create his New Economic Program.

"Our poverty and ruin are so great that we cannot at a single stroke create full socialist production" Lenin

Lenin came before the Congress in March 1921 and proposed the NEP. The NEP was in essence a capitalist free market. The NEP stated that requisitioning of food and agricultural surpluses, a doctrine of War Communism, must be ended. Instead, the government would tax the peasants on a fixed percentage of their production. Trotsky had already proposed a similar policy, but it was rejected by his fellow colleagues, including Lenin. Basically, this promoted a free agricultural market in Russia.

Lenin's N.E.P.

The Bolshevik revolutionary takeover in October 1917 was followed by over two years of civil war in Russia between the new Communist regime (with its Red Army) and its enemies--the conservative military officers commanding the so-called White armies. The struggle saw much brutality and excesses on both sides with the peasants suffering most from extortionate demands of food supplies and recruits by both sides. The repressive and dictatorial methods of the Bolshevik government had so alienated the mass of peasants and industrial working class elements that the erstwhile most loyal supporters of the regime, the sailors at the Kronstadt naval base, rebelled in March 1921 (see ob19.doc) to the great embarrassment of senior Bolsheviks. Though the rebellion was mercilessly crushed, the regime was forced to moderate its ruthless impulses. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was the result, a small concession to the capitalist and free market instincts of peasant and petty bourgeois alike. Moreover, victory in the civil war was assured by this stage, thus allowing a relaxation of the coercive methods symbolized by the War Communism of the previous two to three years.

The New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced by Lenin at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, represented a major departure from the party's previous approach to running the country. During the civil war, the Soviet state had assumed responsibility for acquiring and redistributing grain and other foodstuffs from the countryside, administering both small- and large-scale industry, and a myriad of other economic activities. Subsequently dubbed (by Lenin) "War Communism," this approach actually was extended in the course of 1920, even after the defeat of the last of the Whites. Many have claimed that War Communism reflected a "great leap forward" mentality among the Bolsheviks, but desperation to overcome shortages of all kinds, and particularly food, seems a more likely motive. In any case, in the context of continuing urban depopulation, strikes by disgruntled workers, peasant unrest, and open rebellion among the soldiers and sailors stationed on Kronstadt Island, Lenin resolved to reverse direction.

Lenin's economic model was like Trotsky's transitional program. It was the creation of state capitalism to create the conditions for monopoly capitalism to occur in Russia. His socialism as he liked to call it was state capitalism with electrification, and just a dash of Taylorism.

“Communism is the Power of Soviets plus the electrification of the whole country!”

In fact Lenin was a Taylorist and recognized that modern capitalism required fordist production which is what is currently occurring in China. It's failure in the Soviet Union of the seventies and eighties, was due to its use for military production rather than for consumer goods. In other words Reagan did bankrupt the Soviet Union by creating a competition between the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and its Soviet counterpart. The result was not just the collapse of the Soviet Union, but its collapse into a basket case economy. It did not have the production models required for consumer goods required for a market economy.

In terms of its impact on world politics, Lenin's State and Revolution was probably his most important work. This was derived from the theoretical analysis contained in his earlier work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). Lenin's theory of imperialism demonstrated to his satisfaction that the whole administrative structure of “socialism” had been developed during the epoch of finance or monopoly capitalism. Under the impact of the First World War, so the argument ran, capitalism had been transformed into state-monopoly capitalism. On that basis, Lenin claimed, the democratisation of state-monopoly capitalism was socialism. As Lenin pointed out in The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It (1917):

“For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly” (original emphasis, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm).

Lenin’s perspective may be briefly expressed in the following words: The belated Russian bourgeoisie is incapable of leading its own revolution to the end! The complete victory of the revolution through the medium of the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” will purge the country of medievalism, invest the development of Russian capitalism with American tempos, strengthen the proletariat in the city and country, and open up broad possibilities for the struggle for socialism. On the other hand, the victory of the Russian revolution will provide a mighty impulse for the socialist revolution in the West, and the latter will not only shield Russia from the dangers of [feudal-monarchical] restoration but also permit the Russian proletariat to reach the conquest of power in a comparatively short historical interval.

Lenin unambiguously endorsed the view that the proletariat should use markets to prepare underdeveloped countries for socialism. It is common knowledge that his New Economic Policy used market mechanisms to stimulate economic recovery after the devastation of the Russian Civil War, but some do not realize that Lenin saw markets as more than just an expedient. He actually viewed market mechanisms as necessary for moving underdeveloped countries toward socialism. Lenin recognized that the economies of underdeveloped, agrarian countries in transition to socialism combine subsistence farming, small commodity production, private capitalism, state capitalism, and socialism, with small commodity production in the dominant role (1965, 330–31). These societies contain many more peasants than proletarians, and because peasants favor the petty-bourgeois mode of production, they tend to side with the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is tempting to argue that this situation calls for an immediate transition to socialism, in order to force the peasantry to cooperate with the proletariat in defeating the bourgeoisie. But Lenin did not believe this. He argued that the attempt to push agrarian countries directly into socialism, that is, to eliminate markets before the build up of the productive forces had converted peasant agriculture and small commodity production into modern, large-scale industries, was a mistake that would actually hamper economic development and thwart socialist construction. The solution he proposed was for the proletarian state to use capitalism, i.e., commodity production, free markets, and concessions with foreign capitalists, to promote the growth of the productive forces, and to eliminate the conflict of interest between peasants and industrial workers by converting agriculture into a large-scale industry and the peasants into proletarians (1965, 330–33, 341–47).

LENIN'S SOCIALISM

The starting point must be Lenin's conception of 'socialism': When a big enterprise assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an exact computation of mass data, organises according to plan the supply of raw materials to the extent of two-thirds, or three fourths, of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people; when raw materials are transported in a systematic and organised manner to the most suitable places of production, sometimes situated hundreds of thousands of miles from each other; when a single centre directs all the consecutive stages of processing the materials right up to the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished articles; when the products are distributed according to a single plan among tens of millions of customers.

....then it becomes evident that we have socialisation of production, and not mere 'interlocking'; that private economic and private property relations constitute a shell which no longer fits its contents, a shell which must inevitably decay if its removal is artificially delayed, a shell which may remain in a state of decay for a fairly long period ...but which will inevitably be removed Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.22, page 303.

SOCIALISM?

This is an important passage of Lenin's. What he is describing here is the economic set-up which he thought typical of both advanced monopoly capitalism and socialism. Socialism was, for Lenin, planned capitalism with the private ownership removed.

Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal service, consumers' societies, and office employees unions. Without the big banks socialism would be impossible.

The big banks are the state apparatus which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready made from capitalism; our task is merely to lop off what characteristically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive. Quantity will be transformed into quality.

A single state bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods, this will be, so to speak, something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society. Lenin, Ibid, Vol.26 page 106.

HEY PRESTO!

This passage contains some amazing statements. The banks have become nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. All we need to do is unify them, make this single bank bigger, and Hey Presto, you now have your basic socialist apparatus.

Quantity is to be transformed into quality. In other words, as the bank gets bigger and more powerful it changes from an instrument of oppression into one of liberation. We are further told that the bank will be made even more democratic. Not made democratic as we might expect but made more so. This means that the banks, as they exist under capitalism, are in some way democratic. No doubt this is something that workers in Bank of Ireland and AIB have been unaware of.

For Lenin it was not only the banks which could be transformed into a means for salvation. Socialism is merely the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 25 page 358.

State capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no immediate rungs. Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 24 page 259.

BUILDING CAPITALISM

This too is important. History is compared to a ladder that has to be climbed. Each step is a preparation for the next one. After state capitalism there was only one way forward - socialism. But it was equally true that until capitalism had created the necessary framework, socialism was impossible. Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership saw their task as the building of a state capitalist apparatus.

...state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will become invincible in our country Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 294.

While the revolution in Germany is still slow in coming forth, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 340.

Socialism or State Capitalism?

So what did the Bolsheviks aim to create in Russia? Lenin was clear, state capitalism. He argued this before and after the Bolsheviks seized power. For example, in 1917, he argued that "given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state-monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!" He stressed that "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly . . . socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."³

The Bolshevik road to "socialism" ran through the terrain of state capitalism and, in fact, simply built upon its institutionalised means of allocating recourses and structuring industry. As Lenin put it, "the modern state possesses an apparatus which has extremely close connections with the banks and syndicates, an apparatus which performs an enormous amount of accounting and registration work . . . This apparatus must not, and should not, be smashed. It must be wrestled from the control of the capitalists," it "must be subordinated to the proletarian Soviets" and "it must be expanded, made more comprehensive, and nation-wide." This meant that the Bolsheviks would "not invent the organisational form of work, but take it ready-made from capitalism" and "borrow the best models furnished by the advanced countries."⁴

Once in power, Lenin implemented this vision of socialism being built upon the institutions created by monopoly capitalism. This was not gone accidentally or because no alternative existed. As one historian notes: "On three occasions in the first months of Soviet power, the [factory] committees leaders sought to bring their model [of workers' self-management of the economy] into being. At each point the party leadership overruled them. The Bolshevik alternative was to vest both managerial and control powers in organs of the state which were subordinate to the central authorities, and formed by them."⁵

Rather than base socialist reconstruction on working class self-organisation from below, the Bolsheviks started "to build, from the top, its 'unified administration'" based on central bodies created by the Tsarist government in 1915 and 1916.⁶ The institutional framework of capitalism would be utilised as the principal (almost exclusive) instruments of "socialist" transformation. "Without big banks Socialism would be impossible," argued Lenin, as they "are the 'state apparatus' which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready made from capitalism; our task here is merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive. A single State Bank, the biggest of the big . . .will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods." While this is "not fully a state apparatus under capitalism," it "will be so with us, under socialism." For Lenin, building socialism was easy. This "nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" would be created "at one stroke, by a single decree." ⁷

Lenin' State Monopoly Capitalism is the model being used by the former state capitalist regimes in Asia like China and Viet Nam. They are full filing Lenin's dictum. And ironically in China's case they have become a new Imperialist power.

Lenin: 1917/ichtci: Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance ...

Everybody talks about imperialism. But imperialism is merely monopoly capitalism.

That capitalism in Russia has also become monopoly capitalism is sufficiently attested by the examples of the Produgol, the Prodamet, the Sugar Syndicate, etc. This Sugar Syndicate is an object-lesson in the way monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly capitalism.

And what is the state? It is an organisation of the ruling class — in Germany, for instance, of the Junkers and capitalists. And therefore what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call "war-time socialism" is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and clearly, war-time penal servitude for the workers and war-time protection for capitalist profits.

Now try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state- monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!

For if a huge capitalist undertaking becomes a monopoly, it means that it serves the whole nation. If it has become a state monopoly, it means that the state (i.e., the armed organisation of the population, the workers and peasants above all, provided there is revolutionary democracy) directs the whole undertaking. In whose interest?

Either in the interest of the landowners and capitalists, in which case we have not a revolutionary-democratic, but a reactionary-bureaucratic state, an imperialist republic.

Or in the interest of revolutionary democracy—and then it is a step towards socialism.

For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.

To apply the Lenin's theory on state capitalism in the renovation cause of Vietnam 10:18 28-07-2005

Role of the State in applying the theories of State capitalism in Vietnam 16:05 09-05-2005

From a review of Lenin's ideas and concepts of State capitalism and State capitalist economy as seen from Vietnamese perspective, the paper reaffirms an indispensable role of the State in the present development of market economy.

The new Economic Policy of V.I. Lenin with the use of state capitalism in our country nowadays 10:21 28-07-2005

The awareness of the socialist-oriented market economy in Vietnam 12:43 04-07-2006

Realizing the market economy under socialist regulation in Vietnam is a major content in the economic model in the transitional period toward socialism. The article analyzes and elaborates the theorical and practical sides of the socialist regulated market economy, through which to make the following conclusions. 1. In the context of globalization and international economic integration today. The model of the socialist regulated market economy which has been pursued since the IX National Party Congress is a correct policy both theoretically and practically. 2. However if we regarded the model of the socialist regulated market economy as Vietnam's creative policy, it would lead us to fall into subjective thinking. 3. Through theory and practice the author of this article concludes that. a. According to Marxist doctrine the view that socialism emerged after capitalism still remains scientific b. Human elements in socialism contradicts with those in the previous societies; as a result if the criteria that were applied to solve social problems of socialist society to be imposed on the period of market economy being in existence, it would naturally stand in the way of the development of market economy. c. The key for Vietnam at present is how to solve the relations between growth and development, in other words economic growth should go along with social development d. Vietnam's economy should be broken just into two sectors, namely, state run and private run. It should not be divided into 6 sectors as presently applied. e. The role of the private owned sector i!1 the national economy should be appreciated.

Even the right wing occasionally gets it right but for the wrong reasons. In this case another red scare, red baiting, reds under the bed, commies out to get us, article reveals;

In his "Report to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International," Lenin explained the basis for NEP. He said that Russia needed capitalism before it could have socialism. The form of capitalism Lenin advocated was called "state capitalism." As early as 1918 Lenin had stated, "State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs."

By 1922, when Lenin delivered his report, state capitalism was still the order of the day. "This sounds very strange," admitted Lenin, "and perhaps even absurd." Russia was unready for socialism and lacked the strength to create communism. In his report Lenin said that socialism in Russia had been adopted "perhaps too hastily."

Does this mean Lenin, like the Chinese and Russian leaders after him, had abandoned the ultimate communist goal?

"I repeat," said Lenin in his 1922 report, "it seems very strange to everyone that a nonsocialist element should be ... regarded superior to socialism in a republic which declares itself as socialist republic. But the fact will become clear if you recall that ... the economic system of Russia [is backward]."

This exact formulation could be applied to communist China. In fact, this is the line that the Chinese Communist Party has adopted for itself. And what Mr. Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore has mistaken for China's commercial objectives, are actually communist objectives. Talk of a future war with America is not simply a question of Taiwan. China's leaders look ahead to a day when a socialist civilization will be possible -- thanks to what Lenin called "state capitalism."

The purpose of state capitalism, as it exists in today's China and Lenin's Russia, is to pave the way for socialism. "The state capitalism that we have introduced in our country is of a special kind," noted Lenin. "It does not correspond to the usual conception of state capitalism. We hold all the key positions."

Lenin emphasized that all land in Russia belonged to the state. "This is very important," said Lenin, "although our opponents think it of no importance at all."

This is a revealing statement. Politicians like Lee Kuan Yew seem to be clueless. China is a communist country that practices state capitalism. China is following the Leninist path. "We have already succeeded in making the peasantry content and in reviving both industry and trade," boasted Lenin. Furthermore, the communist form of state capitalism not only owns the land which the peasants use, but "our proletarian state owns ... all the vital branches of industry."

The market economists of all political stripes fail to understand that State Monpoly Capitalism results from the fact that all capital must create monopoly. There is no free market, there is a market and it is dominated by monopolies, or oligopolies. These can be owned privately or by the state it matters little since both are forms of capitalism. The neo-con political scientists, divorcing themselves as they do from economics, decry capitalist models that are not based upon their American model.

In this they fail to understand the historical development political economy of the 20th Century which was Fordism and Capitalist Monopoly. The later requires state intervention as the American Military Industrial Complex and the development of capitalism in South Korea shows. Something that Lenin reading Marx understood.

In practical life we find not only competition, monopoly and the antagonism between them, but also the synthesis of the two, which is not a formula, but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. Monopolists are made from competition; competitors become monopolists. If the monopolists restrict their mutual competition by means of partial associations, competition increases among the workers; and the more the mass of the proletarians grows as against the monopolists of one nation, the more desperate competition becomes between the monopolists of different nations. The synthesis is of such a character that monopoly can only maintain itself by continually entering into the struggle of competition.
Karl Marx
The Poverty of Philosophy
Chapter Two: The Metaphysics of Political Economy

See:

40 Years Later; The Society of the Spectacle

China: The Truimph of State Capitalism

State Capitalism By Any Other Name

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taylorism,fordism, NEP, state capitalism, state monopoly capitalism, monopoly capitalism,

Battleship Potemkin

A new restored version of the famous Russian film Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein has been released and will be playing on Turner Classic Movies, TONIGHT for those of you who have either Star Choice of Bell Satellite TV.

If you have never seen this revolutionary movie it is not only revolutionary for it's content but for its approach to cinema. It was the first Docu-Drama ever made, covering the Russian Revolutionary uprising of 1905.

1905 was the year the 2oth Century came into being and it was the birth of modernism which would result in WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution.

Independent filmmakers, restricted to limited exhibition outlets in a world of media conglomeration, can take heart from the fact that Battleship Potemkin, one of the most renowned films in the history of cinema and containing perhaps the best known sequence in the medium's entire history, was initially seen only by small audiences of film society aficionados and trade unionists. In this sense, it represents one of the most successful instances of niche marketing the world has ever seen.

The stories of its circulation are almost as mythical as its subject matter: it was banned as subversive in England and its circulation was highly restricted in the US, even before the implementation of the Hays Code. In the US, it was seen by small groups of filmmakers and critics, and in one enticing account of a screening in the New York apartment of Gloria Swanson, it was projected onto one of Gloria's satin sheets, when the absence of an available screen threatened to disappoint the eager but select audience.

At such a screening, David O. Selznick saw the film and wrote with great enthusiasm to his boss at MGM that a print should be obtained because it would be "very advantageous to have the organisation view it in the same way that a group of artists might study a Rubens or a Raphael". It was, he thought, "unquestionably one of the greatest motion pictures ever made" (this in 1926!) and the firm "might well consider securing the man responsible for it".

Battleship Potemkin is the film which brought Eisenstein, always a citizen of the world, to world attention. This fame both protected him - up to a point - and brought him to the constant attention of the authorities, involving him in a cat and mouse game for his entire professional life.

Although it has become an orthodoxy in the West to emphasise the repressive conditions under which artists, writers and filmmakers worked in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, it is worth remembering that Eisenstein's experiences in the West were equally, if not more, frustrating creatively. Unfruitful episodes in Hollywood & Mexico left Eisenstein back in the Soviet Union with a nervous breakdown and a damaged reputation.

Battleship Potemkin overcomes its ideological constraints and uses its abstract form to produce at least one scene of unquestionable power. Sergei Eisenstein’s own comparison of his style to a "kino-fist" is an apt one; the film assaults the viewer’s sensibilities with forceful melodrama and rhythmic editing. Many scenes are calculated to elicit specific responses and, in fact, succeed, but this creates a certain feeling of manipulation because of the film’s overt polemic. Obviously, political concerns of a now defunct nation from over seventy years ago are not going to hold up well. The fact that the film remains effective on some levels is impressive and testifies to Eisenstein’s influential ideas about cinema. His principles of montage were vital to the development of film language and to cinema’s separation from other art forms into its own realm. A film based largely on these editing principles sacrifices some narrative concerns and tends to distance the viewer if not continuously providing ‘attractions’ or ‘stimuli’. Despite claims mentioned by some critics about the film’s perfect and concise example of film structure, Potemkin can be an uneven viewing experience.

Eisenstein freely admitted the influence of D.W. Griffith’s movies, particularly Intolerance, in his work and in the development of Soviet montage. It is not difficult to see the links between the rapid cutting in that film’s conclusion to the kinetic editing of Potemkin. For example, the numerous cuts in the Odessa steps sequence build the individual moments of terror into an almost unbearable emotional climax. Of course, Eisenstein expanded greatly on montage theory to not only build rhythm or suspense but to form intellectual concepts and associations. The dynamic editing of three lion statues to show the awakening of anger and rebellion is a simple but memorable instance of this metaphorical juxtaposition. Another apparent influence from Griffith would be the melodramatic elements that facilitate the film’s political goals. The tsarist forces are completely evil, and sympathy is evoked for the noble revolutionaries and their supporters; issues and characters are simplified for maximum emotional impact. The officers on the ship are given titles such as, roughly, "I’ll shoot them down like dogs!" when dealing with the disobedient sailors. All of the focused victims of the shocking violence on the Odessa steps are women or children. The idea of typage, casting often non-professional actors based on their physical resemblance to a character type, allows the film to forgo character development and individuality. The ship’s priest looks like a prophet from the pages of the Old Testament transplanted into the 20^th Century. Additionally, the absence of a main character, except that of the collective Russian people, corresponds to the Marxist principles of the film; one of the only possible protagonists, Vakulinchuk, dies early in the film for the revolutionary cause. This aspect also is reminiscent of Intolerance’s undermining of audience identification through its large number of characters and shifting focus.

Historical Narrative in The Battleship Potemkin

"What are a few maggots?" asks Richard Hough in his book, The Potemkin Mutiny. He answers with the powerful story of the 1905 mutiny of the sailors of the Potemkin in their struggle against the repressive officers of the Russian Imperial Navy. In 1925, the Soviet government commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to direct a film commemorating the events of the 1905 revolution. Due to time constraints, he had to limit his film to just the Potemkin mutiny. His depiction of these events, in his film The Battleship Potemkin, has many significant differences with the historian's perspective that Hough offers in his book. Contrary to the belief of many modern critics, the actual historical events and details are impossible to determine beyond a reasonable doubt, but "there is no dispute on the main events, and their sequence." However, although Hough and Eisenstein differ, they both offer legitimate perspectives. Even if the events are agreed upon, "one and the same event may be incorporated in a work...in different guises: in the form of a dispassionate statement or in that of a pathetic hymn." Eisenstein is creating a narrative film, and Hough purports to write a history, but both are stories of the event with an intended audience and an intended effect. The small differences between the two perspectives offered by Hough and Eisenstein is significant and colors what the audience thinks of the mutiny and how they identify with it.

The new release of the DVD will be on Tuesday at stores like HMV. If you can't get it locally try Amazon.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Starring: Grigory Alexandrov, Alexander Antonov Director: Sergei Eisenstein

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Sunday, October 21,2007 12:00 AM

The Battleship Potemkin

TCM is pleased to present the U.S. broadcast premiere of the 2005 restoration of Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin (1925), accompanied by a new arrangement of Edmund Meisel’s orchestral score, which Eisenstein himself authorized for the film’s Berlin premiere in 1926. This same version will be released on DVD by Kino in a 2-disc special edition. The Battleship Potemkin was recognized from the start as a landmark work both for its innovative use of montage and for its sheer power as propaganda. In particular, the “Odessa steps” sequence is arguably the single most famous and widely quoted passage in the history of film. But in a sense The Battleship Potemkin has been the victim of its own effectiveness. Reissued over the years in various censored and reedited versions, Eisenstein’s great vision has not been seen for several decades in anything like what the director likely intended. This new version, overseen by the film archivist and historian Enno Patalas, attempts to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the film as it was presented in Moscow during its initial release. THE FILM AND ITS CONTEXT The Soviets were inordinately fond of jubilees, so it was only fitting that for his second feature film Sergei Eisenstein would be commissioned to direct a multi-episode series marking the twentieth anniversary of the 1905 revolution in Russia. The first episode was originally intended to focus mainly on the strike that took place in St. Petersburg in October 1905, with the June 1905 mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin to serve as a prologue. However, bad weather and logistical difficulties compelled Eisenstein and his crew to relocate to Odessa, and the Potemkin mutiny expanded into a full-fledged feature in its own right. (See Richard Taylor’s meticulously researched book The Battleship Potemkin: The Film Companion (2000) for further information on the film’s production history and critical reception.) While Eisenstein’s debut feature Strike (1924) still dazzles through its sheer stylistic daring, in The Battleship Potemkin he consolidated his skills as a total filmmaker, demonstrating greater control over narrative structure and pacing. The film is divided into five acts--“Men and Worms,” “Drama on the Quarterdeck” “An Appeal from the Dead,” “The Odessa Steps” and “Meeting the Squadron”--its structure deliberately recalling classical tragedy. While Eisenstein was always interested more in creating an effective and well-constructed film than in being literally faithful to the historical record, many of the key images in the script were in fact inspired by actual events associated with the Potemkin mutiny: the sailors’ refusal to eat borsch made from maggot-infested meat; the revolutionary activists Matyshenko and Vakulenchuk (spelled Vakulinchuk in the film) using that incident as a pretext to incite the other sailors to mutiny; the arrival of the battleship into the Odessa port with a red flag; the throngs of townspeople lining up to view Vakulenchuk’s corpse; and the Potemkin being greeted by cheering sailors on another ship. There was even a massacre of civilians by police on the famed steps leading down to Odessa’s port, though that was just one part of the civil strikes that occurred throughout the city and the resulting crackdown by the police and Cossacks. It should be noted that Eisenstein didn’t include at least one very significant event: the massive fire that devastated the Odessa port during the strike and claimed many lives. Neal Bascomb provides a compelling and detailed account of the mutiny in his recently published book Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin (2007). In addition to its innovative and much-analyzed photography and editing, the film was noteworthy for its unusual mix of professional and non-professional actors, based on the principle of typage or casting primarily according to physical types. Eisenstein’s assistant Grigori Aleksandrov played Gilyarovsky. The role of Vakulenchuk was filled by Aleksandr Antonov, a member of the Proletkult theater troupe in which Eisenstein had worked before moving into cinema. The film director Vladimir Barsky, an important figure in early Soviet cinema, played the role of Captain Golikov. Eisenstein also challenged the norms of commercial cinema by not relying on a single protagonist or romantic coupling to shape the narrative, emphasizing the notion of a “mass protagonist” instead. The Battleship Potemkin premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in December 1925 and was released in Moscow in January 1926. Barely completed in time for the premiere, it was initially more of a rough cut, as Richard Taylor has pointed out. The orchestral accompaniment, as was common practice at the time, was culled from pre-existing works in the classical repertoire. At its two main Moscow engagements, the theater exteriors were decorated to resemble battleships, and the staff were dressed in sailors’ outfits. Posters touted it as “the pride of Soviet cinema,” boasting of 300,000 admissions in the first three weeks alone. POTEMKIN IN BERLIN What really sealed the film’s success, however, was the sensational reception at its April 1926 Berlin premiere. The Soviet authorities actually sold the original negative to the Germans--a move that seems inconceivable today--but they retained the right to request new prints from it. Fearing a threat to “the public order,” the German censors initially banned the film outright but later demanded a number of cuts, mainly due to violent imagery. These included some of the shots depicting the body of young boy trampled on the Odessa steps. The film director Piel Jutzi was brought in to adapt the film for German audiences; among other things, he divided it into six parts instead of five. Naum Kleiman, the foremost Eisenstein scholar, has speculated that Eisenstein’s trip to Germany before the premiere was in fact to oversee the film’s reediting, so he may well have had some input into the German distribution version. The director also guided Edmund Meisel’s work on the score, encouraging him to emphasize rhythm over melody. For instance, the music accompanying the battleship’s climactic meeting with the squadron has a mechanical quality that underscores the film’s ties with the Soviet artistic movement known as Constructivism. Ultimately, cultural impact of The Battleship Potemkin in Germany cannot be overstated. Besides becoming a great popular success, it influenced artistic figures as ranging from Fritz Lang to Bertolt Brecht and the theater directors Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt. Not only did the film’s reputation in Germany help raise awareness of it in countries such as England and the United States, it even resulted in a second release of the film in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1926. However, the Soviet authorities’ decision to sell the negative to the Germans meant it would not survive in its original version. THE RECONSTRUCTION The pressures of censorship and the vagaries of distribution over the years have resulted in the situation that The Battleship Potemkin survives in several different versions, each with their own set of limitations. For many years the Museum of Modern Art circulated an English language version based on an authoritative print donated by the Eisenstein scholar Jay Leyda and supposedly provided by Eisenstein himself, but they altered the original intertitles, among other things making them longer and thus slowing the pace of the film. Another version with English titles was prepared by the British leftist filmmaker Ivor Montagu. In 1950, the film was reissued in the Soviet Union in a version supervised by Grigori Aleksandrov and accompanied by a serviceable, if pedestrian, score by Nikolai Kryukov. According to Enno Patalas, this version was missing some seventy shots, suffered from substantially reworked intertitles, and even reordered some of the footage following earlier, similarly corrupted versions. For example, the visceral impact of the opening of the Odessa steps massacre--in which the title “And suddenly…” is followed by a series of jump cuts of a woman’s head jerking back--was blunted by preceding it with shots of the soldiers’ boots and rifles to provide more of a conventional cause-and-effect structure. This version also used step-printing (the repetition of individual frames) to slow the movement down for projection at sound speed. In 1976, the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Yutkevitch, in collaboration with Naum Kleiman, created a new version that was the most complete and authentic to date, but its pacing was again compromised by the use of stretch printing, and it was still missing fifteen shots compared to the current reconstruction. Thus, while it contained fewer shots, at 74 minutes it still ran significantly longer than the 2005 reconstruction. Also, one could argue that the excerpts from the Shostakovich symphonies chosen to accompany the print added to its lugubrious atmosphere. The 2005 reconstruction relies heavily on the Jay Leyda print and written recollections for its shot list, but whenever possible uses early generation prints held at the British Film Institute because of their superior photographic quality. (The original negative still exists at Gosfilmofond of Russia, though it bears the traces of German censorship and according to the archive is too fragile to use for printing, as Patalas related in a 2005 article in the Journal of Film Preservation.) The intertitles recreate the original text as closely as possible, including the restoration of a Trotsky quotation as the epigraph; predictably, it had been replaced by a Lenin quote when Trotsky fell out of favor. The length of the individual title cards is also now more in keeping with the film’s rhythm as a whole, which is no small point since Eisenstein viewed them as a crucial component of his montage aesthetic. Lastly, as Eisenstein intended from the start, this version uses hand-coloring to tint the Potemkin’s flag red during certain sequences. In the documentary that accompanies Kino’s forthcoming DVD edition, Naum Kleiman sums up the difficult choices faced in reconstructing the film: “There being no absolutely exact film record from 1926, we cannot claim to have all the scenes in their full length. Often, what Patalas did was an extension of an already existing version, that is, of the censored version. Due to the disintegration of the film, or splices that have come apart, some parts had to be spliced together again. Some frames were lost in the process. Today it’s difficult to assess whether all that was added to the very last version changed the meaning of the film, or its rhythm, or whether it reinforced its visual quality. At any rate, we felt that we managed to approximate the original up to 99%, or even 99.5%.” Viewers already familiar with The Battleship Potemkin are likely to be struck with how much better the reconstruction flows as a film compared to previous versions. Combined with the superior detail and contrast of the new video transfer and the excitement of Meisel’s orchestral score, the reconstruction enables us to appreciate one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces in a fresh light. FILM CREDITS Producer: Yakov Bliokh Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein Script: Eisenstein, based on an idea by Nina Agadzhanova-Shutko Assistant Director: Grigori Aleksandrov Director of Photography: Eduard Tisse Editing: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Aleksande Antonov (Vakulinchuk), Mikhail Gomorov (Matyushenko), Vladimir Barsky (Captain Golikov), Grigori Aleksandrov (Chief Officer Gilyarovsky), Aleksandr Levshin (Petty Officer), Beatrice Vitoldi (Woman on the Odessa Steps), N. Poltavtseva (Woman with the pince-nez), also Members of the Proletkult Theater, Sailors of the Black Sea Fleet, the Sebastopol Fisherman’s Union, and the Inhabitants of Odesssa. RECONSTRUCTION CREDITS Supervised by Enno Patalas in collaboration with Anna Bohn. Produced by the Deutsche Kinemathek with the support of Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, the British Film Institute, the Munich Filmmuseum, and Gosfilmofond of Russia. Colorization by Gerhard Ullmann. Musical score by Edmund Meisel (1926); adaptation and instrumentation by Helmut Imig. Music performed by the Deutsches Filmorchestra Babelsberg, conducted by Helmut Imig. BW-69m. by James Steffen

The Pet Shop Boys will unveil their latest project - a soundtrack to the 1925 film Battleship Potemkin - at a free show in London's Trafalgar Square.

The irony is that this propaganda film for the Bolshevik Revolution was made four years after the Kronstadt rebellion occurred against the Bolshevik hegemonic state, by the same sailors.

The naval base of Kronstadt lies on Kotlin Island near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Peter the Great captured the island from the Swedes in 1703 and built it into a naval fortress to protect his new capital. The concentration of heavy armory and sailors on the small island made it a bulwark against foreign invasion, but also a tinderbox in times of internal unrest. During the stormy years 1905-1906 several mutinies broke out on Kronstadt. The sailors were important allies to the Bolsheviks after the February Revolution (1917), when the Kronstadt Soviet opposed the provisional government, declared a "Kronstadt Republic," and took part in the July 1917 mutiny. The famous cruiser Aurora, which had bombarded the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917 with its famous shot heard round the world, belonged to the Baltic Fleet based in Kronstadt.

It was a rude shock to the Bolsheviks when the red sailors of Kronstadt went into open rebellion in March 1921. The sailors saw themselves as loyal to the Soviet cause, if not to the Communist rulers. That bitter winter saw Kronstadt, like most other cities in Russia, hungry and discontented. Anger at material deprivations was compounded by the authoritarian regime the Bolsheviks were building, which seemed to violate the spirit of the revolution that the sailors had helped win. Popular unrest finally grew into strikes, which led to riots, lockouts, arrests. Finally on February 26, local Communist authorities declared martial law. A pattern of sharp protest and response escalated rapidly from here to a state of mutiny.

It is the source of the greatest political division on the left, between anarchists and Trotskyists, even to this day.

Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt By Leon Trotsky

SHAGYA BLOG: Kronstadt Izvestiia - " Four Legs Good "

The complete edition of
"Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Sailors, Soldiers and Workers of the town of Kronstadt"

Demands of the Kronstadt Insurgents, Expressed in the Resolution of the General Meeting of the Crews of the Ships of the Line

Kronstadt, 28 February I92I

Having heard the report of the representatives of the crews despatched by the General Meeting of the crews from the ships to Petrograd in order to learn the state of affairs in Petrograd, we decided:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not represent the will of the workers and peasants, to re-elect the soviets immediately by secret voting, with free canvassing among all workers and peasants before the elections.
2. Freedom of speech and press for workers, peasants, Anarchists and Left Socialist Parties.
3. Freedom of meetings, trade unions and peasant associations.
4. To convene, not later than 1 March I92I, a non-party conference of workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd City, Kronstadt and Petrograd Province.
5. To liberate all political prisoners of Socialist Parties, and also all workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors who have been imprisoned in connection with working-class and peasant movements.
6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those who are imprisoned in jails and concentration camps.
7. To abolish all Political Departments, because no single party may enjoy privileges in the propagation of its ideas and receive funds from the state for this purpose. Instead of these Departments, locally elected cultural-educational commissions must be established and supported by the state.
   ......................................
8. To abolish all Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various Communist guards at factories. If such detachments and guards are needed they may be chosen from the companies in military units and in the factories according to the judgment of the workers.
9. To grant the peasant full right to do what he sees fit with his land and also to possess cattle, which he must maintain and manage with his own strength, but without employing hired labour.
10. To ask all military units and also our comrades, the military cadets, to associate themselves with our resolutions.
11. We demand that all resolutions be widely published in the press.
    .....................................
12. To permit free artisan production with individual labour.

The resolutions were adopted by the meeting unanimously, with two abstentions.

 President of the Meeting, PETRICHENKO.

      Secretary, PEREPELKIN.

SEE

West Side Story

Brecht Meets Oscar

Battle of Algiers

Ennio Morricone A Fistful of Composer

The Many Faces of Solaris

V for Anarchy

SPECTRE

Dimiti Shostakovich 1906-2006

Censorship and Art

The Fifth International

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Alberta Oil Royalty Sell Out

Looks like we will not be getting any real news about Farmer Ed's plans around oil royalties when he does his Ed TV program next week.

Alberta royalty details now expected by month end

Instead he spent this week spinning why he is not going to get tough on Big Oil, preparing us for lowered expectations regarding his royalty review.

Stelmach touts benefits of existing royalties

Having met with the oil boys in private and having his Energy Minister do the same they knew this was coming down the pike.

Royalty proposal 'overly aggressive': Panel member

A key member of the panel that recommended controversial increases to oil and gas royalties in Alberta has distanced herself from its conclusions, calling them "overly aggressive" and "dumb" in some cases.

Judith Dwarkin, chief economist at Ross Smith Energy Group Ltd., a top Calgary-based independent energy research firm, co-wrote a new report that criticizes the panel for lacking the "requisite industry expertise and time" to adequately make certain recommendations, resulting in flawed conclusions.

Ms. Dwarkin, who holds a doctorate in economics and at one time was responsible for evaluating Alberta's oil-and-gas royalty system for the Department of Energy, was seen as the most credible member of her six-person panel because of her extensive experience.

A report we have never seen because the Minister has kept it secret. She was the governments Big Oil ringer on the committee so this should come as no surprise.

So what could we hear from Farmer Ed when it comes to royalties. Well not 20%, not 10% nope. Wait for it.....

Making the rounds in Calgary's financial community yesterday was speculation that the province has arrived at a decision to boost royalties on oilsands projects - but not as much as is currently discounted in stock prices.

The scenario - under which royalties would increase to 5% from 1% before project payout, and to 30% from 25% after investment is recovered, and also involves the scrapping of a proposal for a new super royalty - was seen as positive for Canadian oilsands players, whose stocks rallied as oil was rocketing higher.

Meanwhile despite all the doom and gloom being raised over the royalty report it has had little real impact on the industry.

Here is the stock chart for the year for one the oilsands giant; Suncor. And despite a blip in September, after the royalty review announcement the shares just keep going up, and up, and up....In fact they are doing better than they were last spring prior to the Royalty Review report.

Canadian stocks rally, led by energy and mining

Suncor Energy closes at all-time high

And as usual it had less to do with royalties than the oil and gas market.

Oil Slips

Crude oil fell 0.8 percent to $88.77 a barrel on speculation that U.S. supplies are sufficient to meet demand, after rising above $90 in New York for the first time,

EnCana Corp., the nation's largest natural-gas producer, fell C$2.60, or 4 percent, to C$62.85. Smaller rival Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. retreated C$2.96 to C$74.83. Suncor Energy, the world's second-largest oil-sands miner, dropped C$2.44 from a record to C$100.96.

A measure of energy shares, after gaining 4.1 percent this week before today as oil touched daily records, retreated 2.7 percent today. It helped the S&P/TSX climb 11 percent this year before today. Seven of the benchmark's 10 subgroups fell more than 2 percent today.

Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you


SEE:

Hugo Stelmach

I Am Malcontent

Who Will Decide About Royalties

Headline Says It All

Ohhh Pulllleeeaasse

Alberta Needs A Chavez

Albertans Are Simpletons Says Government

Royalty Is NOT A Tax

Fearless Prediction Confirmed

Morons

More Shills For Big Oil

Stelmach Sells Out

King Ralph Shills For Big Oil

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Ezra Says Gay Bashers Are Muslims

So like Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python's Holy Grail, Ezra LeRant took on two women regarding 'reasonable accommodation' on CTV's the Verdict. As an aside like E Talk, and other CTV info-tainment shows this too is modeled on American TV with Paula Todd being a Canadian clone of CNN Headline News; Nancy Grace.

Ezra was the show's token bigot.

The Verdict: Oct. 18, 2007

Paula Todd and various guests looks at whether Canada is a country of bigots.

The Verdict: Oct. 18, 2007 18:30

A country of bigots? 9:42

Paula Todd proved herself an incompetent mediator let alone host. Unable to designate time to each speaker, she complained when her women visitors responded to Ezra, simultaneously from two different cities. Thus she ended up giving motor mouth LeRant more time than either of them.

What is interesting in this little discourse was that Ezra suddenly became the voice of liberal, feminist, gay, progressive values against the two women guests, Shaina Siddiqui representing Canadian Muslim and a reporter Manon Cornellier from Le Devoir, whom he accused of being promoters of just the opposite.

Ezra whose Western Standard is the right whingnut voice of Social Conservative Christian, Homophobia, racism and sexism was saying we should not let Muslims into Canada because they come from countries that oppress women and gays.

Gays being male, you see as liberal as Ezra has become he made no reference to lesbians. Ezra stated that Muslims coming to Canada are rabidly anti-gay thus implying that they would not only oppose Gay rights, something he and his ilk do as well, but would promote violence against gay men.Funny thing is that gay bashers in Canada and the U.S. or those who kill gay men have not been Muslims but rather White male Christians.

When that tact didn't work he claimed that Muslims from Africa wanted to bring the tradition of female genital mutilation to this country.

The veil

18 Oct 2007 by Ezra Levant
I was on CTV's The Verdict tonight, talking about "reasonable accommodation". That debate is framed as a discussion about all immigrants but, as with so many other euphemisms, it's actually about Muslim immigrants

I would have liked to have had more time tonight, and our segment was difficult with three panelists in three different cities, but I enjoyed the chance to be the lone voice all night arguing against one-way multiculturalism, and I enjoyed trying to smoke out the facts beneath the euphemisms -- pressing on issues like women's rights, gay rights and freedom of speech, issues that were once the domain of liberals, liberals who now stand gagged by their own soft bigotry of low expectations of Muslims -- they refuse to call out racist, sexist, anti-gay Muslims where they're do so in a flash with white Christian men.

Shahina Saddiqui was the CAIR-CAN rep tonight -- she was the one who tried to get the Jews of Winnipeg charged with hate crimes last year for watching a movie about Muslim terrorism. Of course, the cops laughed Saddiqui out of the police station -- that sort of thing doesn't quite work in Canada, yet. Saddiqui's left quite a track record of illiberal statements out there, including one that she tried to disclaim on the air tonight -- a comment five years ago explaining away female genital mutilation.

Now Ezra's tactic was to slander his opponents, while trying to talk over them. It's an old tactic of his. Say something outrageous, over generalize, and keep talking.
Suddenly Ezra is a defender of women and gay rights. This is the latest tactic of the right when attacking Muslims, to appear to defend liberalism and pluralism, when in fact they hate gay rights and feminism. But hey any argument will do when you wish to attack and belittle your opponents with a straw man.

In fact Ezra was in good company this week when fellow travellers on the extreme right in Calgary protested Veiled Voting. And that is what has set off this latest round of phony debate. Just as dual citizenship was a phony issue used by the right to attack Lebanese Canadians the issue of veiled voting which is a non-issue is being used to smear those who immigrate here from Muslim countries.

All this was caused by the recent debate in Quebec, and Ontario, over reasonable accommodation. After failing to raise enough support for their racist campaign against dual citizenship after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, the right in Canada has embraced the cause of the little town of Herouxville as their own to attack Muslim immigrants.

Suddenly the very nature of Canada as a nation of immigrants is called into question by the Pure-Laine of English and French Canada, as if they too were not immigrants. This of course is the residue of being a colonial country founded by two imperialist powers, who now claim to be 'founding peoples'. Forgetting as Ezra and others on the right do, that in fact Western Canada existed as Native land whose take over was through immigration sponsored first by the Hudons Bay Company and then the CPR and the Canadian State.

Immigrants to Western Canada faced similar racist attacks at the turn of last century and the reasonable accommodation they were offered by the Canadian State was internment or the Head Tax.

And that is what this debate is all about; reasonable accommodation. As we accept more refugees and immigrants from Muslim countries with religious and social practices different from ours there is the need to adapt. It is not as Ezra and the right wing would define it as acceptance of illegal practices such as female genital mutilation, rather it is the right to have for instance in washrooms in public institutions foot baths for religious abulations. Or having food choices available at public institutions. But foot baths and food choices are less threatening and a rather benign request than using red herrings like female genital mutilation, or the fact that homosexuality is banned and punished by the death penalty in countries like Iran.

Of course homosexuality was also banned and punished by the death penalty in Christian countries until the end of the 19th Century. But that point is overlooked by Ezra and his ilk.

The earliest record of someone receiving the death penalty for homosexual acts in what would become a part of the United States was in St. Augustine, Florida in 1566 when a man was executed by the military. The United States maintained the death penalty for convicted "sodomites" until about 1779 when Thomas Jefferson proposed that Virginia drop the death penalty for the crime and replace it with castration. Some states have revised the punishment for sodomy over the years, and some states and localities have passed laws protecting those who commit homosexual acts. The Revolution in France brought an end to criminal laws regarding sexual activities in 1810 under the Napoleonic Code. England abolished the death penalty for acts of homosexuality in 1861.

In fact it is really rich of Ezra to defend homosexual rights while his publication and the organizations he associates with denounce the Homosexual Agenda in Canada. Ted Byfield is a regular columnist in the Western Standard and like the rest of his clan are active in opposing gay rights.

Reasonable accommodation is a legal term, which Paula Todd failed to explain fully to her audience before she began her interviews. And it is a Supreme Court ruling that came about due to Christian sects demanding the right not to work on Sunday/Saturday due to their religious beliefs. It arose out of a labour based grievance over work scheduling. It is now enshrined in labour as well as common law and says that there must be a reasonable attempt to accommodate workers due to religious beliefs, or due to disabilities, etc., as outlined in provincial and federal human rights acts.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Central Alberta Dairy Pool discriminated against Jim Christie by failing to accommodate his need to be absent from work on April 4, 1983 (Easter Monday) in order to respect his faith in the tenets of the World Wide Church of God.

Mr. Christie was an employee of the Dairy Pool who became a prospective member of the World Wide Church of God in 1983. The Church recognizes a Saturday sabbath and ten other holy days throughout the year. Members of the Church are expected not to work on these days. Mr. Christie asked his employer for permission to take unpaid leave on Tuesday, March 29 and on Monday, April 4, 1983, because both of these days were holy days in his Church. He was granted leave for the Tuesday but denied leave for the Monday because Mondays were especially busy days at the Dairy Pool. Milk that arrives at the Dairy Pool on weekends must be processed promptly on Mondays to prevent spoilage. When Jim Christie was absent on Monday, April 4, without permission, his employment was terminated.

Now one would think even Ezra the lawyer would know and understand that, but of course he only became a lawyer to become a politician, like Harper who is not much of economist, Levant is not much of a lawyer.

Ezra like his compatriots on the right ignore what reasonable accommodation really means in law, in order to continue to raise the fear of the other, in this case Muslims, overwhelming White Christian British/French Canada. In this he is no different from the fascist ilk like Paul Fromm.



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