Kasama
An age of information, but rarely of ideas. Let's change that.
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Caleb T. Maupin said
John Lennon is my favorite Spartacist/Healyite!
“They also show that he paid £46,000 to left-wing groups including the Trotskyist Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP)”
http://intellit.org/fbi_folder/fbi00s_folder/fbi00slennon.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Revolutionary_Party_(UK)
Mike E said
In the U.S. he was close to the White Panther Party of John Sinclair — a support that had an aspect of supporting the legalizations of marijuana since Sinclair was imprisoned on a bogus charge of possession.
It is pretty odd to imply he was somehow ideologically close to sectarian Trotskyism (as in Gerald Healy). Lennon’s views were radical — but (regardless of what funds he may have given) he clearly leaned in a very different direction from Healy.
Gary said
I’m trying to figure out why this was posted today, since it doesn’t seem to correspond to any Lennon anniversary (John was born on Oct 9, 1940 and died Dec 8, 1980) or date pertinent to the song, which was released in the U.S. on Sept. 9, 1971.
Anyway it’s good to see and hear it on the site because it is part of that progressive and humanistic aspect of our culture which, along with the music of Copeland, Bernstein and others reflects what we can broadly call communist inspiration.
Lennon’s hard to categorize. We can place Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and all those guys within a CPUSA narrative easily enough maybe. But Lennon was an earnest outsider without contact to the US (or UK) communist movement who became politically interesting by condemning the Vietnam War in very clear terms early on.
He became more radicalized, in part I think due to the positive influence of (the rather misunderstood) Yoko Ono and her circle of friends and contacts in NYC, including Black Panthers. He was never a clear-headed political thinker, but rather a powerful poet, a vocalist with a gut-wrenching wistful edge. When I listen to John imagining a world without heaven, or a singing a lullaby to his “beautiful boy” Sean that he never saw grow up, or baring his soul to the world in apologizing to his wife for some unknown things in “Jealous Guy”—I think, wow, here’s artistic honesty.
Absolutely love the guy. Tell me why I shouldn’t.
poetwarrior said
“Absolutely love the guy. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“Cause if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/ you ain’t gonna make it with anyone any how.” That, plus amassing an estate of $300 million, from real estate to cows. Not exactly “imagine no possesions”, is it?
Gary said
In his 1971 interview with Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn in the Red Mole, a London Trotskyist newspaper, Lennon said of that (1968) lyric, “I made a mistake, you know. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/lennon12082005.html
His thinking (never very clear politically) evolved over time and became more positive towards Maoism. He speaks positively of Mao in the Red Mole interview (as I think he does in later Rolling Stone interviews) although clearly doesn’t know much about what’s happening in China. But that should not in any case be the main factor in evaluating him as an artist.
poetwarrior said
Agreed: the art and the artist are two different things. Plus, you have to love the fact that POWER TO THE PEOPLE starts out with, “You say you want a revolution/we better get down right away.”—a parody and criticism of his previous song on the subject.
Mike E said
the song “Revolution” was also ambiguous. Paul sings “if you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out.” And John chimes “IN!”
But you can’t judge an artist by one piece, or one moment, or one act of collaboration with others.
Listen to his song Attica, or his songs on Ireland on the New York album. He had a complex political evolution — with a mix of pacifist, antiwar, radical and even revolutionary thoughts (and moments). Overall, he was clearly quite a radical person — pursued by cointelpro and Nixon’s FBI, active in the antiwar movement, eager to help when radicals like John Sinclair were framed, and a bit jaded by the way many people seemed to want to use him (and his name and notoriety and money) for their causes.
And certainly the song “IMagine” expresses communist sentiments — exactly in the sense that Badiou means a communist hypothesis, and in the sense that sees various streams of communist yearnings over time (not soley thatcurrent directly associated with organizing proletarian revolution).
* * * * * * *
As for the comment that he was wealthy: I don’t see how that is particularly relevant to an evaluation of him or his art. Do you imagine that the “rich” generally are automatically enemies of the revolution? That isn’t the case, and it won’t be the case.
Matt said
Mike E wrote:
Paul sings “if you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out.” And John chimes “IN!”
Purely a technical point, but Revolution was sung entirely by Lennon. The lyric “count me out/in” was (I think) expressed the conflict between his hopes for nonviolent change and his recognition of the need for revolutionary violence.
poetwarrior said
Nice point, Mike. Although I should point out that you’re citing the first version of “Revolution”, which appears on the WHITE ALBUM. The single (the B side of “Hey Jude”) has John clearly singing “count me out.” BTW, Yoko in reference to her husband’s $300 million fortune, stated “The Buddhist says give away possessions of your mind.” Now, that’s utopian socialism!
Gary said
Not to be dropping too much trivia but note too that the song “Woman” (1980)begins with the spoken: “For the other half of the sky” which clearly alludes to Mao’s statement (itself I think citing a Chinese proverb) that “Women hold up half of the sky”
Caleb T. Maupin said
Mike,
I object to the term “sectarian trotskyism”, here is why:
The Communist Workers Party
The Communist Labor Party
The Progressive Labor Party
The Communist Party – Marxist-Leninist
The Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
The United States Marxist-Leninist Organzation
The Communist Voice Organization
The Alliance Marxist-Leninist
The Ray O. Light Group
Hammer and Steel
Revolutionary Organization of Labor
Revolutionary Youth Movement I
Revolutionary Youth Movement II
May 19th Communist Organization
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back)
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Left Ref.)
Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
League of Revolutionaries for a New America
Maoist Internationalist Movement
Single Spark Collective
Workers Party, USA
Organizing Committee to Form the Communist Party, USA
Revolutionary Workers Headquarters
We all have our alphabet soup, Mike. Not just fans of Leon.
(This is done with tongue in cheek.)
poetwarrior said
If this were Latin America, Caleb, you’d have to add (Autentico) or (Ortodoxo) at the end of the name of each of these organizations!
Mike E said
Well, there is a very sectarian current within trotskyism — epitomized by the Sparts or the Healyites (who in the U.S. were first the Workers League,before they splintered further). And in this case I was referring to the healyites in Britain — the WRP, whose very sectarian and dogmatic politics it would be impossible to pin on John Lennon.
You seem to think that I was arguing that sectarianism characteristic of Trotskyism, and not other sections of the left.
That is obviously not my view — having just come through a process with the RCP where a deepening sectarianism has strained many of their political connections to the breaking point. The problem is hardly limited to “fans of Leon.”
Caleb T. Maupin said
http://cedarlounge.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/john-lennon-red-mole2.jpg
A picture can be worth a thousand words!
Mike E said
All this is trivia. But at least let’s get it right. Lennon was not (from any evidence) a trotskyist, and certainly not one of the sectarian Healeyite kind.
And actually Caleb, the picture you are linking to points away from your argument in comment #1.
John Lennon is shown with a poster by the Red Mole (a rather new lefty mass newspaper with a wide range of opinions represented. In the 70s under the editorship of Tariq Ali it became loosely associated with the International Marxist Group).
This IMG could not have been more sharply at odds with the Healeyites (from what I understand) — precisely because the Healeyites were highly sectarian (forming their own Internatinal Committee of the fourth International in opposition to the IMG, which was associated with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International).
In other words, Lennon appearing with a Red Mole poster is not evidence of any particular sympathy for Trotskyism in general, but it does confirm that he was not enchanted with the Healeyite trend.
observer said
A cover version, sung by Bush