Bl
Blanc, Louis (1811-1882)
French “reformist” socialist and historian, who denied that class contradictions under capitalism were antagonistic, opposed the proletarian revolution, and wanted a compromise with the bourgeoisie. V.I. Lenin, L. Trotsky and other revolutionary Marxists often used his name as an epithet to denote the opportunist and conciliatory tactics of the Mensheviks and others opposed to the cause of the revolution and the interests of the working class.
Bland, William “Bill” (1916-2001)
Bill Bland was born in the North of England, into a middle class home. He spent his politically formative years in the army of New Zealand, where he was active in the Communist Party as an educator. He returned to Britain in the post-war years as an ophthalmic optician. In the 1950’s Bland witnessed the Communist Party of Great Britain embracing the “Peaceful Road to Socialism", and Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin. Bland believed these “revisionist” stances were incorrect and anti-Marxist-Leninist.
Bland therefore became a member of several anti-revisionist formations in Britain. He soon joined forces with Mike Baker in the Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Britain (MLOB). Shortly thereafter, the ‘Cultural Revolution’ occured in China, and prompted by a barrage of questions, Bland undertook a systematic study of Mao. He found that he could not agree with Mao’s theory of the ‘New Democratic State’; and penned within months, the first refutation of Mao from the point of view of a pro-Stalin supporter. At that time, the MLOB rapidly dwindled in size as many members retained affection of Mao. This was to be the first of Bland’s many un-popular analyses in the pro-Stalin wing of the Communist movement.
Bland spent the rest of his life trying to answer the question: “How had revisionism become ascendant?”
Bland came to the conclusion that Stalin had been in a minority position in the Politburo, surrounded by hidden revisionists too clever to openly attack Marxism-Leninism; further, they had straight-jacketed Stalin by means of erecting the “Cult of Personality,” which was then used as a weapon against him. Bland felt that Yezhov had subverted the secret services, who had been replaced at Stalin’s behest by Beria. Bland pointed for example, to the release of many thousands of wrongly imprisoned Bolsheviks. Bland then argued that by the 18th Party Congress Stalin had been excluded from the highest echelons of the party decision making apparatus, and had counter-attacked with his pamphlet “Economic Problems of the USSR.”
Stalin’s essay was a seminal attack on Nikolai Vosnosensky, who was linked to Khrushchev. Cosequently argued Bland, the later economic changes re-establishing capitalism in the USSR had been fought to a standstill by Stalin. Bland therefore argued a special significance for Stalin’s last work. As Bland saw it, once Stalin was dead, the capitalist “reforms” of Vosnosensky were enacted by Khrushchev and his successors. He formulated these views in articles that culminated in the book ‘Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR’, published in 1981.
Follwing his analysis of Maoism as ‘left revisionism’, Bland began to question his own long-standing support for the then pro-Chinese Party of Labour of Albania, but concluded that the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania remained socialist. Before the 20th party Congress of the CPSU, Bland had founded the Albanian Society of Britain, at the invitation of the PSRA. Despite now being officially ostracized by Albania, Bland continued his work running the Albanian Society, and organizing an enormous education on this isolated solitary socialist country. In those years, he became an acknowledged authority on all things Albanian. He published an English-Albanian dictionary and he fielded any manner of queries upon arcane features of Albanian life, history, music, foods, geography, customs and mores etc.
While China was supported by the Albanian party, some of the Maoist parties had run an explicit party front Albania Society, resisting Bland’s call for one single, united front Albania Society, regardless of ‘narrow’ party affiliation. Following Hoxha’s open attack on Mao, some of these Societies split and some died. Their remaining members were correctly advised by the foreign Liaison committee of the PSRA, to join with Bland’s organisation to form one United Front of support for the PSRA. But they launched attempts to remove Bland’s leadership, charging that an emphasis on all aspects of life – such as music etc – was “anti-Marxist-Leninist,” and “insufficiently political,” and that Bland should be removed. The membership rejected this attempt to remove Bland. The Society continued till the revisionist take-over of the PSRA by Ramiz Alia, at which point Bland resigned from the Albania Society.
It was primarily differences over Bland’s analysis of Albania as Socialist that precipitated the split in the MLOB in 1975, following which, the Communist League came into existence. The Communist League from its inception always supported the Peoples Socialist Republic of Albania as a solitary socialist state. Those that stayed with the MLOB, including Mike Baker and his supporters, rejected that position.
One specific aspect of modern revisionism, to which Bland paid close attention, was the subversion of the second stage of socialist revolution, into a static national democratic deviations. For Bland, this represented a distortion from the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation. Into these categories, Bland placed the pseudo-‘socialist’ revolutions of China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Tanzania. He argued that all of these had ignored Lenin’s injunction not to build a ‘Chinese Wall’ between the first (national democratic) stage of revolution and the second (socialist) stage. Bland also argued that other, phenomena such as the “Black Nation” in the USA, “Black Racism” and “Scottish, Welsh and Cornish Nationalism", in Britain, represented national deviations away from socialist revolution.
These views led him to challenge fundamental Stalinist premises: If the Soviet Union had been permeated by a class war involving the highest echelons of the Party, was the Comintern any different?
Bland puzzled over several related matters: Why had the Comintern performed so many about-turns on key questions such as the nature of the United Front? Was Stalin really ‘in control’ of the Comintern? Why had the Peoples Front governments been supported beyond any credible point by European communist parties, especially in France, in assisting a fascist take-over? And why did the ultra-left rejections of a united front of the late 1920’s swing suddenly into ultra-right distortions of a correct United Front policy? Etc.
Bland argued that the first ultra-left deviations in the Comintern, in the period from about 1924 to 1928 had allowed fascism to take power in Germany. In the same period, under the cover of this ultra-leftism, Manuilsky and Kussinen had destroyed the Indian revolution by sabotaging Stalin’s line of the Workers and Peasants parties. Bland thought that the second right deviations, from about 1930 onwards had prevented the masses of Europe taking power under Communist Party direction.
Bland now further argued that Stalin had not been in a leadership position in the Comintern since around 1924; as follows: Initially Zinoviev had exercised the leadership, and thereafter Bukharin. When both were exposed as "revisionists" they were purged from further influencing the Comintern. Both were later shot. Thereafter Dimitrov, Otto Kuusinen, and Dimitri Manuilskii exercised the Comintern leadership. Bland argued they had perverted a correct implementation of Marxism-Leninism. Dimitrov had been sprung from the German Fascist prisons thanks to a rather dubious, and surprising “leniency” of the German fascists. “Why?”, asked Bland, replying that a pact had been struck; as shown when Dimitrov went on to subvert United Front tactics into the right deviation of supporting “Popular Front” governments beyond Marxist-Leninist principles of the correct United Front tactics.
It was for these reasons, argued Bland, that the Comintern was dissolved by Stalin. Stalin then created the Cominform under a completely different leadership, led by his most trusted lieutenants such as Zhdanov. It must be remembered, said Bland, that it was the Cominform that had exposed the Western Communist parties plans for implementing right deviationist policies, and the Titoites for allying with the USA. During this latter historic confrontation Stalin overtly supported Albania and Hoxha against Tito.
Apart from his theoretical works, Bland wrote a number of plays, directed two films, and created a ballet. A life-long intense love of the arts – especially cinema and the theatre – led him to re-affirm the principles of Socialist Realist Art. He wrote widely on theatre and film, and on the history of theatre.
In Britain he led the Communist League to urge the principled unity of all Marxist-Leninist forces, hence Bland’s role in the early stages of the National Committee for A Marxist-Leninist Unity (NCMLU). Bland also formed the Stalin Soicety in the UK. But the pro-China factions within the Stalin Society that ensured Bland’s later expulsion. He was a key figure in the formation of the International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, and was cited as a major influence by Alliance Marxist-Leninist (North America).
Further Reading: Bill Bland Reference Archive.
by Hari Kumar
Blanqui, Louis-Auguste (1805-1881)
Born February 1, 1805; died January 1, 1881: Revolutionary socialist, spent 33 of his 76 years in prison as a result of fighting for the working class. Blanqui neither cared for economic nor social/historical theory, but dedicated his heart and mind to the theory and practice of workers' revolution. Blanqui recognized, as a result of extreme police persecution, that a successful workers revolution in 19th-century France could only be led by a small group of disciplined workers.
At 13 years old, Blanqui had moved to Paris to live with his older brother, Adolphe. In Paris Blanqui studied law and medicine until 1824; completing his education when he was 19 years old. Beginning in 1827, he took an active part in students demonstrations against the restored Bourbon monarchy, which he followed through to the Revolution of July 1830 (which had established to the monarchy of Louis-Philippe). Outraged by all the blood workers had spilled in the preceding years to see it commadered by an autocrat convinced Blanqui of the need for a workers revolution.
A member of the Society of Friends of the People (Société des Amis du Peuple), Blanqui was first imprisoned in 1831, and again in 1836 as a result of his association with this illegal society. As these acts of extreme police persecution, workers movements could only exist as small, disciplined and secretive societies. Having clear vision, Blanqui (much like Lenin) concluded that only extremely disciplined workers could achieve workers revolution in those conditions.
Blanqui organized the Society of the Seasons (Société des Saisons) and attempted an armed instruction on May 12, 1839 against the Hôtel de Ville (the City Hall) of Paris. Isolated both physically and politically from Paris workers, the 500 armed revolutionaries were slaughtered in less than two days of fighting. Blanqui, who managed to escape the disaster, was caught and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the island of Mont-Saint-Michel.
His stay in the deplorable prison crushed him physically, and after four wrenching years of solitary confinement, he was granted clemency to be released to a prison hospital at Tours, from where he was released after five years of recovery, shortly before the Revolution of 1848.
Returning to Paris, he created a new reformist society – the Central Republican Society (Société Républicaine Centrale), through which he attempted to reform the new provisional government to adopt policies in favor of the working class. The conservative government that was elected to the Constituent Assembly, had different plans however, and found in Blanqui a scapegoat for radical workers' demonstrations. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on the false charge of having participated in a demonstration which he in fact had disapproved of.
Released in 1859, he returned to organizing workers' parties and was arrested again in 1861, and held until he escaped to Belgium in 1865. His all-too frequent stays in prison earned him the name l'enfermé (the locked-up one). Blanqui did not return to Paris until the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 began.
After Napoleon III capitulated at the Battle of Sedan, and the siege of Paris began, Blanqui agitated against Prussian occupation of France, suggesting how Paris should best defend itself. On October 31, 1870, Blanqui lead revolutionaries to attempt to overthrow the government, and succeeded in capturing the Hôtel de Ville and set up a government with Blanqui at its head. Just a day later, however, the government stormed the Hotel and arrested Blanqui and many of other revolutionary leaders for treason. His remaining Paris followers again attempted to overthrow the government, on January 22, 1871, this time unarmed. Soldiers guarding the Hôtel de Ville open fire on the protesting workers, killing hundreds.
After the beginning of the French Civil War of 1871 , the Paris Commune was elected, and Blanqui was elected president. The government of Thiers refused to release Blanqui, despite the legitimate election of him to public office. After tens of thousands of workers were massacred in Paris by government troops as a result of their struggle to establish the first workers government ever created, Blanqui was kept locked up in prison. In April 1879, he was elected deputy for Bordeaux; however the government refused to recognize the election. With great workers unrest, however, they weighed their options and decided that releasing the 74-year-old man would put out many more fires than it would start. Blanqui continued to agitate for Socialism, and died at nearly 76 years old from apoplexy.
See Louis Auguste Blanqui Archive.
Blenkle, Konrad (1901–43) .
Bakery worker, from working-class family; joined Youth in 1919 and KPD(S) in 1920; worked for Soviet embassy in Berlin; became secretary of Communist Youth in 1923, supported KPD (Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands/German Communist Party) Left. Chairman of Communist Youth and member of Central Committee in 1924; deputy in 1928; in disgrace thereafter. Worked illegally in 1933–4. Emigrated and led some illegal work in Germany, from Copenhagen. Arrested, sentenced to death, executed in Plötzensee.
Bloch, Ernst (1885–1977)
German Marxist philosopher. He taught at the University of Leipzig (1918–33), drifting toward Marxism during the 1920s. He fled the Nazis after 1933, moving first to Switzerland and then to the United States. Bloch's first major work, The Principle of Hope, which was published in German, emphasized the role of hope as a human drive. He returned to Leipzig in 1948, where he remained until conflict with Communist Party officials compelled him to defect to West Germany (1961). There, he taught at the University of Tübingen.
Blyumkin (or Blurakin ?–1929)
Killed the German ambassador Mirbach, in 1918 Russia, in order to provoke war between Soviet Russia and Germany, was pardoned after Germany’s defeat had made it safe to do this. He resumed his work in the Cheka (later the GPU). In 1929 he visited Trotsky in exile, taking back with him a letter to Russian oppositionists. He was betrayed (apparently, by Radek) and executed. Blyumkin was a Left SR who helped coordinate terrorist actions against the Bolsheviks. His assassination of Mirbach was an attempt, as stated, to provoke Germany into attacking the Soviet Republic and workers’ state. The assassination of Mirbach was perpetuated by the same political fringe that attempted the assassination of Lenin. It was not done at the behest of the Bolsheviks, but rather it was directed against them.