Good Morning Revolution Langston Hughes (1932)

with one comment Good morning Revolution: You are the best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on. Say, listen, Revolution: You know the boss where I used to work, The guy that gimme the air to cut expenses, He wrote a long letter to the papers about you: Said you was a trouble maker, a alien-enemy, In other words a son-of-a-bitch. He called up the police And toldem to watch out for a guy Named Revolution You see, The boss knows you are my friend. He sees us hanging out together He knows were hungry and ragged, And aint got a damn thing in this world And are gonna to do something about it. The boss got all his needs, certainly, Eats swell, Owns a lotta houses, Goes vacationin, Breaks strikes, Runs politics, bribes police Pays off congress And struts all over earth But me, I aint never had enough to eat. Me, I aint never been warm in winter. Me, I aint never known security All my life, been livin hand to mouth Hand to mouth. Listen, Revolution, Were buddies, see Together, We can take everything: Factories, arsenals, houses, ships, Railroads, forests, fields, orchards, Bus lines, telegraphs, radios,

(Jesus! Raise hell with radios!) Steel mills, coal mines, oil wells, gas, All the tools of production. (Great day in the morning!) Everything And turnem over to the people who work. Rule and runem for us people who work. Boy! Them radios! Broadcasting that very first morning to USSR: Another member of the International Soviets done come Greetings to the Socialist Soviet Republics Hey you rising workers everywhere greetings And well sign it: Germany Sign it: China Sign it: Africa Sign it: Italy Sign it: America Sign it with my one name: Worker On that day when no one will be hungry, cold oppressed, Anywhere in the world again. Thats our job! I been starvin too long Aint you? Lets go, Revolution! The question that is necessarily posed in the context of a strike is that it is clear that our demands, as reasonable as they are, cannot be simply achieved in the course of the bargaining and strike structures that have been established within our society, thus how can we make the gains that we need? Hughes correctly answers this question: Revolution. Indeed, those that have articulated new strategies have only been successful in getting better contracts that could have been achieved otherwise, however, even then the victories pale in comparison to our original reasonable demands. I believe that the gains that many of us would prefer to make, can only be made in the course of revolutionary struggle and the capture of the state. This does not mean however, that the strike is an useless tool in the fight that we must wage. Rather, the strike potentially becomes a moment in which the working class can actually re-envision a new set of possibilities because the strike is a moment in which our normal economic and social relations become temporarily unhinged. However, capitalists and their effective counterparts, labor bureaucracies, recognize the potentiality of this unhinging and seek to regulate those on strike to ensure that such articulations of disalienation become difficult, if not impossible, such that the collective agreement becomes an agreement between the working class and the bourgeoisie to ensure class peace. But this does not mean that we should dismiss Unions out of

hand, rather, we must struggle within the Unions against the labor bureaucracy through the course of labor struggles, and through small victories, demonstrate to the working class that another form of Unionism is possible. Furthermore, this demonstration of another Unionisms possibility should not be done as a presentation of other models, but through the active engagement of workers in this new model. However, the demonstration of this other form of labor unionism is in itself not enough to make the victories that we need, rather, this other form of labor unionism necessarily has a limit endemic to Unionism and the reformism that is necessarily entailed. Thus, when class contradictions are sharpened because of successive labor struggles and through worker self-empowerment through the defeat of the labor bureaucracy, the working class will necessarily need new forms of organization that can appropriately deal with the contradictions that we experience.

I have always liked poetry that was somewhat of a call to arms or for chang. My favourite revolutionary poem is The Internationale: Arise ye workers from your slumbers Arise ye prisoners of want For reason in revolt now thunders And at last ends the age of cant. Away with all your superstitions Servile masses arise, arise We'll change henceforth the old tradition And spurn the dust to win the prize. So comrades, come rally And the last fight let us face The Internationale unites the human race. So comrades, come rally And the last fight let us face The Internationale unites the human race. No more deluded by reaction On tyrants only we'll make war The soldiers too will take strike action They'll break ranks and fight no more And if those cannibals keep trying To sacrifice us to their pride They soon shall hear the bullets flying We'll shoot the generals on our own side. No saviour from on high delivers No faith have we in prince or peer Our own right hand the chains must shiver Chains of hatred, greed and fear E'er the thieves will out with their booty And give to all a happier lot. Each at the forge must do their duty And we'll strike while the iron is hot. Eugene Pottier Anyone here have any personal favourites? Just thought it would be nice to share some poems of similar theme, see if there are any none of us, or at least I, have never read.