Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

In her book Inside the Russian Revolution, Rheta Childe Dorr described her first impression in Russia:

About the first thing I saw on the morning of my arrival in Petrograd ... was a group of young men, about twenty in number, I should think, marching through the street in front of my hotel, carrying a scarlet banner with an inscription in large white letters.

What does that banner say? I asked the hotel commissionaire who stood beside me.

It says All the Power to the Soviet, was the answer.

What is the soviet? I asked, and he replied briefly:

It is the only government we have in Russia now.

Judging from this passage, most of us would assume that Dorr arrived in Russia after the October Revolution, since only then did the soviets overthrow the Provisional Government. But Dorr came to Russia in late May 1917 and left the country by the end of August. Her book was sent to press before the October Revolution and thus gives us an invaluable look at what was happening in 1917, free of hindsight.

Dorrs account brings home an essential fact: The soviets, or councils of soldiers and workmens delegates, which have spread like wildfire throughout the country, are the nearest thing to a government that Russia has known since the very early days of the revolution. Though a socialist herself, Dorr was fervently committed to the war against Germany and therefore intensely hostile to what she saw as tyrannical mob rule. She regarded soviet rule as no better and in some ways worse than the tsars. Take censorship of the press: Even if [the average American traveler] could read all the daily papers, however, he would not get very much information. The press censorship is as rigid and as tyrannical today as in the heyday of the autocracy, only a different kind of news is suppressed. In order to give her American readers an idea of the committee mania that had taken over Russia, she used this analogy:

Try to imagine how it would be in Washington, in the office of the secretary of the treasury, let us say, if a committee of the American Federation of Labor should walk in and say: We have come to control you. Produce your books and all your confidential papers. This is what happens to cabinet ministers in Russia, and will continue until they succeed in forming a government responsible only to the electorate, and not a slave to the Council of Workmens and Soldiers Delegates.

Dorrs account is one-sided: soviet power was strongly contested throughout 1917 and the Provisional Government had its own ambitious agenda. Nevertheless, she brings out realities that wont be surprising to most historians but that cast an unexpected light on the slogan All Power to the Soviets!. Its worth exploring this new perspective, first by demonstrating the continuity between February and October, then by asking what kind of revolution this was, and finally by looking at the leadership of the Bolsheviks and Lenin in particular.

All power to the Soviets! is one of the most famous slogans in revolutionary history. It is right up there with Egalit, libert, fraternit as a symbol of an entire revolutionary epoch. It consists of three words: , vsya vlast sovetam. Vsya = all, vlast = power, and sovetam = to the soviets. The Russian word sovet simply means advice, and, from that, council.

Another Russian word vlast presents more of a challenge. Power is not an entirely adequate translation for a variety of reasons. Vlast has a more specific reference than the English word power, namely, the sovereign authority in a particular country. In order to have the vlast, one has to have the right of making a final decision, to be capable of making the decisions and of seeing that they are carried out. Often, in English, in an attempt to catch these nuances, vlast is translated by the un-idiomatic phrase the power. I will use power and vlast interchangeably.

Basic to the usual understanding of 1917 is a contrast between February and October. The educated reading public is given a liberal version of this contrast: February is the good revolution of political freedom and democracy, and October is the bad, illegitimate revolution of tyranny and extremist utopianism. On the Left we find a similar contrast, but with the value-signs reversed: the bourgeois-democratic revolution versus the socialist revolution.

Overlooked is the strong continuity between February and October. Right from its beginnings in February, the upheaval in 1917 should be seen as an anti-bourgeois democratic revolution. Soviet power was actually proclaimed in February the role of October was to confirm that it would not leave the scene peaceably.

The basic force behind this new power or sovereign authority the soviet constituency was the people, the narod, the workers, soldiers, and peasants, the mob; as opposed to the elite, the tsenzoviki (census people, the propertied classes), educated society. The central aim of the soviet revolution was to carry out the vast program of reforms earlier denoted by the term democratic revolution first and foremost, land to the peasants and liquidation of the pomeshchiki (gentry landowners) as a class and also to end a murderous and pointless war.

At the same time, the revolution was intensely anti-bourgeois, even if this feeling did not translate into a programmatic demand to install socialism in the short or middle term. The surprising fact is not the social base of the revolution nor the anti-bourgeois values of this base, but rather the creation almost simultaneously after the fall of the tsar of a viable candidate for sovereign authority in the land that relied on this broad popular constituency.

In February, the longstanding Romanov dynasty often termed the historic vlast dissolved, leaving Russia essentially without a functioning vlast, that is, without a generally recognized sovereign authority. The fundamental lines of force for the whole year were set up almost immediately, indeed, during the revolutionary events of February 27. During this day, the following happened:

Thus the Petrograd Soviet took on the role of the ultimate source of the vlast, the sovereign authority though at this stage it was still careful not to take the name. The soviet was the elected representative of the workers and the soldiers: an essential difference from its 1905 incarnation. There were two fundamental moments in this assertion of authority: first, the Provisional Government was forced to commit itself to key parts of the Soviet program in order to gain elementary legitimacy, and indeed, in order to come into existence. Second, Order Number One allowed the soviet (almost without noticing it) to gain an essential attribute of any vlast, namely, control over the ultimate means of coercion, the army. These two facts government commitment to carrying out key parts of the soviet program and the ultimate loyalty of the armed forces to the soviet rather than the Provisional Government determined the course of politics for the rest of the year.

On the surface, the vicissitudes of soviet power during the course of 1917 found expression in a series of dramatic political crises. Underneath, a more molecular process was taking place that clothed the soviet with the essential attributes of a genuine vlast. Let us take a look at this deeper process.

According to some Bolshevik observers at the time, the Soviet in February was an embryonic vlast. This is an excellent metaphor, leading to the following question: what would it take for it to become a full-blooded, independent vlast that could fend for itself? An effective vlast needs at least the following:

These are the key features of a functioning vlast. The embryonic soviet vlast established in February started off with some of these features in virtual form, and then these and all the other features steadily acquired more substance, first in 1917 and then during the civil war. For example, the soviet gained a national institutional form, through an all-Russian conference in late March and two congresses of soviets (June and October). In contrast, the Provisional Government progressively lost even those essential features with which they started, so that it became more and more spectral. By the fall of 1917, it had lost the support of even moderate soviet leaders and was no more than a phantom vlast.

We turn now to the unbroken series of political crises that marked the relations of the soviets and the elite reformers in the Provisional Government. The political struggle in 1917 was conducted within an unwritten constitution that stated that the soviet majority has the final say on matters of program and personnel. Right at the beginning, Alexander Kerensky was inserted into the government as a soviet representative. For this and other reasons, the contrast often made between an initial period of dual power and a later coalition period is inessential.

In early May, the Provisional Government proposed but the soviet disposed it agreed to the governments request to send more representatives into the government. No matter how many individual representatives the soviets sent to the government, the fact remains that no major policy initiative was carried out against the explicit wishes of the soviet majority. Thus the various political crises that arose through the year all ended when the soviet authority made its will known, since it had ultimate control over coercive force. This was true in March, April, July, and August, as well as October.

Of course, soviet power was strongly contested from the beginning: the counterrevolution also had its origin in February. The key source of conflict was over what was called at the time the krizis vlasti, the crisis of power. The issue was often framed as follows: dvoevlastie, dual power, dual sovereignty, is a contradiction in terms if the buck stops here and over there, then who makes the ultimate decision, the one that really counts? Thus dual power is the equivalent of multiple power which is the equivalent of no vlast at all: a recipe for governmental dysfunction. Russia needs one undisputed, recognized, and tough-minded (tverdaia) vlast.

At this point, opinions began to differ. The liberal Kadet party, the first ones to bring up this line of thought, said that therefore the soviets must retire from the scene. The Bolsheviks, who quickly picked up on this argument for their own purposes, said that therefore all power must go to the soviets!

The existential question facing the soviet constituency was: could the soviet program be carried out by means of a good faith partnership with elite reformers or was the gap between elite and narod on such fundamental questions as the war, the land issue, and economic regulation too wide to be bridged? The Bolsheviks labeled the attempt at cross-class partnership as soglashatelstvo a term often misleadingly translated as conciliation, but which can be rendered in English in a more straightforward way as agreementism. So the question before the soviet constituency was: is agreementism viable? Yes, it may be convenient to work with the elite rather than against it, but not if it means giving up on the aims of the revolution.

From the point of view of the incipient counterrevolution, there were two possible strategies for eliminating the soviet system: a hard coup or a soft coup. An attempt at a hard coup was made by General Kornilov in late August but this was a misbegotten adventure from the beginning, one that quickly ran up against the hard fact of politics in 1917, namely, the ultimate loyalty of the armed forces to the soviets. The soft coup relied on a different strategy of creating by various means an alternative wide-ranging vlast with national support, all the while asking the soviets to voluntarily bow out. Under this category comes such experiments in the fall as the Democratic Conference and the Pre-Parliament. More and more, the Constituent Assembly became the centerpiece of attempts at a soft coup, that is, of inducing soviet power to bow out gracefully.

For the soviet constituency, the question was decided by early September, when new majorities in the soviets of Moscow and Petersburg showed their support for an all-soviet, anti-agreementist government. It became evident that the forthcoming Second Congress of Soviets in October would take the same line. So the question became: would the unwritten constitution hold? Would the new soviet majority be able to exercise the same ultimate control over the policies and personnel of the government that the old soviet majority did? In the usual telling, October was the time when the soviets overthrew the Provisional Government. From our perspective, it was the time the Provisional Government failed to overthrow the soviets.

At the same time, the soviets assigned political leadership to the Bolshevik Party. This choice was an inevitable implication of the more fundamental decision to keep soviet power in existence, since the Bolsheviks were the only organized political force willing and able to do this. (The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries [SRs] were willing enough, but barely even an organized political force.) The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in early January ended the last chance to end soviet power peacefully, that is, through voluntary self-dissolution. Thereafter the question was settled on the fields of battle.

According to the unwritten constitution, a regularly elected Congress of Soviets representing soviets all across the country had the right and duty to determine both the personnel and the policies of the revolutionary government. The Second Congress that met on October 25 and 26 was just such a body. We often get so fascinated by the dramatic debates among the Bolsheviks, and by the armed uprising organized by the Petrograd Soviets Military Revolutionary Committee, that we tend to forget that the basic political fact in the autumn of 1917 was the new majority that had formed nationwide among the soviet constituency.

The uprising takes on a new meaning in light of this fact: we can imagine the Second Congress without the uprising, but we cannot imagine the uprising without the Second Congress. As Trotsky said at the congress: The political formula of this uprising: All power to the soviets by means of the Congress of Soviets. We are told: you didnt wait for the congress. We, as a party, considered it our task to create a genuine possibility for the Congress of Soviets to take the vlast into its own hands.

Accordingly, a look at the proceedings of the Second Congress will give us some idea of the meaning of October in October that is, what the Second Congress as a whole, including both its majority and minority, thought it was doing. According to the unwritten constitution, a properly constituted Congress of Soviets had the right to determine the governments personnel and policies. This was the heart of the matter, and no one at the Congress disputed it, not even the Bolsheviks most determined enemies.

Instead, they tried to undermine the Congresss legitimate status by various other means: First, by using walkouts to deprive the Congress of its necessary quorum and turn it into a private conference. Second, by claiming that armed conflict and civil war on the streets made the work of the Congress impossible. But note: the anti-Bolshevik socialists did not protest the arrest of the Provisional Government, but only the treatment of the socialist ministers and even here the outrage was not caused by their status as ministers, but rather because they were party comrades on a party mission. Finally, even while granting that the Congress had a right to create a new government and even a government that excluded any non-soviet parties, they insisted that this new soviet vlast represent all soviet parties and even all democratic forces thus the Martov wing of the Mensheviks and the Left SRs, though the creation of such a wide coalition was an unrealistic pipe dream. Thus no one at the Congress really contested the unwritten constitution.

What program did the Congress give to the new government? Three things were accomplished during the two-day session: an official government proposal for a democratic peace, land to the peasants and concomitant abolition of gentry property, and the creation of a worker-peasant government. All three of these measures were essentially democratic in the parlance of the time, and this democratic quality was given heavy emphasis by official rhetoric and Bolshevik spokesmen. A very famous statement by Lenin perhaps the first pronouncement of the new vlast runs as follows: The cause for which the narod fought the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of gentry property in land, worker control over production, creation of a soviet government this cause is now secure.

In his original draft, Lenin had written Long live socialism! but he crossed this phrase out. This fact points to another feature of the debates at the Congress: the low profile of socialism, as either word or concept. True, mention can be found of socialism as the final goal. But the Bolsheviks never defended the actual program set out by the Congress as a socialist one nor, most revealingly, did those who attacked the Bolsheviks make any critique of unrealistic attempts to install socialism in Russia. Socialism was simply a non-issue at the Second Congress.

The historic meaning of the Second Congress, then, was that the previously unwritten constitution now openly affirmed itself as the ultimate law of the land. The embryonic vlast created in February a vlast based solidly on the workers and peasants, and dedicated to the program of the revolution announced to the world its firm intention to survive and thrive.

Our look at the Second Congress and its program makes unavoidable the question: what kind of revolution was the Russian Revolution of 1917? In some ways, of course, a worker-peasant revolution in Russia would inevitably be socialist, that is, it would be led by committed socialists whose ultimate aim was to establish a socialist society. Socialist parties had an absolute monopoly of political loyalty from the narod and none but socialist parties were ever represented in the soviet system. Furthermore, the Bolsheviks finally placed their project in the context of the Europe-wide socialist revolution that they believed was in the offing. On the other hand, when we look at the actual program for Russia adopted by soviet power in 1917, and also at the actual message sent out by the Bolsheviks day in and day out to the soviet constituency, we will find that democratic demands crowded out socialist ones almost completely.

The binary contrast between bourgeois-democratic revolution and socialist revolution goes a long way back in the Marxist tradition, but by the early twentieth century it was showing definite signs of strain. In 1906, Karl Kautsky wrote a seminal article entitled Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution. This article delighted Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, all of whom wrote commentaries on it. Even after the 1917 revolution, Kautskys article was endorsed by Lenin, Trotsky, and even Karl Radek as a classic exposition of the logic behind Bolshevik revolutionary strategy.

Here Kautsky made the argument that Russia was undergoing neither a bourgeois revolution in the traditional sense nor a socialist one but a quite unique process which is taking place on the borderline between bourgeois and socialist society. For Kautsky, the once and future Russian revolution was not bourgeois, because it was led by socialists, but it was also not socialist because the peasant allies of the proletariat were not ready for socialism. All Russian Social Democrats (including Trotsky) agreed that Russias peasant majority was a barrier to socialist transformation, absent a game-changing European revolution.

Given this, it seems all the more apt to understand the 1917 revolution as an anti-bourgeois democratic revolution. The revolution that created and defended soviet power was democratic both in terms of its class content and its program. The Petrograd Soviet was created by the workers and soldiers of the capital city that is, soviet power was a worker-peasant vlast from the very beginning and it never lost this character. By the rules of Marxist discourse accepted by everybody in 1917, a revolution that embodied the interests of the peasantry was thereby a democratic one.

As we have seen, the soviet revolution was also democratic in its program in 1917. There is an idea among many Marxists today that proclaiming the socialist character of the revolution was a logical necessity for the project of soviet power to make sense. This idea wilts under inspection and indeed it was forcefully refuted in 1917 by Lenin and Trotsky themselves. There is also perhaps a tendency among some Marxists today to look down on a merely democratic revolution as one restricted to paltry reforms and a measly minimum program. The Bolsheviks had a very different attitude. They saw the democratic transformation of Russia creation of a radical democracy, land to the peasants, liquidation of the landowning gentry as a class, and modernization of all spheres of life as a highly ambitious and rewarding mission. Furthermore, it was one that only committed socialists could carry out.

Which brings us to the second part of our definition: in contrast to the classical bourgeois-democratic revolutions, the Russian revolution was anti-bourgeois from the very start. First, for the reason noted by Kautsky: it was led by socialists and not by liberals or bourgeois of any stripe. Second, both wings of the soviet constituency workers and peasants were thoroughly hostile to the burzhui and to bourgeois values. Third, the Russian Revolution took place amid an accelerating breakdown of any workable market system.

From the beginning that is, from February the soviet constituency was hostile to the burzhui both in its narrow meaning of industrial owners and in its wider meaning of the tsenzoviki (an abusive word for the educated elite that derived from the property requirements or census that restricted the number of voters), the beloruchki (the ones with white hands), and other unfriendly terms for the educated elite. Even in the early days, when hopes were high for a real partnership, the burzhui were regarded with suspicion and, indeed, with an automatic assumption of insincerity. Commitment in a positive way to socialist institutions was much less powerful than a negative attitude toward the bourgeois as individuals as well as toward bourgeois values. The anti-bourgeois drive arises organically out of the very fact of soviet power, not just the dreams of socialist intellectuals.

Anything like a bourgeois class, market institutions, and middle-class values were destroyed by the Russian time of troubles starting in 1914, and there was no social or political will to reconstitute them. Thus, socialism in the Soviet Union acquired content by the drive to make a great modern country work without a bourgeoisie, or an autonomous market, or bourgeois pluralism. Both the short-term social dynamics and the long-term economic result of the revolution were determined in the first place by the anti-bourgeois drive of the soviet constituency.

To understand why it was the Bolsheviks and no other party that was given leadership by soviet power, we have to take a broader view and look at the so-called hegemony strategy that defined Bolshevism before 1917. Hegemony is a word with many meanings in many different contexts. When the Bolsheviks used it to sum up their view of class dynamics in Russia, they meant first and foremost that the socialist proletariat would act as leader (hegemon) for the peasants. In a fuller formulation: the socialist proletariat would carry out the revolution to the end by creating a revolutionary vlast based on the common interest of the workers and peasants, and by rejecting any bid by liberal reformers to halt or turn back the revolution.

The prewar hegemony strategy gave the Bolsheviks a head start a blueprint that led eventually to majority support at the Second Congress. The Bolsheviks in Petrograd did not need Lenin to size up the situation and to set their sights on winning over the soviet constituency both workers and peasant soldiers to the project of full soviet power and to persuade them to reject any agreementism with elite reformers. Bolshevik leaders such as Kamenev and Stalin were confident that the Provisional Government would be utterly unable to carry out the revolutionary program and indeed would quickly reveal its counterrevolutionary essence.

In all of this, the role of the peasant ally remained the heart of the matter. Most of the discussion among Bolsheviks in April after Lenins return was devoted to ensuring that everybody was on the same page about the crucial revolutionary role of the peasants. This is why some Bolsheviks insisted that the bourgeois-democratic revolution is not finished this was another way of saying the peasant is still a revolutionary ally. Lenin responded by underlining that any so-called steps toward socialism (for example, bank nationalization) could only be undertaken with peasant understanding and support.

This fundamental wager on socialist leadership of the peasantry explains not only Bolshevik victory in 1917, but Bolshevik victory in the civil war. In 1920 (prior to New Economic Policy), Evgenii Preobrazhensky described the middle peasant as the central figure of the revolution:

Over the whole course of the civil war, the middle peasantry did not go along with the proletariat with a firm tread. It wavered more than once, especially when faced with new conditions and new burdens; more than once it moved in the direction of its own class enemies. [But] the worker/peasant state, built on the foundation of an alliance of the proletariat with 80 percent of the peasantry, by this fact alone cannot have any competitors for the vlast inside the boundaries of Russia.

The Red Army was the embodiment of hegemony: peasant soldiers, political leadership by revolutionary socialists, officers providing expertise but shorn of political influence, all fighting together to defend the existence of the worker-peasant vlast. So much was recognized even by the Menshevik Fyodor Dan. Writing in 1922, Dan observed that the defeat of the peasant-based Red Army in Poland in 1920 was not just a military failure:

To defend the land he has seized against the possible return of the landlord, the peasant Red Army man will fight within the greatest heroism and the greatest enthusiasm. He will advance barehanded against cannons, tanks, and his revolutionary ardor will infect and disorganize even the most splendid and disciplined troops, as we saw with the Germans, the British and the French in equal measure

But the idea of Bolshevik communism is so alien and even hostile to the mindset of the peasant Red Army, that he can neither be infected by it himself, nor can he infect others with it. He cannot be attracted by the idea of war to convert capitalist society into communist society, and this is the limit of the Red Armys potential for the Bolsheviks.

Dan had a strange understanding of the idea of Bolshevik communism. Nevertheless, his remarks bring out two central points about the Russian Revolution. First, it was strong when it was compatible with peasant interests, and weak when it strayed beyond those limits. Second (a point obscured by Dan), the peasants could hardly have constituted an effective fighting force unless they had been given political leadership by a political party based on the urban branch of the narod.

The Bolsheviks were thoroughly committed to a worker-peasant alliance and ipso facto to an essentially democratic revolution. Only in his last articles did Lenin explicitly advance the idea that the proletariat could lead the peasant majority all the way to socialism. In some ways, this outlook was a break with the original version of hegemony, but more profoundly, it was just a further extension of the core idea of socialists leading peasants.

In October, the leadership of soviet power was entrusted to the Bolshevik Party. Looking at events from this point of view prompts a new look at Lenins leadership within the party, one that brings out some unexpected features. But we must start with the fact that Lenin was primarily responsible for elaborating and defending the hegemony strategy before and after the 1905 revolution. In October 1915, he sharpened his scenario by suggesting that a worker/peasant vlast would take power during the second stage of the revolution, replacing an anti-tsarist but defencist regime. He thus provided the party with its basic strategic orientation.

When Lenin returned in April after a decade in emigration, there was great potential for discord and demoralization. What is striking about Lenin in April after we look in detail at the give-and-take among the Bolsheviks is his ability to listen to his party comrades, sort out what was primary and what was secondary, and help clear up misunderstandings, both on his part and on the part of the Petrograd Bolsheviks. Let me give one small but revealing example of Lenins learning from the locals. In his Letter from Afar that he sent from Switzerland before returning, Lenin continually referred to the Soviet of Worker Deputies. When they printed his article in Pravda, the editors silently changed each occurrence of this phrase to the correct title Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies. In the original text of his April Theses, delivered immediately after his return, Lenin still used the inaccurate shorter title. Alerted by his comrades to the problem, he immediately switched over to a title that was an important symbol of the foundational peasant-worker alliance.

Lenin also deserves credit for the adoption of the famous three-word slogan All Power to the Soviets! but in an unexpected way. The slogan does not appear either in the April Theses or in the resolutions of the party conference that ended on April 29. Its first recorded use seems to be on a banner that was carried in the streets on April 21 during antigovernment demonstrations. Lenin noted its appearance and later quoted it in a Pravda article on May 2. The first use of the slogan, not just on an anonymous banner or in a signed article by an individual but in an authoritative party document, occurs in Pravda on May 7. Thus Lenin was perspicacious enough to observe the slogan and note its possibilities. On present evidence, it was indeed Lenin who lifted it out of anonymity and made it central to Bolshevik agitation.

After the July Days, Lenin thought that the unwritten constitution had been abrogated and that the current soviet system was no longer capable of exercising power. He therefore wanted to retract the slogan All Power to the Soviets! As he later admitted, this was a leftist deviation. Luckily, other party leaders managed to keep the slogan intact, and this served the Bolsheviks well in the fall when the soviet system took on new vigor. As this episode shows, Lenin was an effective leader because he was a member of a team that corrected individual misapprehensions.

Looking past the drama of Lenin haranguing his fellow Bolsheviks in October to carry out an uprising, we should focus on his central argument: the soviet constituency nationwide, peasants as well as workers, had rejected any sort of agreementism and therefore had de facto declared for full soviet power. The armed uprising was no doubt a good idea, but the uprising did not itself create soviet power instead, it protected the Second Congress and its capacity to turn the unwritten constitution into a written one.

Lenin was the strong leader of a united party. But the party was not united because he was a strong leader rather, he was a strong leader because the party was united around the basic strategy of socialist leadership in establishing a worker-peasant vlast.

Looking back on the course of events from February to October, one is struck by the improbability as well as the inevitability of soviet power. October was only possible because of the confluence of three highly unusual circumstances: the utter collapse of the former vlast, the creation of an institution based on workers and peasant soldiers that immediately won the effective loyalty of the army, and the existence of an underground party with a national structure and a ready-to-go program that responded to the first two circumstances.

All these features became evident within hours of the fall of the tsarist government. After that, October seems almost inevitable. Agreementism was a dead end, given the profound chasm between the aspirations of the Russian people and those of elite society. Once this became apparent, the Bolsheviks and their program of full soviet power were the only alternative left open for the soviet constituency. Even the counterrevolution was not a real alternative, since it was not yet ready to take power in order to repress the soviets.

1917 was thus a year of clarification about the stakes of the battle. The worker-peasant vlast created in 1917 survived the civil war that followed, but it paid a heavy price.

One casualty was the complete abolition of political freedom, even though this had been a central prewar goal of the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, early Soviet Russia can accurately be described as a worker-peasant vlast in several crucial aspects. The whole stratum of landowners had been liquidated as a class, the former educated elite was completely barred from power, the new government institutions were increasingly staffed by workers and peasants, many of the policies of the new government were aimed at gaining support from these classes (for example, mass literacy campaigns), and the workers and peasants were celebrated continually in song and story. Even massive political intolerance was in some ways a democratic feature, insofar as it reflected widespread popular values.

The soviet power that was created in February 1917 and was preserved in October by accepting Bolshevik leadership established itself as a mighty force in the world, for good and for ill.

See the original post here:

From February to October - Jacobin magazine

Theresa May campaigned to end hospital car parking fees - despite attacking Labour for announcing the same policy today.

Labour promised today to make car parking free at NHS hospitals in England, for patients, visitors and staff.

But a Conservative spokesman attacked the plan, saying the pledge was not worth the paper it was printed on.

The Tory leader said she was strongly opposed to the introduction of parking charges at St Marks Hospital, in her Maidenhead constituency.

She promised to continue to work towards the abolition of these unhelpful charges.

That was in November 2008. The Hospital still charges 1 for up to two hours, 2 for two to four hours and 10 after that.

Jeremy Corbyn said: Theresa May wont support our plan to end hospital parking fees, unless its in her back yard.

Jeremy Corbyn used a statement this morning to announce the major policy would feature in the party's general election manifesto.

It would be funded by increasing the rate of insurance premium tax on private healthcare products by more than half, from 12% to 20%.

The pledge comes after years of campaigns against parking charges and a Mirror investigation that showed they raked in 160million in one year.

The Unison union says some nurses on low wages are paying 100 a month and having to rush out mid-shift to top up their tickets.

Mr Corbyn said the charges "place an unfair and unnecessary burden on families, patients and NHS staff."

Speaking on a visit to nursing students in Tory-held Worcester, he was due to say: "Hospital parking charges are a tax on serious illnesses.

"Our hospitals are struggling from under-funding at the hands of Theresa Mays Conservative government.

"But the gap should not be filled by charging sick patients, anxious relatives and already hard-pressed NHS staff for an essential service.

Our NHS needs a Labour government that will stand up for the many, not the few.

Read more here:

The Tories attacked Jeremy Corbyn for announcing a policy Theresa May campaigned for - Mirror.co.uk

One Nation senators Peter Georgiou, Malcolm Roberts, Brian Burston and Pauline Hanson have concerns about the abolition of the 75% reach rule and two-out-of three media ownership rule. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

The government has a long way to go to win crossbench support for its media ownership changes, with the Greens and One Nation both expressing concerns about relaxation of ownership rules.

Nick Xenophon has supported the proposed restrictions on gambling ads and is open to changes to ownership rules but has linked the package to news organisations loss of revenue to Google and Facebook.

The media proposals are to abolish the two-out-of-three rule that prevents a company controlling more than two of three radio, television and newspapers in an area, and the reach rule that prohibits a proprietor from controlling a TV licence that reaches more than 75% of the population.

A spokesman for the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts told Guardian Australia on Monday that Roberts shares Pauline Hansons concerns about the package, including the two-out-of-three rule and the reach rule.

Those concerns may be able to be addressed by a conversation [with the government] as they usually are.

The spokesman said One Nation wanted to see deep significant and long-lasting cuts to the ABC, a demand the government has poured cold water on by saying budget savings would be determined by the public interest.

On Monday the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, told ABC radio his party had grave concerns [the government package] undermines media diversity and further concentrates an already very concentrated media market.

Di Natale said Australia needed a strong, fierce, independent media and maintaining a diversity of voices would be one of the Greens key principles.

Asked if new technology such as internet streaming made media ownership laws redundant, Di Natale said that may have an impact on something like the 75% reach rule but it did not make all ownership rules redundant.

When youre looking at [abolishing] the two out of three rule, youll see further concentration.

One big business will own newspapers, radio, broadcasting facilities. It can mean youll be in one part of the country and you only hear, through those platforms, one voice.

If the Greens opposed the abolition of the two-out-of-three rule, the government would need the Nick Xenophon Team, One Nation and three of the remaining five crossbench senators to pass it.

The government has promised to scrap TV licence fees in return for the networks support for a new restriction that would ban gambling ads from five minutes before the start of live play of a sporting event until five minutes after the conclusion of play, or 8.30pm.

Xenophon told Radio National on Monday it was admirable and terrific that the government had got disparate sections of the media to agree to a package that should have happened years ago. He supported scrapping licence fees, labelling them an anachronism.

Xenophon said he was concerned about media diversity but what the government has proposed is a big improvement on what they had earlier. He promised to sit down and negotiate in good faith with the government to get the best outcome, but I would be a mug to lock myself in at this stage.

Xenophon said there were additional measures that needed to be considered, because internet giants Google and Facebook received $3.2bn in ad revenue by piggy-backing off Australian media content, despite not hiring journalists.

One such measure would be a small tax break for taxpayers who subscribed to emerging publications, which he said journalists and the media union would welcome.

The anti-gambling campaigner and minor party leader welcomed the proposed gambling ad restrictions as a good first step that provided some insulation of children from gambling ads.

He said he wanted gambling ad restrictions to go further and would work to prevent the gambling industry circumventing or watering down changes.

See the article here:

Greens and One Nation concerned about proposed media ownership rules - The Guardian

Legacy of slavery: Colstons girls school, like Bristols Colston Hall, was set up with funding from Edward Colston. Photograph: View Pictures/Rex Shutterstock

I am delighted to hear of a change to the naming of Colston Hall, Bristol (Report, 27 April; Opinion, 28 April; and Letters, passim). For nine years from 1953 I attended the University of Bristol, having arrived from the West Indies where my family have lived since 1712. And, yes, they did own slaves.

In Bristol I bought The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament by Thomas Clarkson, published 1808. This is the Clarkson who, in 1785, decided to dedicate his lifes work to abolition; who travelled 35,000 miles in this pursuit, recorded the names and fates of more than 20,000 seamen who sailed on slaving ships, interviewed hundreds from all the slave ports, obtained testimonies of the atrocities from seamen, mates, surgeons and captains who had sailed in the trade, visited the ships and recorded their dimensions and collected the irons used to constrain slaves in pairs, and amassed thousands of pages of evidence.

It was Clarkson who, in 1787, formed the committee of 12 worthy citizens devoted to abolishing the trade; all but three were members of the Society of Friends, he was not. It was he who persuaded Wilberforce (not on the committee) to put their evidence to parliament.

For Jane Ghosh (Letters, 29 April) to plead in mitigation Colstons money given to build alms-houses, orphanages and schools is argument of the same moral framework as if a man raped a tourist and stole their money to pay for surgery to the face of his disfigured girlfriend. More pertinent would have been to apply these vast sums to the benefit of the towns and peoples of West Africa, and that would be small recompense. As suggested by Philip Colston Robins (Letters, 1 May) the creation of a Colston development fund to provide aid to the nations most affected by the slave trade would be an excellent start.

To rename the building Clarkson Hall, complete with explanatory plaque, would simultaneously promote the importance of the under-recognised Thomas Clarkson and diminish the over-extolled Edward Colston, while expanding historical awareness. Louis Quesnel Manchester

Perhaps the answer to the conundrum of the buildings named after slave exploiters with other historic roles (Renamed and shamed, 29 April) is to keep the name but display a black plaque stating: The person after whom this building was named made large profits from the organisation or exploitation of slavery. Celebrity and infamy both given due credit. Bryn Jones Bath

Alex Faulkner (Letters, 1 May) draws attention to Peros Bridge in Bristol. On a bleak stretch of Morecambe Bay south of Heysham, marked by a way-sign and a plaque, can be found another such memorial, Sambos grave. Sambo, whose single name regrettably became the archetype of the caricature African, was a cabin-boy who died on arrival at Sunderland Point (Lancasters port) in 1736, only to be banished to this lonely spot for burial as he wasnt a Christian.

Much more could be done to commemorate the downtrodden of the past, but it would be folly to try to rewrite history by airbrushing out the oppressor class and, after all, oppression has hardly gone away, it just manifests differently. We should learn, not forget. Anthony Cheke Oxford

The reaction to the re-naming of Colston Hall misses the somewhat pragmatic points that Louise Mitchell of Bristol Music Trust cant ignore: as a venue that relies on subsidy and fundraising, from Arts Council, local authorities, sponsors, trusts and foundations, the redeveloped building cant have artists or audiences boycotting the venue. It has no choice but to be inclusive and encompassing for both public policy and income-earning reasons.

Having said that, it is the right thing to do, to look forward, and not back. Roger Tomlinson Coton, Cambridge

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Black plaques for slaver philanthropists? | Letters | World news | The ... - The Guardian

WASHINGTON, D.C. Life is winning in America, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told attendees at a pro-life gala on Wednesday evening in Washington, D.C.

Life is winning through the steady advance of so many areas of science that provide a glimpse at the unborn baby in the womb, the vice president said, through the generosity of millions of adoptive families, and through the compassionate caregivers and volunteers at crisis pregnancy centers and faith-based organizations, who minister to women in cities and towns across America.

Compassion is overcoming convenience, hope is defeating despair, he said.

Pence delivered the keynote address at the 10th annual gala of the Susan B. Anthony List on May 3rd in Washington, D.C.

The pro-life group honored Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) with the Marilyn Musgrave Defender of Life Award, and Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of The Federalist Society, with the 2017 Distinguished Leader Award.

SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser, in a statement, praised Blacks tireless efforts to investigate and defund Planned Parenthood, the nations #1 abortion business, and redirect their taxpayer dollars to real, comprehensive health care for women.

Black sponsored a joint resolution, ultimately signed by President Trump, that nullified an Obama administration rule which pro-life leaders had called the Presidents parting gift to the abortion industry. Blacks resolution allowed states to, once again, block clinics from receiving federal Title X grants if they performed abortions.

Vice President Pence had cast the tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate to ensure the passage of the resolution.

Leo, meanwhile, was credited for his work to help the Trump administration nominate Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a pick that pro-life leaders applauded.

SBA List highlighted Pences past pro-life record as a U.S. congressman and as governor of Indiana, sponsoring more than two dozen pro-life bills in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as signing pro-life legislation into law in his state.

He also became the first sitting vice president to address the March for Life, this past January.

White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway briefly addressed the gala attendees at the beginning of Wednesdays event, thanking them for their help in defending human life and promising that more would be done by the administration to protect life.

Pence, in his keynote speech, emphasized that life is winning in many ways, including through the quiet counsel between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, he continued, friends across kitchen tables.

He exhorted those in attendance to carry on the work of Susan B. Anthony, known for her activism for the abolition of slavery, womens suffrage and womens rights, and temperance. Let us strive with all our might to finish the work that Susan B. Anthony started, he said.

Susan B. Anthony fought against injustices, too many of which still survive to this day, Pence said, and abortion is the worst of them.

I truly believe that weve come to a pivotal moment in the life of this movement, the life of our nation, he said, asking those in attendance to continue to stand up and speak out.

We need every ounce of your energy and enthusiasm, he said. We need your prayers.

The recent passage of Blacks joint resolution was only the beginning of the fight, Pence said, and were going to see that fight all the way through.

Read more:

Science, compassion, adoption why Mike Pence says 'life is winning' in America - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

Australias abolition of skilled work visas could unfairly affect international students who have spent years studying with the intent to work in the country, say advocates and students.

Students who entered the country before November 2011 could be left marooned by the sudden changes the so-called 457 visa without a valid avenue to work in Australia.

Most international students rely on 485 Temporary graduate visas to commence work in Australia after their degrees, but applicants under the visas unskilled post-study work stream are ineligible for 485 visas if they entered the country before November 2011.

The largest number of international students come from China and India, with Chinese making up almost 30 per cent of all foreign students enrolled in Australia in 2016.

Dhaval Shukla, a spokesperson for international postgraduate students at the University of Sydney, said 457 was the lifeline for students who did not fall into other common visa categories such as the temporary graduate visa (485) or skilled visas (189 or 190).

As soon as the announcement was made, I started getting emails from students who either entered the country before November 2011 or whose degree wasnt listed.

Its not fair on them for six years theyve been paying the fees applicable for international students. Theyve dedicated their lives to studying in Australia and all of a sudden theyre expected to leave the country and go off.

Fiona, who spoke on the condition of a pseudonym, is an American student who came to Australia in 2010 for a masters degree in media and film studies. After moving on to a PhD, she found herself caught out by the 457 and citizenship changes.

Ive been here for seven years, she said. I love Australia so much I want to join the military and contribute in that capacity. But for some of us, 457 was our only pathway to stay.

Were the ones who have spent the most money in this country. Weve contributed. I volunteered for Legacy, which raises money for veterans. I volunteered during elections.

I gave my loyalty to Australia and I feel like Im being punished for coming early, or at the wrong time. For those of us caught in the middle, they should have given us something.

Shukla said he has spoken to a student who entered Australia in 2002 as a child and is now barred by the change.

One student came to Australia with her mother when she was six or seven, 15 years ago, just for a year while her mother was studying, he said.

She did a year of schooling, then came back to do a masters in international relations, looking to work in NGO aid in Australia. Now shell have to go back to her home country. Its a special circumstance, but the government does not consider special circumstances.

Fiona said in order to join the military, she suddenly faced a 10-year wait for citizenship, under new rules that require four years of permanent residence announced by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

Youre sitting on bridging visas for two years, maybe four years, Fiona said.

Then permanent resident. Then four years until citizenship.

For me, thats a really long pathway for wanting to contribute to this country. Especially since Ive already been here for seven years. I am chomping at the bit to participate in Australian civil life, but I cant do that by waiting five years, under the old rules, and now theyre saying I have to wait another four.

Laurie Berg, a researcher in immigration and labour law at the University of Technology Sydney, said the changes represent a trend of pushing students towards temporary visas.

Theres an ever-decreasing number of pathways, she said.

The increasing work experience requirements will disadvantage students, as well as the decreased number of occupations. Its already been the case for some time that it is very hard to move from a student visa directly on to permanent residence.

There were roughly 6,000 applicants for the 457 visa from holders of student visas in the last financial year, which is under 10 per cent of 457 grants. From what I understand, the changes mean doctoral students will be hit hardest as there isnt another student visa for them to move on to and they wont have the work experience for other visas.

The post-study work stream of the 485 visa lets students live and work in Australia for two years after completing a bachelors degree, three after a masters and four after a doctorate.

Shukla said the changes added to the stress international students suffer in Australia.

Lets not forget, right from day one when international students apply for student visas, we face huge issues. We pay higher costs than domestic students at least $60,000 for two years if youre being modest. In states like New South Wales we have no travel subsidies and a higher cost of living. The problems are many and the 457 changes just added to it.

More here:

International students in Australia could be marooned by abolition of '457 visa' - South China Morning Post

If the renewables industry is a little anxious about the massive pipeline of projects to be built this year and next, the Turnbull Governments abolishment in April of 457 visas would have sent a chill up its spine.

The reforms, which will be phased in by March 2018, will see the 457 visa replaced with the Temporary Skills Shortage visa to prioritise Australian workers, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection says. (And to appeal to Pauline Hansons supporters, some in the media have assumed.)

Its too early to suggest the changes will put the brakes on the transition to renewables by slowing the deployment of solar and wind plants, but it sometimes pays to be a bit scared.

Lets go on a worst-case scenario, where engineers are no longer allowed in, says Michael Green, director of Sydney-based specialist renewable energy recruiter Bradman Energy & Carbon. Lets face it, if you take engineering out of renewables thats half the sector gone.

The new visa is split into two categories: short term and long term, each with its own list of eligible occupations. The Short-term Skilled Occupations List, for roles up to two years, and will be updated every six months based on advice from the Department of Employment. The Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, for up to four years entry, contains occupations assessed as being of high value to the economy.

Green says the local market for skilled workers is beginning to thin out.

Up until now employers in renewables have had the comfort of saying I just want renewables experience, and they get it, he says. Theyre still saying that, but locally available talent has just about dried up.

Its a good time for Australians who ventured overseas to chase jobs when the sector went quiet during Tony Abbotts reign to return, he says. Renewables workers from around the world who have previous experience in Australia will also be tempted back. Were soaking up people like that, says Green, who recently placed a German technician with more experience clocked up in Europe than during his previous stint down under. Theyve just gone to where the good work is were attracting those types of applicants now.

The next step is to weigh the merits of people with great supporting skills but no experience in renewables. Thats where well have to go, he says. Experience in construction is what holds applicants in good stead, he says, and it doesnt matter whether that was earned in mining, oil or gas.

I interview people a lot who came from another sector but have built their first wind farm and done it on budget and on time. The clients who have insisted on renewables experience only will be fairly easy to shift into being a bit more open towards the backgrounds of the people they look at.

What does the change in red tape mean for engineering, procurement and construction companies that are gearing up for a long-hoped-for boom in investment? So far, not much. The list of occupations that allowed entry to Australia under the 457 regime has been cut from 651 to 435 for the Temporary Skills Shortage visa class. Luckily, engineering and electrical skills still make the list.

Green expects international interest in Australian positions from Europe, South America and South Africa. He also recruits in Australia and around the world for positions in Asia, where he opened three years ago. Asia has proved a real gem, he says. I got in at just the right time and the business has been growing ever since.

Its easier to get foreign nationals into Asia than into Australia, he says. Indonesia has just built its first wind farm, he says. Its about to build its second.

He expects less than 10% of Australian vacancies will be affected if engineers are ever left off the list of eligible skills in the future (on estimates of past client sponsorships of successful applicants). The lists of eligible occupations will be updated every six months, the Department of Immigration says, which will make long-term planning that much more risky.

Weve got a lot of people who have been underemployed a long time in this sector, so clients have been soaking that underemployment up, he says. We havent had to go overseas [to recruit].

In the short to medium term, Green says it might not be such a big deal if engineers for example are left off the list of eligible occupations. Weve got enough engineers with complementary skills [in Australia], he says. If you can build some kind of gas-fired plant [for example], you can build a wind farm all they need to be given is the opportunity.

The list of eligible occupations can be found here.

Original post:

Will the abolition of 457 visas throw a spanner in $7.4bn of clean energy projects? - EcoGeneration

By Michael Bonner mbonner@s-t.com

NEW BEDFORD Loose straws discarded from their original cup and lid, cigarette butts and plastic bottles littered the green space across from the New Bedford Historical Society on Wednesday.

Lee Blake, the Society's president, envisions a much different description a year from now for the plot of land at the corner of Seventh and Spring streets.

You have this wonderful opportunity to tell the story of the abolition movement and the work that blacks and whites did to protect each other and to protect self-emancipated blacks that came to the city, Blake said.

By the start of summer 2018, trees, kiosks, benches and a gazebo will replace the litter as part of the design for Emancipation Park as it's named on the rendered drawings. A meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at 83 Spring St. to discuss plans for whats called Abolition Row Park.

The $190,000 project, to be funded by the New Bedford Historical Society, is meant to create a small park with the mission of telling the story of abolitionists who once lived in the neighborhood.

According to Blake, 17 abolitionists at one time called the area home.

Its an education garden because it will tell the story of the neighborhood, Blake said.

In January, the New Bedford Historical Society received a $40,000 grant from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.

Blake said the Historical Society has already received donations to complement the grant, but more funding is needed.

We were really lucky because the historical society has been working with communities around the country because 2018 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass, Blake said.

According to Historical Society website, Douglass made his way to New Bedford in 1838 via the Underground Railroad after escaping from slavery. In New Bedford, he was helped byNathan and Polly Johnson, African American abolitionists, and he and his wife Anna began their life together, raising their young family here.

Douglass quickly rose to prominence as an abolitionist and anti-slavery speaker and each February, the Society recognizes his contributions at an annual Read-a-thon.

The design plans for the parl show a "Frederick Douglass bench" with a Little Free Library. The plans also list a North Star Gazebo and an Outdoor Room Educational Exhibits.

A wrought iron fence will surround the perimeter of the park and Adinkra symbols will accompany the greenery in the garden.

COGdesign, a nonprofit in Cambridge that provides pro-bono landscaping designs, developed plans for the park.

COGdesign chose this project, despite its distance from Boston, because of the historic significance of the place and the potential for public learning that the historical society is providing, said Jean Krasnow, who sits on the Board of Directors of COGdesign.

Blake said the plot had been vacant since a 2009 fire destroyed the building on it in. The New Bedford Historical Society has worked to gain ownership of the land for seven years before finally purchasing the piece of land about six months ago.

We wanted to make sure that the land across the street was important to how New Bedford saw the role of Frederick Douglass, Blake said.

Follow Michael Bonner on Twitter @MikeBBonnerSCT.

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Design of Abolition Row Park in New Bedford to be discussed today - SouthCoastToday.com

In the Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, boudin is a food entrenched in the history of colonization and slavery. Melissa Banigan hide caption

In the Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, boudin is a food entrenched in the history of colonization and slavery.

The making of boudin is a visceral, bloody and time-consuming process in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe. Boudin a name that comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "sausage" was first recorded in ancient Greece by a cook named Aphtonite. A variation of it was mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as a stomach filled with blood and fat roasted over a fire.

Halfway around the world and thousands of years later, boudin was brought to some of the Caribbean islands by colonists. Yet unlike in mainland Europe, every bite retraces the dark history of colonization, the celebration of the abolition of slavery and postcolonial culture in Guadeloupe.

In the territory's beach town of Gosier, Pascal Maxo makes two kinds of boudin, using recipes that have been in his family for generations. Artistry is required in making the fortifying, iron-rich stuff, and there's no rushing the job.

To prepare, Maxo first heads to the butcher to buy a vat of fresh pig's blood, the main ingredient of boudin rouge Antillais (Antillean red boudin). If using blood as an ingredient seems strange, one must remember that historically, the slaughter of a pig was an infrequent event. Cooking blood, which otherwise would go bad quickly in the days before refrigeration, was a way to use every part of the precious animal from tail to snout.

Making boudin is messy and bloody work and involves teamwork. Melissa Banigan hide caption

Making boudin is messy and bloody work and involves teamwork.

It takes Maxo two full days to make boudin rouge Antillais. At the crack of dawn on Day 1, he sets up a couple of long tables on the veranda of his home, which sits on a verdant hillside that rolls gently downward toward the Caribbean Sea. Making boudin is tedious and messy work, and three of Maxo's friends join him to labor over the process. A large pot of water is heated over an outdoor stove, and a station is set up for spices.

Boudin rouge Antillais resembles a Creole version made in Louisiana, but one of its spices, graine de bois d'inde (seed of wood from India), is endemic to the West Indies and really sets the sausage on its own pedestal. The seed grows on Pimenta racemosa trees, and like many spices and fruits grown in the Caribbean islands, it is macerated in rum before being ground into a powder.

Rum, an alcohol produced from sugar, has a dark history. Christopher Columbus couldn't possibly have foreseen how sugar would become "white gold" when he first brought sugar cane seedlings with him on his second voyage to what he called the "New World" in 1493. By the early 1600s, sugar cane was brought by the Dutch to the Caribbean islands, forever changing the islands' fates.

Pascal Maxo and one of his friends dig into a bucket of bread that has been softened in water. The bread is used in both kinds of boudin made by Maxo. Melissa Banigan hide caption

Pascal Maxo and one of his friends dig into a bucket of bread that has been softened in water. The bread is used in both kinds of boudin made by Maxo.

Indigenous peoples were enslaved and forced to work on the burgeoning sugar plantations, and diseases introduced by colonizers from Europe and Africa wiped out entire communities. The "Triangular Trade" quickly developed among Africa, the Caribbean islands and the New England coast of what would become the United States, and indigenous peoples were replaced by African slaves to keep up with the growing demand for sugar.

Toward the end of the 1700s and well into the next century, ending slavery involved battles and revolutions. The British, Swedish and French took turns swapping control of the territory, and in the midst of all the changing hands, during the French Revolution the territory's governor emancipated all people living as slaves. This emancipation, however, was short-lived as the French army fought to regain control of the territory. Unwilling to once again be subjugated, a mulatto officer in the resistance movement named Louis Delgrs led an uprising of 800 against the French army in 1802. Overtaken by soldiers, but unwilling to surrender, Delgrs and up to 500 followers, both men and women, shouted "Vivre libre ou mourir!" ("Live free or die!") just moments before lighting a large store of gunpowder, effectively committing suicide while taking out many French troops.

Maxo drops coils of boudin into boiling water, then strings them over a clothesline to dry. Melissa Banigan hide caption

Maxo drops coils of boudin into boiling water, then strings them over a clothesline to dry.

Although Napoleon reinstated slavery, it didn't last long and was abolished in Guadeloupe in 1848, at which point indentured servants from Tamil, India, were brought to the territory to work in the sugar cane fields. Today, the territory is still reeling from colonialism and slavery. Bks, or "white people born in the Antilles," are the descendants of the earliest European colonizers in the French Caribbean. Despite being the minority, they still own much of the land and local industry, and deep racial and ethnic inequities prompted low-income workers to strike throughout the French Caribbean in 2009. Agreements were made with the government that ended the strike, but tensions remain high.

Unlike typical boudin from European countries or the southern United States, Guadeloupe's version blends spices some of them infused with rum made in the area from Africa, Europe, India and the Caribbean. Each family uses a different mlange in its recipes, and Maxo's family is no exception.

Maxo and his friends carefully prepare a mixture of blood, spices and bread that has been softened in water, then push the blend slowly through a large metal funnel into casings that are tied off into sausages. Despite using clean towels to mop up, blood still pools over the table and onto the floor. The twisted ropes of sausage are reminiscent of wet entrails, and the smell of blood in the tropical heat is heavy and pervasive. Maxo drops heavy coils of boudin into boiling water and then strings them up over a clothesline to dry.

Midmorning, Maxo turns on some music and breaks out a few snacks ham, cornichons and ti punch, a rum drink made with a touch of sugar and lime. Each of the four boudin-makers has a different job. One person fills the funnel, another fills the casings, a third ties off the individual boudin, and the last is a floater who does anything else that needs doing. When one person tires of a job, a friend steps in. When the boudin are finally finished in the early afternoon, the area is cleaned and prepared for the next day.

Boudin blanc Antillais (Antillean white boudin) differs from blood sausage in that it's typically made from a porridge of milk, bread and meats such as chicken or ham. Maxo, however, makes his boudin blanc from fish, one of the more popular foods in the territory. Although he enjoys a spicy boudin, his wife, Frdrique, who was raised in mainland France, prefers hers a little less fiery.

Friends and family gather just days after the boudin is prepared. Eaten with the fingers, both varieties are soft and dense. Whereas in France, boudin rouge is typically served with a light-bodied Beaujolais or Chteauneuf-du-Pape, boudin Antillais is generally washed down with un doigt of rum, and the table is often set with yellow, lime and orange plates and decorations and Madras-pattered napkins derived from Indian influence.

Although true aficionados of boudin Antillais probably don't seek out the sausage to retrace its history, each bite taken by Maxo and his friends is a savory culmination of flavors and culinary processes developed over thousands of years.

Continue reading here:

Boudin: A Story Of Sausage, Slavery And Rebellion In The ... - NPR - NPR

ALabor government would triple the fees for skilled migrants visas to work in Australia, establish a new visa for academics, set up a new training fund and establish a newindependent body to test whether jobs can be filled by Australians instead of overseas residents.

And in an escalation of tit-for-tat "Australians first" migration policies, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will accuse the Turnbull government of announcing"little more than a con job" when it announced the abolition of the 457 visa program last month.

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The decision to abolish 457 temporary work visas is presented by Malcolm Turnbull as putting the interests of Australians first.

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What were the big ticket items from this year's Victorian budget? State political editor Josh Gordon boils it down.

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The stand out listings traded on the Australian Stock Exchange captured at key moments through the day, as indicated by the time stamp in the video.

The decision to abolish 457 temporary work visas is presented by Malcolm Turnbull as putting the interests of Australians first.

The suite of prospective policy changes also include a promise that Labor in government will not sign another free trade agreement that allows local labour market testing to be waived, as the South Korean, Japanese and Chinese dealsdo.

They will be unveiled by Mr Shorten in a pre-budget address to the McKell Institute in Sydney on Wednesday.

Labor was heavily critical of the Turnbull government's new visa policies, which includedthe abolition of the 457 visa and creation of twonew temporary skills shortagevisas, tougher English language tests, stricter labour market testing, at least two years of work experience and a mandatory police check.

It argued the changes were window dressing, did not go far enough on labour market testing and also caused problems for universities and the advanced technology sector, by making it too hard to bring highly educated professionals to Australia.

The policies outlined by Labor on Wednesdayfollowthe government's package of measures, some of which will need to pass parliament, and underscore the fact that both major partieshave shifted to a more strident, nationalist position on immigration in recent months.

"With underemployment at record highs and young people across the country struggling to find work, too many employers are turning to temporary work visas to undercut local jobs, wages and conditions. It's time to change the system so locals get the first shot at local jobs," Mr Shortenwill say.

Draw It Yourself: See the full interactive quiz about how the economy has performed under the Coalition.

Under the changes, fees for temporary skilled migrant visas willincreaseto 3 per cent of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, which is currently$53,900.

That means, in practice, visa fees for temporary skilled migrants would rise to$1617 per year, $3234 for two years or $6468 for four years.

In comparison, the Turnbull government's planned visa fee hikes will see fees for the new two-year visa set at$1150, or $575 per year, and $2400 for the new four-year visa.

"This is a strong price signal to employers that they should be looking for local workers first. Under Labor, putting local workers first won't just be fairer it will be cheaper," Mr Shorten will say.

The moneyraised from the fee hike will establish the"SkillUP Training Fund" to be used to fund Labor's agenda in skills and training. The Turnbull government has also promised a greater focus onskills training as part of its new visa plans.

Theso-called "SMART" visa, designed for highly-skilled workers in theScience, Medicine, Academia, Research and Technology sector, is designed to help ensure "universities, research institutes, medical, scientific and advanced technology industries and companies and public research agenciesto bring the best and brightest here".

"The current surge in anti-intellectual, anti-scientific sentiment in great research nations offers Australia a unique opportunity to attract the world's finest minds. That's why Labor will introduce a new, four-year visa, with appropriate salary safeguards."

A new, independent Australian Skills Authority will take charge of labour market testing and create a single skills shortage occupations list, while the currentMinisterial Advisory Committee on Skilled Migration be abolished.

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Shorten Labor government would triple skilled migrant fees under visa crackdown - The Sydney Morning Herald