Workers' Liberty

Russian and East European Stalinism collapsed in 1989-91, It was replaced not, as socialist had hoped, by working class rule, but by the capitalism of the state-looting oligarchs. The battle sketched in here, between despair and nihilism on one side and, on the other, understanding and the sense of sharp responsibility, was fought out then in the minds of many socialists.
SM 1991

“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name,” — William Morris, A Dream of John Ball [Ball, a priest, was a leader of the Peasant Rising in
England in 1381, in which he lost his life].

A. Yes, in the Century of The Lie
The greater Lies bred kings
And gun-clad Liars ruled.
In the Century of Enthroned Lies
Truth was defamed, un-natured,
Constricted, stifled, stulted.
In the Century of the Lie,
Usurping Lie acclaimed as Truth,
Determined what was true.

B. Woe to the defeated!

Ask Leon Trotsky why
Truth fell before the Lie.

A. And when the seminal, breeding Lie,
Clad in armour, fire-power, myth,
Is in command, then Truth
Alloys with obscurantists,
With priests who pray alone,
Cranks, flat-earthists, loons
Forever out of tune;
Truth blinks, maimed, ugly
In sudden helplessness,
Sovereign by right, overthrown,
Outlawed, hunted, lost,
Hiding, cold in the heather,
Afraid of the showing moon.

B. Woe to the defeated!

Ask Leon Trotsky why,
Truth fell before the malign lie!

A. Woe to the defeated!
‘Man makes his history
Not as he likes or wills,
And History makes man.’
Slowly, meanderingly,
Truth does win fast control;
What’s gone comes back again;
Though never at your call;
The beaten rise again,
Furled flags again unfurl!

B. Woe to the defeated!

No! Don’t think that there is
Some quirky god nearby
Who hoards a clean discerning
Bank of seeding Truth on loan,
Or think for consolation
That Truth has staying power
To last and claim its own:
Annulled in its own time,
Its seed drawn off, its place
Usurped, its strength unstrung,
Aligning eyes all burned out,
The vanquished banished truth
Consigned to scorning laughter
Is a bloodless shade thereafter.

A. ‘Till strong lies dry, and crack!

B. By then Time has moved on:
There is no going back!

A. Woe to the defeated!

B. Your Truth will lose its name,
Lose both its sense and shape,
If you let its time escape;
History’s rushing stream
Is not twice the same:
You cannot hone your sword,
You will not plant your flag,
By this same-stream again:
You cannot steer your craft,
You will not fight your fight,
On this same stream twice;
Truth must ride its Tide:
There is no going back!

A. Woe to the defeated!

B. And when the Lie, raw malice spent,
Sinks down on History’s tip,
Shy, limping, ghosted, blind old truth
Comes bent and shadow king
To a world the Lie has schooled
And seeded through with lies.

A. Woe to the defeated!

B. Faint echoed memories remain
Of outcast, banished Truth:
Moult words from off a theory
Whose practice stalled and failed;
Shard-bits off a perspective
That lacked the means and maps;
Shot rags from a philosophy
That could not fill its sails,
Interpreting the world
It tried and failed to shape:
Ask Leon Trotsky why
Truth fell, before the rampant Lie.

A. Woe to the defeated!

You fight the fight and lose,
But then, you’ll find your cause
Work through, not as you’d choose,
But unexpectedly,
Made strong in long adversity:
Humankind makes its history
Not as we like or will;
And History makes man.
(And you? Do what you can!)

B. Woe to the defeated!

Stern History allows
No replay matches:
There is no going back!
Where once the Lie has ruled
Late-truth will not un-sink
What lies have sunk, or prop
What cutting, levelling lies have felled,
Un-seed where lies have raped,
Re-group what lies, amok,
Have disarranged and scattered,
Un-shrivel what the Lie,
All overshadowing, shrivelled,
Or rouse our martyred dead!

A. Woe to the defeated!

And yet, new generations do
Reclaim defeated Truth,
Fight its fight once more;
And then the Truth you lost
Works its way through:
We make our history,
History makes, and remakes, us;
The beaten rise again,
The victors fall apart;
Long furled-up flags unfurl;
Know this for our new start!
(And you? Play your proper part!)

B. Woe to the defeated!

Lies make no restitution!
The Liar keeps the spoils
His heirs may sell the loot:
Starved Truth, come back, must sign
Acts of Oblivion,
Make peace with the Lie-offshoots!

A Woe to the defeated!

B. History does not atone!

Once done, your chance is gone;
The losers die alone,
Beaten, barren, sterile as stone.

A. Woe to the defeated!

Yet, we will rise again:
You fight the fight and lose,
The victors loot and breed,
The beaten fall apart.
And yet, ideas do survive,
Ideas do re-route,
Long-doldrumed flags fly;
Our cause will yet prevail:
Though mortal men and women die,
Protean Truth revives, thrives:
Transformed, renewed, replenished,
We will rise again!

B. Woe to the defeated!
Ask poor Trotsky why
Truth fled before the lie,
And tell dead Trotsky why
This is the Century of the Lie!

A. Woe to the defeated!

B. Woe to the defeated!