[Marxism] Fare dodgers, yesterday and today

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lüko Willms recalls


> I was also
> missing a clear statement on the fight which broke out in the Gare du
> Nord (North Train Station) on March 28, where a fare dodger tried to
> evade the control, which called the cops to help, and which then
> provoked a general outbreak of hatred against the cops.

Some 20 or 22 years ago, I was working for a small newspaper that was 
prepared in Buenos Aires for the Province of Santa Cruz. In that 
character, BTW, I gave the first news coverage of the "Ozone hole" 
issue in Argentina. The coverage was suggested to me by the director 
of the paper, an old journalist related to some political circles in 
Santa Cruz (remember, the southernmost conterminous continental 
province in Argentina, that is a place quite interested in what might 
the Ozone Hole bring to them).

The man, a Mr. Acosta, was a most interesting guy, with a stormy 
political past which had taken him to be, in his youth, a member of 
the Communist Party and to participate in one of the Congresses of 
the International Red Youth, which had been held in Paris during the 
late 30s.

Mr. Acosta was fond of telling this story: the Congress had been held 
under the ominous shade of the Nazi secret services, who were hunting 
some German delegates. At some moment, it was disbanded peremptorily 
by the organizers, because, it was said, the Nazi thugs had 
discovered it and the German cdes. were in the greatest danger. 
Everybody was told to take the train and go to London.

Mr. Acosta had made good friends with a German Communist of the 
Congress, and went with him, in a sense as a bodyguard, to the Gare 
du Nord (Northern Station), where the train to Victoria Station, 
London, departed. Once there, he hurried on to the coach, in fear 
that the Nazi cops would catch his friend and completely sure that 
the German cde. was following his steps at short range.

Once he was on the coach, he discovered in desperation that the 
German cde. was not with him!

Had the thugs captured his friend, had a shipwreck taken place in the 
harbour? He stepped off the carriage (the train was already on the 
point of leaving the platform) and stared at the German cde., 
paralyzed at the gates of the platform. "Come on, what are you 
doing?", he screamed.

"Got no platform ticket", was the answer, "how do you want me to get 
on board without it?"

Of course, Mr. Acosta, as per his tale, ran to the man, grabbed him 
by the sleeve and threw him into the train as a piece of luggage, 
after which he entered himself.

It is nice to see that German revolutionaries, today, defend fare 
dodgers. Or maybe this German cde. was not SO revolutionary after 
all.  Another Argentinean had been named President of such a Congress 
or organization once (maybe same Congress Acosta talked about): his 
name was Arturo Frondizi, and he became the "developmentist' 
President of 1958-62, a most revealing feature for the man who took 
to office the most "bourgeois" program ever in Argentina. His theses 
explained that there were "two kinds" of imperialism: British 
imperialism, which was expoliatory and interested in agrarian 
backwardness, and American imperialism, which was interested in 
industrialization, and that Argentina had to ally with the Americans 
in order to have their capitalists build our industrial base. From 
the Popular Fronts of the 30s to the alliance with American 
imperialism in the 60s, there was not such a great distance.

Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[No necesariamente es su autor]
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"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
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