J. Posadas
Encyclopedia
J. Posadas (occasionally referred to as Juan Posadas), was the pseudonym
of Homero Rómulo Cristalli Frasnelli, an Argentine
Trotskyist whose personal vision is usually described as Posadism.
immigrants from the Southern
town of Matera
, he gained fame playing football for Estudiantes de La Plata
in his youth. In the 1930s he worked as a shoemaker and organised a shoemakers’ and leather workers’ union in Córdoba, Argentina.
During this period he stood as a candidate for election in Buenos Aires
province for the Partido Socialista Obrero. He then joined the Partido de la Revolución Socialista, which affiliated to the Fourth International
in 1941.
n railway workers, Bolivia
n tin miners and agricultural workers in Brazil
.
When the Fourth International split in 1953, Posadas and his followers sided with Michel Pablo
and the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. By 1959, however, he and his followers were quarrelling with the leadership of the ISFI accusing them of lacking confidence in the possibility of revolution. They also differed over the issue of nuclear war
with Posadas taking the view that "War–Revolution" would "settle the hash of Stalinism
and Capitalism" and that nuclear war was inevitable and desirable as a socialist society would rise from the ashes. Posadas and his international followers, who were concentrated in Latin America
, split from the ISFI in 1962 prior to its reunification with the International Committee of the Fourth International
which formed the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
in 1962, which started using the name Fourth International (Posadist) only at a later time (in the early 1970s). At their founding conference the movement proclaimed that “Atomic war is inevitable. It will destroy half of humanity: it is going to destroy immense human riches. It is very possible. The atomic war is going to provoke a true inferno on Earth. But it will not impede Communism.”
Posadas wrote that “Nuclear war [equals] revolutionary war. It will damage humanity but it will not – it cannot – destroy the level of consciousness reached by it… Humanity will pass quickly through a nuclear war into a new human society – Socialism.”
in which it had a minor role. Posadist guerrillas fought alongside Fidel Castro
and Che Guevara
in 1959. When the Posadists split from the Fourth International in 1962 they took the Cuban section with them leaving meaning no other Trotskyist group was represented in Cuba in the 1960s.
In 1961 the Posadist section in Cuba argued that the Cuban government should forcibly expel the American military base at Guantanamo Bay
. It organised workers in the town of Guantanamo
to march on the nearby military base, a move which the Fourth International considered to be ultra-left. The demonstration irritated and alarmed some in the Cuban government which looked the other way when, in April 1961, a small Stalinist group, the Partido Socialista Popular, raided the headquarters of the Posadist group and smashed its printing press which was in the process of printing an edition of Trotsky's The Permanent Revolution
.
Guevara, when asked in an interview about this event, commented:
The Cuban Posadist section became increasingly militant and was banned by the government, Castro denonunced them as "pestilential" at the Tricontinental Congress held in January 1966. Cuban Posadists went on to claim that Castro had Guevara killed when, it turned out, he was actually in Bolivia fighting with the guerrilla movement there. Conversely, after Guevara was executed by Bolivian authorities, Posadas claimed in 1967 that Che Guevara wasn't actually dead but was being kept in prison by Castro's government.
s. If anything like UFOs existed, they could demonstate the existence of agents able to master a very sophisticated technology, something that would be compatible with what in this planet was advocated by socialism
. If UFO existed, they could be allied in addressing some of the major problems in the earth.
In his pamphlet Les Soucoupes Volantes, le processus de la matiere et de l'energie, la science et le socialisme (Flying Saucers, the process of matter and energy, science and socialism) Posadas pleaded that "“We must call upon beings from other planets when they come to intervene, to collaborate with the inhabitants of the Earth to overcome misery. We must launch a call on them to use their resources to help us.”
Posadas was also thought to have a large ego as indicated by his habit of ending his articles by exclaiming "Long live Posadas!"
This actually stemmed from the way Posadas "wrote" his documents. They were usually the transcript of speeches delivered at party events, whether with a small group of closest collaborators, or larger activities. In the early years, after Posadas has ended his speeches with some "¡Viva la Revolución Mundial!" and "¡Viva la Cuarta Internacional!" someone else would traditionally yell "¡Viva el camarada Posadas!" - all this would be duly reported in print.
In his later years Posadas led his movement into the development of various esoteric ideas that bordered on the New Age
with writings about communicating with dolphin
s and humans giving birth under water.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Homero Rómulo Cristalli Frasnelli, an Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
Trotskyist whose personal vision is usually described as Posadism.
Early life
Born in Argentina to ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
immigrants from the Southern
Mezzogiorno
The Midday is a wide definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the southern half of the Italian state, encompassing the southern section of the continental Italian Peninsula and the two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia, in addition to a large number of minor islands...
town of Matera
Matera, Italy
Matera is a town and a province in the region of Basilicata, in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Matera. The town lies athwart a small canyon, which has been eroded in the course of years by a small stream, the Gravina.- History :...
, he gained fame playing football for Estudiantes de La Plata
Estudiantes de La Plata
Club Estudiantes de La Plata , simply referred to as Estudiantes, is an Argentine professional sports club based in La Plata. The club's football team currently competes in the Primera División, where it has spent most of its history....
in his youth. In the 1930s he worked as a shoemaker and organised a shoemakers’ and leather workers’ union in Córdoba, Argentina.
During this period he stood as a candidate for election in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
province for the Partido Socialista Obrero. He then joined the Partido de la Revolución Socialista, which affiliated to the Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
in 1941.
In the Trotskyist movement
Posadas became the leader of the Latin America Bureau of the Fourth International and, under his guidance, the movement gained some influence in the region, particularly among CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n railway workers, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n tin miners and agricultural workers in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
When the Fourth International split in 1953, Posadas and his followers sided with Michel Pablo
Michel Pablo
Michel Pablo was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis , a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin.- Early activism :...
and the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. By 1959, however, he and his followers were quarrelling with the leadership of the ISFI accusing them of lacking confidence in the possibility of revolution. They also differed over the issue of nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
with Posadas taking the view that "War–Revolution" would "settle the hash of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and Capitalism" and that nuclear war was inevitable and desirable as a socialist society would rise from the ashes. Posadas and his international followers, who were concentrated in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, split from the ISFI in 1962 prior to its reunification with the International Committee of the Fourth International
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...
which formed the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
Nuclear war
The "Posadists" founded its own Fourth InternationalFourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
in 1962, which started using the name Fourth International (Posadist) only at a later time (in the early 1970s). At their founding conference the movement proclaimed that “Atomic war is inevitable. It will destroy half of humanity: it is going to destroy immense human riches. It is very possible. The atomic war is going to provoke a true inferno on Earth. But it will not impede Communism.”
- We are preparing ourselves for a stage in which before the atomic war we shall struggle for power, during the atomic war we shall struggle for power and we shall be in power]. There is no beginning… there is an end to atomic war, because atomic war is simultaneous revolution in the whole world, not as a chain reaction, simultaneous. Simultaneous doesn't mean the same day and the same hour. Great historic events should not be measured by hours or days, but by periods… The working class will maintain itself, [and] will immediately have to seek its cohesion and centralisation…
- After destruction commences, the masses are going to emerge in all countries - in a short time, in a few hours. Capitalism cannot defend itself in an atomic war except by putting itself in caves and attempting to destroy all that it can. The masses, in contrast, are going to come out, will have to come out, because it is the only way to survive, defeating the enemy… The apparatus of capitalism, police, army, will not be able to resist… It will be necessary to organise the workers' power immediately.
Posadas wrote that “Nuclear war [equals] revolutionary war. It will damage humanity but it will not – it cannot – destroy the level of consciousness reached by it… Humanity will pass quickly through a nuclear war into a new human society – Socialism.”
Cuba
The Posadist group in Cuba gained importance due to the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in which it had a minor role. Posadist guerrillas fought alongside Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
and Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
in 1959. When the Posadists split from the Fourth International in 1962 they took the Cuban section with them leaving meaning no other Trotskyist group was represented in Cuba in the 1960s.
In 1961 the Posadist section in Cuba argued that the Cuban government should forcibly expel the American military base at Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba which the United States leased for use as a coaling station following the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903. The base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas...
. It organised workers in the town of Guantanamo
Guantánamo
Guantánamo is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.Guantánamo is served by the Caimanera port and the site of a famous U.S. Naval base. The area produces sugarcane and cotton wool...
to march on the nearby military base, a move which the Fourth International considered to be ultra-left. The demonstration irritated and alarmed some in the Cuban government which looked the other way when, in April 1961, a small Stalinist group, the Partido Socialista Popular, raided the headquarters of the Posadist group and smashed its printing press which was in the process of printing an edition of Trotsky's The Permanent Revolution
Permanent Revolution
Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...
.
Guevara, when asked in an interview about this event, commented:
- "That did happen. It was an error. It was an error committed by a functionary of second rank. They smashed the plates. It should not have been done. However, we consider the Trotskyist party to be acting against the revolution. For example, they were taking the line that the Revolutionary Government is petty bourgeois, and were calling on the proletariatProletariatThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
to exert pressure on the government and even to carry out another revolutionRevolutionA revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
in which the proletariat would come to power. This was prejudicing the discipline necessary at this stage."
The Cuban Posadist section became increasingly militant and was banned by the government, Castro denonunced them as "pestilential" at the Tricontinental Congress held in January 1966. Cuban Posadists went on to claim that Castro had Guevara killed when, it turned out, he was actually in Bolivia fighting with the guerrilla movement there. Conversely, after Guevara was executed by Bolivian authorities, Posadas claimed in 1967 that Che Guevara wasn't actually dead but was being kept in prison by Castro's government.
UFOs
Beginning in 1968, Posadas also became known for his theories concerning UFOUnidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
s. If anything like UFOs existed, they could demonstate the existence of agents able to master a very sophisticated technology, something that would be compatible with what in this planet was advocated by socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. If UFO existed, they could be allied in addressing some of the major problems in the earth.
In his pamphlet Les Soucoupes Volantes, le processus de la matiere et de l'energie, la science et le socialisme (Flying Saucers, the process of matter and energy, science and socialism) Posadas pleaded that "“We must call upon beings from other planets when they come to intervene, to collaborate with the inhabitants of the Earth to overcome misery. We must launch a call on them to use their resources to help us.”
Long live Posadas!
Posadist newspapers such as Red Flag, published by the Revolutionary Workers Party (Trotskyist) in Britain ran headlines praising Soviet cosmonauts and the launching of Chinese rockets as well as articles on local industrial disputes.Posadas was also thought to have a large ego as indicated by his habit of ending his articles by exclaiming "Long live Posadas!"
This actually stemmed from the way Posadas "wrote" his documents. They were usually the transcript of speeches delivered at party events, whether with a small group of closest collaborators, or larger activities. In the early years, after Posadas has ended his speeches with some "¡Viva la Revolución Mundial!" and "¡Viva la Cuarta Internacional!" someone else would traditionally yell "¡Viva el camarada Posadas!" - all this would be duly reported in print.
In his later years Posadas led his movement into the development of various esoteric ideas that bordered on the New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
with writings about communicating with dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s and humans giving birth under water.
External links
- Trots in Space by Matt Salusbury in Fortean Times, August 2003.
- Posadist International