Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology
Recalling events that happened on this day in history.
Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
Compiled by Ulli Diemer
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July 10, 1902
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Birth of Nicolas Guillen (1902-1989), Cuban poet, writer, and political activist.
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July 10, 1904
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Rosa Luxemburg publishes her influential essay, “Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy”, sharply criticizing Lenin’s concept of a top-down, highly centralized vanguard party.
Luxemburg writes: “We can conceive of no greater danger to the Russian party than Lenin’s plan of organization. Nothing will more surely enslave a young labour movement to an intellectual elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straightjacket, which will immobilize the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a Central Committee....
The working class demands the right to make its mistakes and learn the dialectic of history.
Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”
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July 10, 1985
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French agents attack the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand, killing one person on board and sinking the ship. French President Francois Mitterand authorized the terrorist attack because Greenpeace was planning to protest France’s nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific.
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