ANTE TOMIĆ

sport j2 money culture scene video subscription ANTE TOMIĆ Ante Tomić Ante Tomić Not even in the cemetery, you see, there is no right. Kovacevic did not regret the cash to be a celebrity corpse one day A quarter of a million, the money for which a two-story house can be obtained in Slavonia, he gave in Zagreb for 15 m2 of damp basement space 8831791 Željko Puhovski / Cropix Posted: September 26, 2020 8:40 pm Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail As real estate agents jokingly repeat, whether you are buying an apartment or a house, only three things matter: location, location, and location. It’s the same when you buy a grave, the last property you’ll need. A property that you will move into when you become a property yourself, a simple rectangular hole in the ground without electricity, water, heating and wireless internet. In fact, when we mention it, we might even be able to introduce the internet, because of the younger generations. You know how bored grandchildren are when their parents bring them to their grandfather’s grave. They scurry to the side on their cell phones waiting for Mom to sweep the leaves and twigs and change the flowers in the vase, dissatisfied because they are offline. The device should be built into the monument, or maybe even put in a coffin, so that the boy is not left without Instagram and his favorite game, even in a gloomy place. Consider this add-on if you are buying a grave, Wi-Fi network 'dida87', password 'rest dying', all connected, in small letters. But above all, we have already said, look at the location. It doesn’t matter where you lie, let alone in eternity. I don’t know how much you know about eternity, you’d be amazed at how long it lasts. Strive to settle in a good neighborhood, among the finer, educated, wealthy. If you graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture in your lifetime, and in death you are looking for equals, to have a B.Sc. ing. or dr. in front of the name. Honor to everyone, both porters and drivers know how to be wonderful people, but still you don’t want to be buried next to someone with a high school diploma. You may not care, but your family won't. Create a socially stimulating environment for your loved ones, the opportunity to meet an interesting world at your last resting place on Soul Day, to make lucrative business contacts, find partners for preference or be erotically interested in the grieving granddaughter of some academic, not to fall into class discomfort with a shuffle that came to the cemetery in a tracksuit with a toothpick in its teeth. A nice example of such responsible behavior we met a few days ago, actually by accident. When Dragan Kovačević , the head of a large state-owned company, was arrested for taking bribes , the Mirogoj tomb in a privileged place, in the so-called Alley of Merited Citizens, was discovered among his vast movable and immovable property. To the left of the table tennis legend, to the right of the fearless fighter for Croatian independence, he also pushed himself into the company of famous actresses, composers, conductors and painters, who does not stand out at all. Except maybe greed. You would think that such a place cannot be bought, but only acquired by the merits with which you have indebted your country and people, but Kovačević still bought it, it is estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand kunas. A quarter of a million, the money for which a furnished two-story house with a garage, barn, barn and several hectares of gardens and orchards can be obtained in Slavonia, he gave in Zagreb for fifteen square meters of damp basement space. It may not seem particularly intelligent, but insiders claim it is worth every penny. There is a great demand for beds in better cemetery neighborhoods, among the more respectabl

KATARINA PEOVIĆ

20 years ago, we wanted to get rid of Tudjman's legacy. Why now is any questioning of his rule a heresy? Katarina Peović brought half of the Parliament to hysteria by referring to notorious facts about Tuđman, The Hague and BiH Jasmin Klarić 09/25/2020 448 RECOMMENDATIONS 8 COMMENTS This type of mirror is obviously not entirely advisable for today's Croatia to put in front of its nose. In the last two decades, Tudjman, from a ruler whose legacy (okay, okay - part of the legacy; a good part) Croatia has been trying to get rid of, has turned into a political icon that one part of the political scene unreservedly worships and another does not dare to question. Moreover, undoubtedly the most powerful politician in the last decade to the left of the HDZ, Zoran Milanovic, personally suggested in one of the campaigns that the Zagreb airport be called "Franjo Tudjman". At the beginning of the 21st century, when the HDZ first lost the elections, de-Germanization was the word of the season. Croatia trapped in the jaws of corruption, murky privatization, remorse for the war in BiH and crimes at home, lack of media freedom, non-recognition of election results, under tacit sanctions from the international community and, ultimately, a country that was fatally late on its way to European integration saw no problem in trying to get rid of the legacy personified in the character and work of the most powerful politician of the 1990s, Franjo Tudjman . Twenty years later, Franjo Tuđman and his historical and political heritage are the subject of almost religious worship in the Republic of Croatia. Any public questioning about this becomes a serious risk for verbal or actual beatings (as at the unveiling of the monument to the first president in Zagreb). TRUTH HURTS Katarina Peović, a Member of Parliament for the Workers' Front, experienced her part of the change that Croatia has gone through in those twenty years in relation to Tuđman (and, clearly, with forethought) yesterday . And only because, speaking exclusively the truth, she asked a very meaningful question: "Is the name of the new university Franjo Tudjman appropriate, given that the International Criminal Court has determined that Franjo Tudjman participated in a joint criminal enterprise?". What Peović asked, however, is a real heresy in Croatia in the third decade of the 21st century. To question the achievements of the rule of man that the majority political current after his death tried to expel from the state system as a toxic substance, today causes an allergic reaction of biblical proportions. In Parliament, representatives of the HDZ and the rest of the right were asked to ban Katarina Peović from speaking and expel her from the parliament, shouting about "the most scandalous statement in the history of the Croatian Parliament", about shame and homelessness, about the fact that Tudjman is one of the greatest Croatian sons ", that the HDZ" will not allow "the ideological heirs of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia to attack Tudjman with slanders and lies… TEXTBOOK CORRECT JANDROKOVIĆ Complete the show. It was as if someone had torn the pages of a holy book in a religious shrine and theatrically tossed them among the faithful. Fortunately, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković sounded like a textbook of democracy: "We are not here to defend others from saying what they want, it will be up to the citizens to decide," he told the angry right-wing party of the parliament, though without repeatedly repeating the disagreement. with an "unacceptable and incorrect statement" by a representative of the Workers' Front. Peović, however, was completely precise in the factual part of the statement , the International Criminal Court in the final judgment of the so-called the Herzegovinian six claimed that the first Croatian president had participated in a criminal association with the aim of ethnic cleansing of part of Herzegovina and the annexation of that territory to the Republic of Croatia. Tudjman did not have the opportunity to refute this statement in court, because he died in December 1999. THE TEXT CONTINUES AFTER THE AD Sponsored content PC to GO laptop rental: Rent quality laptops to work for a period that suits you! Midas - Native Internet Advertising MILANOVIĆEVA KAP But, this type of mirror is obviously not entirely advisable for today's Croatia to put in front of its nose. In the last two decades, Tudjman has turned from a ruler whose legacy (okay, okay - part of the legacy; a good part) Croatia has turned into a political icon that one part of the political scene unreservedly worships and another does not dare (except on rare trips, like this Katarina Peović, and it is to be guessed that this parliamentary, as Plenković would say, "debutante", will have more) will question them at all. Moreover, undoubtedly the most powerful politician in the last decade to the left of the HDZ, Zoran Milanovic , personally suggested in one of the campaigns that the Zagreb airport be called "Franjo Tudjman". What would be said in political language, a broad consensus was reached on the political legacy of the first Croatian president, and the limits of questioning the character and deeds were set almost to the very edge of legality. It is therefore very curative that someone has emerged who has simply pointed to a certain discomfort that may be caused by the appointment of the University of Defense and National Security by a man mentioned in a final judgment of the International Criminal Court in a very negative context. PRAŽETONČIĆI AND CROATIA Maybe tomorrow someone will dare to say that Franjo Tudjman, like Trump today, left room not to recognize the results of the national elections if he did not like their results. That he repeatedly refused to recognize the election results in the capital, until the HDZ provided two key "pražetončić" there (it is nice that some traditions have not been lost over time). That the first Croatian president, with indisputable merits in defense against the Greater Serbia aggression, was, in fact, the authoritarian ruler of dangerous intentions and operetta habits such as changing the name of (his) favorite football club. And what about the University of Defense and National Security? Respecting historical merits and taking into account the dark part of the rule, there is one, one would say almost as good a name as that of Franjo Tudjman - the University of Defense and National Security Josip Broz Tito . Franjo Tuđman , Jandroković , Josip Broz Tito , Katarina Peović , Workers' Front , University of Defense and National Security , Zoran Milanović Jasmin Klarić Telegram author 564 ARTICLES MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR FACEBOOK (448) TWITTER (0) E-MAIL

POBIJEDITI HRVATSKU KORUPCIJU- ZAR JE I TO MOGUĆE'1

sport j2 money culture scene video subscription AFTER 20 YEARS The longest bankruptcy in the EU is over: Workers didn't get anything, bankruptcy trustee richer by HRK 623,000 Vedran Uranija, legal representative of the workers of the Šibenik Review and their union commissioner, talks about bankruptcy By: Zlatko SimicPosted: September 26, 2020 5:49 pm Vedran Uranija Vedran Uranija Jure Miskovic / Cropix Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail 1. Mr. Uranija, as the legal representative of the workers of the Šibenik Review and their union commissioner, how did you experience the conclusion of their bankruptcy after 20 years, which makes it the longest in Europe? - I took over the representation of some of the workers of the Šibenik Review at their request a little more than seven years ago, after which we immediately undertook a large workers' union protest on the Šibenik waterfront. We asked the bankruptcy trustee and the court to pay 3.3 million kunas obtained from the sale of the old administrative building to former workers, which happened, so that 326 former workers were paid, who received a quarter of the debt of the total court-recognized 13.3 HRK million Yesterday, September 24, I experienced the express conclusion of bankruptcy as the end of the agony of former workers that has lasted for almost 20 years because it is the longest bankruptcy in the Republic of Croatia and Europe. At the same time, the conclusion of the bankruptcy at yesterday's hearing means that all relevant European norms on the length of court proceedings have been violated. 2. How is it that the longest bankruptcy is completed after 20 years in just one minute? What were you told in court? - It is unbelievable that a bankruptcy that has lasted for almost 20 years ended in just one minute. The bankruptcy judge should have explained the reasons for such a long-term bankruptcy procedure, why no buyers could be found for the company and why the remaining claims of former workers could not be settled, and at the same time the bankruptcy trustee was awarded HRK 600,000 gross in bankruptcy, nor has a buyer been found for the company. Thus, the prize is awarded for no result. 3. And what will you do now, what are your next steps? - I want to emphasize that our battle for workers' rights does not end with yesterday's express bankruptcy. On the contrary, only the first phase of the battle for workers 'rights of former workers ended yesterday, after almost 20 years, and the second phase of their battle for workers' rights begins today, ie for the payment of the remaining HRK 9.7 million in claims or at least 8 salaries. We have previously proposed on behalf of former workers that the Republic of Croatia, as the largest creditor with 65 million claims, waive part of the claims in favor of former workers. We believe that the Republic of Croatia has a moral responsibility towards the former workers of the Šibenik Review, who sewed for the Croatian army during the Croatian aggression. 4. As many as 326 workers announce that they will not give up their claims and claims of HRK 9.7 million. Is that all? - We will never give up our demands and claims to be paid the remaining HRK 9.7 million of claims. We believe that our Prime Minister Plenković and the ministers will have the hearing and social sensitivity for our proposal and appeal and will satisfy them. 5. The workers were left without kuna, and the bankruptcy trustee Ivan Rude is richer by 623,000 kuna. He told us yesterday that he could not come to court due to health problems. The workers say he did not run the bankruptcy well. What do you say? - It is really cynical for the bankruptcy trustee to receive an award of HRK 623,000 because no results were evidently achieved in the bankruptcy. The procedure took an infinitely long time, the longest in Europe, and damage was done to the state, especially to former workers, but also to other creditors. RELATED NEWS Government session 9/24/2020 GOVERNMENT SESSION Projected decline in GDP of eight percent, growth of five percent in 2021, established Expert Council for Reconstruction TRIAL Dalmacijavina workers appeal to the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia: 'The decision is illegal' 6. Rude states that a solution could be found for the company, but "when it was possible, it was not wanted, and when it was wanted, it was not possible". Where did the sales get stuck, so there were five specific offers? - Once a famous clothing company, Šibenik Revija could have worked with at least three hundred workers a long time ago if quality offers for the purchase of the company were accepted by Čakovec's Betex, Šibenik's Inter or Unešić's Djelo and Rosšport, companies that wanted to continue production, take over all workers and execute additional investments, but these quality offers were rejected for incomprehensible reasons. image The plant of the once powerful textile company Revija Nikša Stipaničev / Cropix 7. Um, “incomprehensible reasons” probably led to bankruptcy at the time? - In a way, yes. Bankruptcy occurred for classic reasons, the blocking of the company's accounts, insolvency and financial difficulties, due to which the company could not regularly settle its obligations to workers and other creditors. This happened back in 2001, before that the company was doing relatively well and solidly, but suddenly huge debts were accumulating, even though there were more than enough orders. The workers worked in regular and overtime work, so it is very strange how and why so many debts suddenly accumulated, which led to the blockade of the company and the opening of bankruptcy. 8. The management seems to have been doing its job. What solutions did you offer as a trade unionist in the bankruptcy proceedings? - I previously stated that there were quality bidders who were not accepted, and they could and had to be accepted. During as many as 24 public auctions, the Šibenik Review tried to sell itself, but without success. We proposed announcing an international tender, but the bankruptcy trustee did not accept it, so the public auctions were futile and unsuccessful. We demanded that the starting price of the company of around HRK 25 million, which eventually dropped to HRK 5 million, not be reduced in any way. We also requested that the bankruptcy trustee and the court find a mode in cooperation with the Republic of Croatia for the payment of former workers in the remaining part of the claim. But none of that. 9. Workers who sewed uniforms for the army under grenades are the biggest victims. What do they tell you? - Former workers are not only the biggest victims of bankruptcy, but in the 90s they gave everything for Croatia by working under grenades during the aggression on the Republic of Croatia, and they also lost their jobs and the majority of claims around HRK 9.7 million. They, like me, are disappointed in the rule of law. It is evident that there was a systemic error in conducting bankruptcies in the Republic of Croatia. 10. You fought for workers' rights in many bankruptcies in Zadar and Šibenik. What do they have in common, in what ways did they cheat and disenfranchise the workers? - I have fought and am fighting for workers' rights in many bankruptcies and labor disputes in Zadar and Šibenik. In many cases, over 95%, we have succeeded and continue to protect the rights of former workers in relation to their salaries and severance pay. However, if I refer to bankruptcies that were conducted under the previous law, in which the deadline for conducting bankruptcies was not limited, what they have in common is that bankruptcies have been and have been conducted for years. Back a little over three years, since the bankruptcy law was changed, the situation has changed significantly and bankruptcies can last for a maximum of two years. The primary thing is to carry out bankruptcy restructuring, find a quality buyer-investor and pay off workers' claims. The case of the Šibenik Review was conducted according to the old law, and from that case everyone must learn that something like this will never happen again, and the former workers and I will continue to uncompromisingly insist that they be paid the remaining HRK 9.7m. The Government of the Republic of Croatia is on the move, and finally we will submit an application to the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for violating the fundamental human rights of former employees of the Šibenik Review and monetary compensation.

ŠTO SE TO DOGAĐA U ZEMLJI HRVATSKE

vIŠE NEMA PRENOSA GOVORANACIJI PREDSJEDNIKADAL JE TO DRŽAVNI UDA

KORUPCIJSKE ZAVRZLANE HRVATSKE DRUŠTVENE AŽDAJE

VALUABLE ASSETS Kovacevic has 4 more apartments that he did not report, he bought one from a man in whose garage he hid money One of the newly discovered apartments is the one in Veslačka Street, near the apartment for which Minister Goran Marić resigned Writes: Jutarnji.hrPosted: September 25, 2020 8:22 pm Dragan Kovacevic (middle) Dragan Kovacevic (middle) Damir Krajač, Željko Puhovski / cropix Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail Until recently, the head of Janaf, Dragan Kovačević, has four more apartments that are not registered in his property card, although Kovačević's companies are listed as the owners of those apartments. Thus, Kovačević has a total of seven apartments in Zagreb, the value of which reaches seven million kuna. 24 sata writes that Kovačević has more property in the accounts or names of close people and that at least half a million kuna has been found in the accounts so far, although he reported as an official that he has no savings. The owners of four additional apartments are Kovačević's companies, although they have no employees, and their business is not such that they could buy expensive real estate. None of these apartments are used for business purposes. One is being rented out for the long term, while the other three stand empty, neighbors said in 24 hours . The value of these four apartments is at least 3.5 million kuna. RELATED NEWS Cottage of Dragan KovačevićVideo icon JANAF AFFAIR Kovačević's house on the hills of Zagorje: He estimated the cottage with a swimming pool at 60,000 kuna CLUB IN SLOVENIA How Kovacevic's gathering place for the elite 'did business' outside the law, the Headquarters and inspections In addition to the apartment in Branimirova, owned by Kovačević's wife, there is also an apartment and business space in Slovenia, but also a house with a swimming pool in Donja Stubica and an apartment on Ban Jelačić Square. Let us remind you that the villa with a swimming pool in Zagorje was reported by Kovačević as a 'client' and said that it was worth 60,000 kuna, while the real value was much higher. One of the newly discovered apartments is the one in Veslačka Street. The apartment is located near the apartment for which Minister Goran Marić resigned, and the apartment of director Dejan Šparavec was bought without a loan from the Alfa company , writes Index . A car was found in the garage of his villa, in the trunk of which Kovačević hid a million euros. Another apartment belongs to Kovačević's company Finkor, which has no employees or profits, and a tenant lives in it. The last two apartments are in the same building, on the corner of Harambašićeva and Livadarski put streets. USKOK will also question the owner of the Stipić real estate that built those apartments, because he was also at Kovačević's party last year in Martinje. These apartments, 24 Hours writes , are empty. Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail #Dragan Kovačević #Affair Janaf #Apartment Do you want to supplement the topic or report an error in the text? Show comments

BY ROBERT BAJRUŠI

Croatian laws apply only to bipedal oxen, Jupiters are allowed everything While eating and drinking at the Club, a farmer who went to the field was fined 8,000 kunas, and the police beat the women who were walking on Marjan Writes: Robert BajrušiPosted: September 25, 2020 7:21 pm President Zoran Milanović, building in Slovenska Street President Zoran Milanović, building in Slovenska Street Boris Kovacev / Cropix FMessWhat connects Dara Calleary , the Irish Minister of Agriculture, David Clark , the New Zealand Minister of Health, and another Irishman - Phil Hogan , the European Commissioner for Trade? All three are victims of the covida-19 pandemic. Fortunately, not in the health sense, because the trio is alive and well, but in the political sense. Namely, both Calleary and Clark and Hogan are today - former ministers. Although they were valued for their expertise, they played, so during the lockdown they went to banquets where there were more people than allowed, and that is why they are now - the former. Phil Hogan apologized and stressed that he believed he respected epidemiological measures. "It is important to say that I did not break the law. But, as a representative of the public, I had to strictly follow the instructions against the coronavirus ", he admitted in a contrite voice. “In light of the updated public health guidelines, I should not have attended the event. I want to apologize to everyone. I also apologize and express my sincere regret to my colleagues in the government, ”Calleary said. RELATED NEWS Robert Hranj NEW DETAILS He was twice the Chief of the General Staff in the Club, where he came at the invitation of the President of the Republic of Croatia CLUB IN SLOVENIA How Kovacevic's gathering place for the elite 'did business' outside the law, the Headquarters and inspections Clark did the same when he resigned, and then said that his continued performance would "hinder" the government's fight against covid-19. Croatian ministers Oleg Butković, Josip Aladrović and Tomislav Ćorić went to the Club, to Dragan Kovačević , where they ate and drank a little, without fiscal mandatory bills, socialized, played cards and listened to tamburitza players, although some of the above is legally prohibited. Let's not forget, the same was done by President Zoran Milanović, who presents himself as the supreme guardian of the Constitution and laws in Croatia. Let's add judges, heads of public companies and politicians, mostly a representation of the local pillars of society. While they were eating and drinking, the state collected a fine of 8,000 kunas for a farmer who went to his own field, and Split police officers beat women who were walking on Marjan, keeping the prescribed distance. This is Croatia and it is understood that Aladrović, Ćorić, Butković, and especially Milanović , do not think of acting like Hogan, Clark or Calleary. Croatian laws apply exclusively to bipedal oxen, while Jupiters are allowed to do anything. Political responsibility is an unknown concept.

VICTOR ORBAN ABOVE TRUMP

Viktor Orban convinced of Trump's victory, there is no plan B if the outcome is different Orban backed Trump earlier this week, saying his democratic rival is pursuing "moral imperialism" in the world Writes: HinaPosted: September 25, 2020 5:39 pm Viktor Orban Viktor Orban Michal Cizek / AFP Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that he was convinced of Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election in November, adding that there was no Plan B if the outcome was different. "The only reason I'm sitting here after spending 30 years in politics is because I always believe in my Plan A," Orban told Reuters. "We have an extremely good relationship with Trump. The level of openness and friendship and mutual help will be lower (if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins). But my calculation is OK. He (Trump) will win!" Orban backed Trump earlier this week, saying his democratic rival is pursuing "moral imperialism" in the world. The Hungarian prime minister has clashed with the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama over what critics call the erosion of democratic standards in his country. Asked how Trump's victory would affect the EU, Orban said it would be a blow to those who see the Union as a community built around its institutions.

ČUVAJ SE VRAGA KOJI SE KAJE

WRITTEN APOLOGY Kim Jong-un did something really unusual for him: 'This is a shame, I'm so sorry ...' In the letter, Kim Jong un said he understood the great pressure due to the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic Writes: Jutarnji.hrPosted: September 25, 2020 5:32 pm 8848789 Jung Yeon-je / AFP Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did something truly unusual for him: he made a personal apology for the murder of a South Korean official. Kim reportedly told South Korean President Moon Jae-in that the embarrassing affair should not have happened, reports the BBC . South Korea said a 47-year-old man was found in North Korean waters, after which he was shot by North Korean soldiers and his body burned. It is not yet known what the man was doing there. The North Korean government says he may have tried to flee North Korea, but his family denied the possibility. This is the first killing of a South Korean civilian by North Korea in ten years, and has sparked outrage in South Korea. The border between the two Koreas is under strict control, and the north is believed to have a policy of killing anyone trying to enter the country to prevent a coronavirus outbreak. The apology arrived in the form of a letter to President Moon Jae-in. The letter acknowledges that the incident should not have happened, according to the South Korean presidential office, also known as the Blue House. Kim Jong-un called the incident 'shameful' and said he was very sorry that Moon and other South Koreans were so disappointed. It was the first comment from North Korea on this event. North Korea also gave South its investigation results. More than 10 bullets were fired at the man as he entered North Korean waters without revealing his identity. Then he tried to escape. RELATED NEWS Kim Jong Un 'WE ARE SORRY' This doesn't happen often, Kim Jong-Un apologized for killing the South Korean: 'It's the crown's fault!' 'BRUTAL ACT' North Korean soldiers shoot and burn South Korean official, Seoul furious: 'He will answer' Still, North Korea says they did not burn his body but the ‘floating material’ on which he was. "Troops were unable to locate the perpetrator during the search after the shooting, and his vehicle was burned due to national measures to prevent infectious diseases," North Korea said. The Presidential Office in Seoul has decided to publish the correspondence of the Korean leaders. In the letter, Kim Jong un said that he understands the great pressure due to the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as due to the damage from the recent typhoon. He added that he sympathizes with the pain and suffering of the people of South Korea. This incident could have been catastrophic and killed all hopes of re-establishing talks between Moon and Kim, but many South Korean people will not so easily forgive and forget. They are shocked and outraged by the brutal killing of an unarmed civilian in North Korean waters, which is just another reminder of North Korea’s often ruthless regime. The BBC writes that it should also be mentioned that North Korea's report on this murder does not match the details provided by South Korean officials. However, this rare personal apology from Kim Jong-un may still alleviate the anger. Were it not for that apology, Kim's letter to Moon would have been useless. By trying to smooth over the situation, Kim seems to have expressed his willingness to continue the talks. #North Korea #Kim Jong Un #Moon Jae-In #South Korea #Murder # Apology Do you want to supplement the topic or report an error in the text? Show comments

REFORM OR REVOLUTION by DANIEL DE LEON

REFORM OR REVOLUTION? by Daniel DeLeon An address delivered at Wells’ Memorial Hall, Boston, Mass., January 26, 1896 Mr. Chairman and Workingmen of Boston: I have got into the habit of putting two and two together, and drawing my conclusions. When I was invited to come to Boston, the invitation reached me at about the same time as an official information that a reorganization of the party was contemplated in the city of Boston. I put the two together and I drew the conclusion that part of the purpose of the invitation was for me to come here to tell you upon what lines we in New York organized, and upon what lines we “wicked” Socialists of New York and Brooklyn gave the capitalist class last November the 16,000-vote black eye. ORGANIZATION It has become an axiom that, to accomplish results, organization is requisite. Nevertheless, there is “organization” and “organization." That this is so appears clearly from the fact that the “pure-and-simplers” have been going about saying to the workers: “Organize! Organize!” and after they have been saying that, and have been “organizing” and “organizing” for the past thirty or forty years, we find that they are virtually where they started, if not worse off; that their “organization” partakes of the nature of the lizard, whose tail destroys what his foreparts build up. I think the best thing I can do to aid you in organizing is to give you the principles upon which the Socialist sections of New York and Brooklyn are organized. To do that I shall go back to basic principles, and in explaining to you the difference there is between reform and revolution, I shall be able, step by step, to point out how it is we are organized, and how you ought to be. I shall assume”it is a wise course for a speaker to adopt—that none in this audience knows what is “reform” and what is “revolution." Those who are posted will understand me all the better; those who are not will follow me all the easier. We hear people talk about the “reform forces,” about “evolution” and about “revolution” in ways that are highly mixed. Let us clear up our terms. Reform means a change of externals; revolution”peaceful or bloody, the peacefulness or the bloodiness of it cuts no figure whatever in the essence of the question”means a change from within. REFORM Take, for instance, a poodle. You can reform him in a lot of ways. You can shave his whole body and leave a tassel at the tip of his tail; you may bore a hole through each ear, and tie a blue bow on one and a red bow on the other; you may put a brass collar around his neck with your initials on, and a trim little blanket on his back; yet, throughout, a poodle he was and a poodle he remains. Each of these changes probably wrought a corresponding change in the poodle’s life. When shorn of all his hair except a tassel at the tail’s tip he was owned by a wag who probably cared only for the fun he could get out of his pet; when he appears gaily decked in bows, probably his young mistress’ attachment is of tenderer sort; when later we see him in the fancier’s outfit, the treatment he receives and the uses he is put to may be yet again and probably are, different. Each of these transformations or stages may mark a veritable epoch in the poodle’s existence. And yet, essentially, a poodle he was, a poodle he is and a poodle he will remain. That is reform. REVOLUTION But when we look back myriads of years, or project ourselves into far -- future physical cataclysms, and trace the development of animal life from the invertebrate to the vertebrate, from the lizard to the bird, from the quadruped and mammal till we come to the prototype of the poodle, and finally reach the poodle himself, and so forward”then do we find radical changes at each step, changes from within that alter the very essence of his being, and that put, or will put, upon him each time a stamp that alters the very system of his existence. That is revolution. So with society. Whenever a change leaves the internal mechanism untouched, we have reform; whenever the internal mechanism is changed, we have revolution. Of course, no internal change is possible without external manifestations. The internal changes denoted by the revolution or evolution of the lizard into the eagle go accompanied with external marks. So with society. And therein lies one of the pitfalls into which dilettantism or “reforms” invariably tumble. They have noticed that externals change with internals; and they rest satisfied with mere external changes, without looking behind the curtain. But of this more presently. We Socialists are not reformers; we are revolutionists. We Socialists do not propose to change forms. We care nothing for forms. We want a change of the inside of the mechanism of society, let the form take care of itself. We see in England a crowned monarch; we see in Germany a sceptered emperor; we see in this country an uncrowned president, and we fail to see the essential difference between Germany, England or America. That being the case, we are skeptics as to forms. We are like grown children, in the sense that we like to look at the inside of things and find out what is there. One more preliminary explanation. Socialism is lauded by some as an angelic movement, by others it is decried as a devilish scheme. Hence you find the Gomperses blowing hot and cold on the subject; and Harry Lloyd, with whose capers, to your sorrow, you are more familiar than I, pronouncing himself a Socialist in one place, and in another running Socialism down. Socialism is neither an aspiration of angels nor a plot of devils. Socialism moves with its feet firmly planted in the ground and its head not lost in the clouds; it takes science by the hand, asks her to lead and goes whithersoever she points. It does not take science by the hand, saying: “I shall follow you to the end of the road if it please me.” No! It takes her by the hand and says: “Whithersoever thou leadest, thither am I bound to go.” The Socialists, consequently, move as intelligent men; we do not mutiny because, instead of having wings, we have arms, and cannot fly as we would wish. What then, with an eye single upon the differences between reform and revolution, does Socialism mean? To point out that, I shall take up two or three of what I may style the principal nerve centers of the movement. GOVERNMENT”THE STATE One of these principal nerve centers is the question of “government” or the question of the “State.” How many of you have not seen upon the shelves of our libraries books that treat upon the “History of the State"; upon the “Limitations of the State"; upon “What the State Should do and What It Should Not Do"; upon the “Legitimate Functions of the State,” and so on into infinity? Nevertheless, there is not one among all of these, the products, as they all are, of the vulgar and superficial character of capitalist thought, that fathoms the question or actually defines the “State.” Not until we reach the great works of the American Morgan, of Marx and Engels, and of other Socialist philosophers, is the matter handled with that scientific lucidity that proceeds from facts, leads to sound conclusions and breaks the way to practical work. Not until you know and understand the history of the “State” and of “government” will you understand one of the cardinal principles upon which Socialist organization rests, and will you be in a condition to organize successfully. We are told that “government” has always been as it is today and always will be. This is the first fundamental error of what Karl Marx justly calls capitalistic vulgarity of thought. When man started on his career, after having got beyond the state of the savage, he realized that cooperation was a necessity to him. He understood that together with others he could face his enemies in a better way than alone; he could hunt, fish, fight more successfully. Following the instructions of the great writer Morgan”the only great and original American writer upon this question”we look to the Indian communities, the Indian settlements, as a type of the social system that our ancestors, all of them, without exception, went through at some time. The Indian lived in the community condition. The Indian lived under a system of common property. As Franklin described it, in a sketch of the history and alleged sacredness of private property, there was no such thing as private property among the Indians. They cooperated, worked together, and they had a central directing authority among them. In the Indian communities we find that central directing authority consisting of the “sachems.” It makes no difference how that central directing authority was elected; there it was. But note this: its function was to direct the cooperative or collective efforts of the communities and, in so doing, it shared actively in the productive work of the communities. Without its work, the work of the communities would not have been done. When, in the further development of society, the tools of production grew and developed”grew and developed beyond the point reached by the Indian; when the art of smelting iron ore was discovered; when thereby that leading social cataclysm, wrapped in the mists of ages, yet discernible, took place that rent former communal society in twain along the line of sex, the males being able, the females unable, to wield the tool of production”then society was cast into a new mold; the former community, with its democratic equality of rights and duties, vanishes and a new social system turns up, divided into two sections, the one able, the other unable, to work at production. The line that separated these two sections, being at first the line of sex, could, in the very nature of things, not yet be sharp or deep. Yet, notwithstanding, in the very shaping of these two sections”one able, the other unable, to feed itself”we have the first premonition of the classes, of class distinctions, of the division of society into the independent and the dependent, into master and slaves, ruler and ruled. Simultaneously, with this revolution we find the first changes in the nature of the central directing authority, of that body whose original function was to share in, by directing, production. Just as soon as economic equality is destroyed and the economic classes crop up in society, the functions of the central directing authority gradually begin to change, until finally, when, after a long range of years, moving slowly at first and then with the present hurricane velocity under capitalism proper, the tool has developed further, and further, and still further, and has reached its present fabulous perfection and magnitude; when, through its private ownership, the tool has wrought a revolution within a revolution by dividing society, no longer along the line of sex, but strictly along the line of ownership or non-ownership of the land on and the tool with which to work; when the privately owned, mammoth tool of today has reduced more than fifty-two per cent of our population to the state of being utterly unable to feed without first selling themselves into wage slavery, while it at the same time saps the ground from under about thirty-nine per cent of our people, the middle class, whose puny tools, small capital, render them certain victims of competition with the large capitalist, and makes them desperate; when the economic law that asserts itself under the system of private ownership of the tool has concentrated these private owners into about eight per cent of the nation’s inhabitants, has thereby enabled this small capitalist class to live without toil, and to compel the majority, the class of the proletariat, to toil without living; when, finally, it has come to the pass in which our country now finds itself, that, as was stated in Congress, ninety-four per cent of the taxes are spent in “protecting property”—the property of the trivially small capitalist class—and not in protecting life; when, in short, the privately owned tool has wrought this work, and the classes”the idle rich and the working poor”are in full bloom”then the central directing authority of old stands transformed; its pristine functions of aiding in, by directing, production have been supplanted by the functions of holding down the dependent, the slave, the ruled, i.e., the working class. Then, and not before, lo, the State, the modern State, the capitalist State! Then, lo, the government, the modern government, the capitalist government”equipped mainly, if not solely, with the means of suppression, of oppression, of tyranny! In sight of these manifestations of the modern State, the anarchist -- the rose-water and the dirty-water variety alike”shouts: “Away with all central directing authority; see what it does; it can only do mischief; it always did mischief!” But Socialism is not anarchy. Socialism does not, like the chicken in the fable, just out of the shell, start with the knowledge of that day. Socialism rejects the premises and the conclusions of anarchy upon the State and upon government. What Socialism says is: “Away with the economic system that alters the beneficent functions of the central directing authority from an aid to production into a means of oppression.” And it proceeds to show that, when the instruments of production shall be owned no longer by the minority, but shall be restored to the Commonwealth; that when, as a result of this, no longer the minority or any portion of the people shall be in poverty and classes, class distinctions and class rule shall, as they necessarily must, have vanished, that then the central directing authority will lose all its repressive functions and is bound to reassume the functions it had in the old communities of our ancestors, become again a necessary aid, and assist in production. The Socialist, in the brilliant simile of Karl Marx, sees that a lone fiddler in his room needs no director; he can rap himself to order, with his fiddle to his shoulder, and start his dancing tune, and stop whenever he likes. But just as soon as you have an orchestra, you must also have an orchestra director”a central directing authority. If you don’t, you may have a Salvation Army powwow, you may have a Louisiana Negro breakdown; you may have an orthodox Jewish synagogue, where every man sings in whatever key he likes, but you won’t have harmony—impossible. It needs this central directing authority of the orchestra master to rap all the players to order at a given moment; to point out when they shall begin; when to have these play louder, when to have those play softer; when to put in this instrument, when to silence that; to regulate the time of all and preserve the accord. The orchestra director is not an oppressor, nor is his baton an insignia of tyranny; he is not there to bully anybody; he is as necessary or important as any or all of the members of the orchestra. Our system of production is in the nature of an orchestra. No one man, no one town, no one state, can be said any longer to be independent of the other; the whole people of the United States, every individual therein, is dependent and interdependent upon all the others. The nature of the machinery of production; the subdivision of labor, which aids cooperation and which cooperation fosters, and which is necessary to the plentifulness of production that civilization requires, compel a harmonious working together of all departments of labor, and thence compel the establishment of a central directing authority, of an orchestral director, so to speak, of the orchestra of the cooperative commonwealth. Such is the State or government that the Socialist revolution carries in its womb. Today, production is left to anarchy, and only tyranny, the twin sister of anarchy, is organized. Socialism, accordingly, implies organization; organization implies directing authority; and the one and the other are strict reflections of the revolutions undergone by the tool of production. Reform, on the other hand, skims the surface, and with “referendums” and similar devices limits itself to external tinkerings. MATERIALISM”MORALITY The second nerve center of Socialism that will serve to illustrate the difference between reform and revolution is its materialistic groundwork. Take, for instance, the history of slavery. All of our ancestors - this may shock some of you, but it is a fact all the same”all of our ancestors were cannibals at one time. The human race, in its necessity to seek for food, often found it easier to make a raid and take from others the food they had gathered. In those olden, olden days of the barbarism of our ancestors, when they conquered a people and took away its property, they had no further use for the conquered; they killed them, spitted them over a good fire, roasted and ate them up. It was a simple and the only profitable way known of disposing of prisoners of war. They did with their captives very much what bees do yet; when they have raided and conquered a hive they ruthlessly kill every single denizen of the captured hive. Our ancestors continued cannibals until their social system had developed sufficiently to enable them to keep their prisoners under control. From that moment they found it more profitable to keep their prisoners of war alive and turn them into slaves to work for them, than it was to kill them off and eat them. With that stage of material development, cannibalism was dropped. From the higher material plane on which our ancestors then stood, their moral vision enlarged and they presently realized that it was immoral to eat up a human being. Cannibalism disappeared to make room for chattel slavery. And what do we see? Watch the process of “moral development” in this country—the classic ground in many ways to study history in, for the reason that the whole development of mankind can be seen here, portrayed in a few years, so to speak. You know how, today, the Northern people put on airs of morality on the score of having “abolished chattel slavery," the “traffic in human flesh,” “gone down South and fought, and bled, to free the Negro,” etc., etc. Yet we know that just as soon as manufacturing was introduced in the North, the North found that it was too expensive to own the Negro and take care of him; that it was much cheaper not to own the worker; and, consequently, that they “religiously,” “humanely” and “morally” sold their slaves to the South, while they transformed the white people of the North, who had no means of production in their own hands, into wage slaves, and mercilessly ground them down. In the North, chattel slavery disappeared just as soon as the development of machinery rendered the institution unprofitable. The immorality of chattel slavery became clear to the North just as soon as, standing upon that higher plane that its higher material development raised it to, it acquired a better vision. The benighted South, on the contrary, that had no machinery, remained with eyes shut, and she stuck to slavery till the slave was knocked out of her fists. Guided by the light of this and many similar lessons of history, Socialism builds upon the principle that the “moral sentiment,” as illustrated by the fate of the slave, is not the cause, but a powerful aid to revolutions. The moral sentiment is to a movement as important as the sails are to a ship. Nevertheless, important though sails are, unless a ship is well laden, unless she is soundly, properly and scientifically constructed, the more sails you pile on and spread out, the surer she is to capsize. So with the organizations that are to carry out a revolution. Unless your Socialist organizations are as sound as a bell; unless they are as intolerant as science; unless they will plant themselves squarely on the principle that two and two make four and under no circumstances allow that they make five, the more feeling you put into them, the surer they are to capsize and go down. On the contrary, load your revolutionary ship with the proper lading of science; hold her strictly to the lodestar; try no monkeyshines and no dillyings and dallyings with anything that is not strictly scientific, or with any man who does not stand on our uncompromisingly scientific platform; do that, and then unfurl freely the sails of morality; then the more your sails, the better off your ship; but not unless you do that, will you be safe, or can you prevail. Socialism knows that revolutionary upheavals and transformations proceed from the rock bed of material needs. With a full appreciation of and veneration for moral impulses that are balanced with scientific knowledge, it eschews, looks with just suspicion upon and gives a wide berth to balloon morality, or he it those malarial fevers that reformers love to dignify with the name of “moral feelings.” THE CLASS STRUGGLE A third nerve center of Socialism by which to distinguish reform from revolution is its manly, aggressive posture. The laws that rule sociology run upon lines parallel with and are the exact counterparts of those that natural science has established in biology. In the first place, the central figure in biology is the species, not the individual specimen. In sociology, the economic classes take the place of the species in biology. Consequently, that is the central figure on the field of sociology that corresponds to and represents the species on the field of biology. In the second place, struggle, and not piping peace; assimilation by the ruthless process of the expulsion of all elements that are not fit for assimilation, and not external coalition”such are the laws of growth in biology, and such are and needs must be the laws of growth in sociology. Hence, Socialism recognizes in modern society the existence of a struggle of classes, and the line that divides the combatants to be the economic line that separates the interests of the property-holding capitalist class from the interests of the propertiless class of the proletariat. As a final result of this, Socialism, with the Nazarene, spurns as futile, if not wicked, the method of cajolery and seduction, or the crying of “Peace, peace, where there is no peace,” and cuts a clean swath, while reform is eternally entangled in its course of charming, luring, decoying. ILLUSTRATIONS Let me now give you a few specific illustrations”based upon this general sketch”that may help to point out more clearly the sharp differences there are between reform and revolution, , and the grave danger there lurks behind confounding the two. You remember I referred to the fact that internal, i.e., revolutionary changes, are always accompanied with external changes of some sort, and that therein lay a pitfall into which reform invariably tumbled, inasmuch as reform habitually rests satisfied with externals, allows itself to be deceived with appearances. For instance: The Socialist revolution demands, among other things, the public ownership of all the means of transportation. But, in itself, the question of ownership affects only external forms: The Post Office is the common property of the people, and yet the real workers in that department are mere wage slaves. In the mouth of the Socialist, of the revolutionist, the internal fact, the cardinal truth, that for which alone we fight, and which alone is entitled to all we can give to it - that is the abolition of the system of wage slavery under which the proletariat is working. Now, up step the Populists”the dupers, not the duped among them with a plan to nationalize the railroads. The standpoint from which they proceed is that of middle class interests as against the interests of the upper capitalists or monopolists. The railroad monopolists are now fleecing the middle class; these want to turn the tables upon their exploiters; they want to abolish them, wipe them out, and appropriate unto themselves the fleecings of the working class which the railroad monopolists now monopolize. With this reactionary class interest in mind, the duper-Populist steps forward and holds this plausible language: “We, too, want the nationalization of the roads; we are going your way; join us!” The reform straws are regularly taken in by this seeming truth; they are carried off their feet; and they are drawn heels over head into the vortex of capitalist conflicts. Not so the revolutionist. His answer follows sharp and clear: “Excuse me! Guess you do want to nationalize the railroads, but only as a reform; we want nationalization as a revolution. You do not propose, while we are fixedly determined, to relieve the railroad workers of the yoke of wage slavery under which they now grunt and sweat. By your scheme of nationalization, you do not propose, on the contrary, you oppose all relief to the workers, and you have set dogs at the heels of our propagandists in Chautauqua County, N.Y., whenever it was proposed to reduce the hours of work of the employees.” While we, the revolutionists, seek the emancipation of the working class and the abolition of all exploitation, duper-Populism seeks to rivet the chains of wage slavery more firmly upon the proletariat. There is no exploiter like the middle class exploiter. Carnegie may fleece his workers”he has 20,000 of them”of only fifty cents a day and yet net, from sunrise to sunset, $10,000 profits; the banker with plenty of money to lend can thrive with a trifling shaving of each individual note; but the apple woman on the street corner must make a hundred and five hundred per cent profit to exist. For the same reason, the middle class, the employer of few hands, is the worst, the bitterest, the most inveterate, the most relentless exploiter of the wage slave. You may now realize what a grave error that man will incur who will rest satisfied with external appearance. Reform is invariably a cat’s paw for dupers; revolution never. Take now an illustration of the revolutionary principle that the material plane on which man stands determines his perception of morality. One man writes to THE PEOPLE office: “You speak about the immorality of capitalism, don’t you know that it was immoral to demonetize silver?” Another writes: “How queer to hear you talk about immorality; don’t you know it is a type of immorality to have a protective tariff?” He wants free trade. A third one writes: “Oh, sir, I admire the moral sentiment that inspires you, but how can you make fun of prohibition? Don’t you know that if a man is drunk, he will beat his wife and kill his children?” And so forth. Each of these looks at morality from the standpoint of his individual or class interests. The man who owns a silver mine considers it the height of immorality to demonetize silver. The importer who can be benefited by free trade thinks it a heinous crime against good morals to set up a high tariff. The man whose wage slaves come on Monday somewhat boozy, so that he cannot squeeze, pilfer out of them as much wealth as he would like to, becomes a pietistic prohibitionist. One of our great men, a really great man, a man whom I consider a glory to the United States”Artemus Ward”with that genuine, not bogus, keen Yankee eye of his saw, and with that master pen of his excellently illustrated this scientific truth, with one of his yarns. He claimed, you know, that he traveled through the country with a collection of wax figures representing the great men and criminals of the time. On one occasion he was in Maine. At about that time a little boy, Wilkins, had killed his uncle. Of course, the occurrence created a good deal of a sensation, and Artemus Ward tells us that, having an eye to the main chance, he got up a wax figure which he exhibited as Wilkins, the boy murderer. A few years later, happening again in the same Maine village, it occurred to him that the boy Wilkins had proved a great attraction in the place. He hunted around among his figures, found none small enough to represent a boy, and he took the wax figure that he used to represent Captain Kidd with, labeled that “Wilkins, the Boy Murderer,” and opened his booth. The people flocked in, paid their fifteen cents admission, and Artemus started to explain his figures. When he reached the “Boy Murderer,” and was expatiating upon the lad’s wickedness, a man in the audience rose, and in a rasping, nasal voice, remarked: “How is that? Three years ago you showed us the boy, Wilkins, he was a boy then, and died since; how can he now be a big man?" Thereupon Artemus says: “I was angry at the rascal, and I should have informed against him, and have him locked up for treason to the flag.” With the master hand of genius Artemus here exposed the material bases of capitalist “patriotism,” and pointed to the connection between the two. The material plane, on which the fraudulent showman stood, determined his moral impulse on patriotism. The higher the economic plane on which a class stands, and the sounder its understanding of material conditions, all the broader will its horizon be, and, consequently, all the purer and truer its morality. Hence it is that, today, the highest moral vision, and the truest withal, is found in the camp of the revolutionary proletariat. Hence, also, you will perceive the danger of the moral cry that goes not hand in hand with sound knowledge. The morality of reform is the corruscation of the ignis fatuus; the morality of revolution is lighted by the steady light of science. Take another illustration, this time on the belligerent poise of Socialism, to distinguish reform from revolution. The struggles that mark the movements of man have ever proceeded from the material interests, not of individuals, but of classes. The class interests on top, when rotten”ripe for overthrow, succumbed, when they did succumb, to nothing short of the class interests below. Individuals from the former class frequently took leading and invaluable part on the side of the latter, and individuals of the latter regularly played the role of traitors to civilization by siding with the former, as did, for instance, the son of the venerable Franklin when he sided with the British. Yet in both sets of instances, the combatants stood arrayed upon platforms that represented opposite class interests. Revolutions triumphed, whenever they did triumph, by asserting themselves and marching straight upon their goal. On the other hand, the fate of Wat Tyler ever is the fate of reform. The rebels, in this instance, were weak enough to allow themselves to be wheedled into placing their movement into the hands of Richard II, who promised “relief””and brought it by marching the men to the gallows. You will perceive the danger run by movements that”instead of accepting no leadership except such as stands squarely upon their own demands”rest content with and entrust themselves to “promises of relief.” Revolution, accordingly, stands on its own bottom, hence it cannot be overthrown; reform leans upon others, hence its downfall is certain. Of all revolutionary epochs, the present draws sharpest the line between the conflicting class interests. Hence, the organizations of the revolution of our generation must be the most uncompromising of any that yet appeared on the stage of history. The program of this revolution consists not in any one detail. It demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist system and its system of wage slavery; the total extinction of class rule is its object. Nothing short of that—whether as a first, a temporary, or any other sort of step can at this late date receive recognition in the camp of the modern revolution. Upon these lines we organized in New York and Brooklyn, and prospered; upon these lines we have compelled the respect of the foe. And I say unto you, go ye, and do likewise. THE REFORMER”THE REVOLUTIONIST And now to come to, in a sense, the most important, surely the most delicate, of any of the various subdivisions of this address. We know that movements make men, but men make movements. Movements cannot exist unless they are carried on by men; in the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions. How shall the revolutionist be known? Which are the marks of the reformer? In New York a reformer cannot come within smelling distance of us but we can tell him. We know him; we have experienced him; we know what mischief he can do; and he cannot get within our ranks if we can help it. He must organize an opposition organization, and thus fulfill the only good mission he has in the scheme of nature”pull out from among us whatever reformers may be hiding there. But you may not yet be familiar with the cut of the reformer’s jib. You may not know the external marks of the revolutionist. Let me mention them. The modern revolutionist, i.e., the Socialist, must, in the first place, by reason of the sketch I presented to you upon the development of the State, necessarily work in organization, with all that that implies. In this you have the first characteristic that distinguishes the revolutionist from the reformer; the reformer spurns organization; his symbol is “Five Sore Fingers on a Hand””far apart from one another. The modern revolutionist knows full well that man is not superior to principle, that principle is superior to man, but he does not fly off the handle with the maxim and thus turn the maxim into absurdity. He firmly couples the maxim with this other that no principle is superior to the movement or organization that puts it and upholds it in the field. The engineer knows that steam is a powerful thing, but he also knows that unless the steam is in the boiler, and unless there is a knowing hand at the throttle, the steam will either evaporate or the boiler will burst. Hence, you will never hear an engineer say: “Steam is the thing,” and then kick the locomotive off the track. Similarly, the revolutionist recognizes that the organization that is propelled by correct principles is as the boiler that must hold the steam, or the steam will amount to nothing. He knows that in the revolution demanded by our age, organization must be the incarnation of principle. Just the reverse of the reformer, who will ever be seen mocking at science, the revolutionist will not make a distinction between the organization and the principle. He will say: “The principle and the organization are one.” A Western judge, on one occasion, had to do with a quibbling lawyer, who was defending a burglar”you know what a burglar is”and rendered a decision that was supremely wise. The prisoner was charged with having stuck his hand and arm through a window and stolen something, whatever it was. The judge sentenced the man to the penitentiary. Said the lawyer: “I demur; the whole of the man did not break through the window; it was only his arm.” “Well,” said the judge, “I will sentence the arm; let him do with the body what he likes.” As the man and his arm were certainly one, and as the man would not wrench his arm out of its socket and separate it from the body, he quietly went to the penitentiary, and I hope is there yet to serve as a permanent warning against “reform science.” Again, the modern revolutionist knows that in order to accomplish results or promote principle, there must be unity of action. He knows that, if we do not go in a body and hang together, we are bound to hang separate. Hence, you will ever see the revolutionist submit to the will of the majority; you will always see him readiest to obey; he recognizes that obedience is the badge of civilized man. The savage does not know the word. The word “obedience” does not exist in the vocabulary of any language until its people got beyond the stage of savagery. Hence, also, you will never find the revolutionist putting himself above the organization. The opposite conduct is an unmistakable earmark of reformers. The revolutionist recognizes that the present machinery and methods of production render impossible”and well it is they do”the individual freedom of man such as our savage ancestors knew the thing; that today, the highest individual freedom must go hand in hand with collective freedom; and none such is possible without a central directing authority. Standing upon this vigor”imparting high plane of civilization, the revolutionist is virile and self-reliant, in striking contrast with the mentally sickly and, therefore, suspicious reformer. Hence the cry of “Bossism!” is as absent from the revolutionist’s lips as it is a feature on those of the reformer. Another leading mark of the revolutionist, which is paralleled with the opposite mark on the reformer, is the consistency, hence morality, of the former, and the inconsistency, hence immorality, of the latter. As the revolutionist proceeds upon facts, he is truthful and his course is steady; on the other hand, the reformer will ever be found prevaricating and in perpetual contradiction of himself. The reformer, for instance, is ever vaporing against “tyranny,” and yet Watch him; give him rope enough and you will always see him straining to be the top man in the shebang, the man on horseback, the autocrat, whose whim shall be law. The reformer is ever prating about “morality,” but just give him a chance, and you will catch him every time committing the most immoral acts, as, for instance, sitting in judgment on cases in which he himself is a particeps criminis, or countenancing and profiting by such acts. The reformer’s mouth is ever full with the words “individual freedom,” yet in the whole catalogue of defiers of individual freedom, the reformer vies with the frontmost. Finally, you will find the reformer ever flying off at a tangent, while the revolutionist sticks to the point. The scatterbrained reformer is ruled by a centrifugal, the revolutionist by a centripetal force. Somebody has aptly said that in social movements an evil principle is like a scorpion; it carries the poison that will kill it. So with the reformers; they carry the poison of disintegration that breaks them up into twos and ones and thus deprives them in the end of all power for mischief; while the power of the revolutionist to accomplish results grows with the gathering strength that its posture insures to him. The lines upon which we organize in New York and Brooklyn are, accordingly, directly opposed to those of reformers. We recognize the need of organization with all that that implies”of organization, whose scientific basis and uncompromising posture inspire respect in the foe, and confidence in those who belong with us. This is the sine qua non for success. Right here allow me to digress for a moment. Keep in mind where I break off that we may hitch on again all the easier. Did you ever stop to consider why it is that in this country where opportunities are so infinitely superior, the working class movement is so far behind, whereas in Europe, despite the disadvantages there, it is so far ahead of us? Let me tell you. In the first place, the tablets of the minds of our working class are scribbled all over by every charlatan who has let himself loose. In Europe, somehow or other, the men who were able to speak respected and respect themselves a good deal more than most of our public speakers do here. They studied first; they first drank deep at the fountain of science; and not until they felt their feet firmly planted on the rock bed of fact and reason, did they go before the masses. So it happens that the tablets of the minds of the European, especially the Continental working classes, have lines traced upon them by the master hands of the ages. Hence every succeeding new movement brought forward by the tides of time found its work paved for and easier. But here, one charlatan after another who could speak glibly, and who could get money from this, that, or the other political party, would go among the people and upon the tablets of the minds of the working classes he scribbled his crude text. So it happens that today, when the apostle of Socialism goes before our people, he cannot do what his compeers in Europe do, take a pencil and draw upon the minds of his hearers the letters of science; no, he must first clutch a sponge, a stout one, and wipe clean the pot-hooks that the charlatans have left there. Not until he has done that can he begin to preach and teach successfully. Then, again, with this evil of miseducation, the working class of this country suffers from another. The charlatans, one after the other, set up movements that proceeded upon lines of ignorance; movements that were denials of scientific facts; movements that bred hopes in the hearts of the people; yet movements that had to collapse. A movement must be perfectly sound, and scientifically based or it cannot stand. A falsely based movement is like a lie, and a lie cannot survive. All these false movements came to grief, and what was the result? - disappointment, stagnation, diffidence, hopelessness in the masses. The Knights of Labor, meant by Uriah Stephens, as he himself admitted, to be reared upon the scientific principles of Socialism—principles found today in no central or national organization of labor outside of the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance”sank into the mire. Uriah Stephens was swept aside; ignoramuses took hold of the organization; a million and a half men went into it, hoping for salvation; but, instead of salvation, there came from the veils of the K. of L. Local, District and General Assemblies the developed ignoramuses, that is to say, the labor fakers, riding the workingman and selling him out to the exploiter. Disappointed, the masses fell off. Thereupon bubbled up another wondrous concern, another idiosyncrasy -- the American Federation of Labor, appropriately called by its numerous English organizers the American Federation of Hell. Ignoramuses again took hold and the lead. They failed to seek below the surface for the cause of the failure of the K. of L.; like genuine ignoramuses, they fluttered over the surface. They saw on the surface excessive concentration of power in the K. of L., and they swung to the other extreme”they built a tapeworm. I call it a tapeworm, because a tapeworm is no organism; it is an aggregation of links with no cohesive powers worth mentioning. The fate of the K. of L. overtook the A.F. of L. Like causes brought on like results, false foundations brought on ruin and failure. Strike upon strike proved disastrous in all concentrated industries; wages and the standard of living of the working class at large went down; the unemployed multiplied; and again the ignorant leaders naturally and inevitably developed into approved labor fakers; the workers found themselves shot, clubbed, indicted, imprisoned by the identical Presidents, governors, mayors, judges, etc. —Republican and Democratic”whom their misleaders had corruptly induced them to support. Today there is no A. F. of L. ”not even the tapeworm”any more. If you reckon it up, you will find that if the 250,000 members which it claims paid dues regularly every quarter, it must have four times as large a fund as it reports. The fact is the dues are paid for the last quarter only; the fakers see to this to the end that they may attend the annual rowdidow called the “A. F. of L. Convention””and advertise themselves to the politicians. That’s all there is left of it. It is a ship, never seaworthy, but now stranded and captured by a handful of pirates; a tapeworn pulled to pieces, condemned by the rank and file of the American proletariat. Its career only filled still fuller the workers’ measure of disappointment, diffidence, helplessness. The Henry George movement was another of these charlatan booms that only helped still more to dispirit people in the end. The “single tax,” with its half-antiquated, half-idiotic reasoning, took the field. Again great expectations were raised all over the country”for a while. Again a semi-economic lie proved a broken reed to lean on. Down came Humpty Dumpty, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not now put Humpty Dumpty together again. Thus the volume of popular disappointment and diffidence received a further contribution. Most recently there came along the People’s Party movement. Oh, how fine it talked! It was going to emancipate the workers. Did it not say so in its preamble, however reactionary its platform? If bluff and blarney could save a movement, the People’s Party would have been imperishable. But it went up like a rocket, and is now fast coming down a stick. In New York State it set itself up against us when we already had 14,000 votes, and had an official standing. It was going to teach us “dreamers” a lesson in “practical American politics.” Well, its vote never reached ours, and last November when we rose to 21,000 votes, it dropped to barely 5,000, lost its official standing as a party in the state, and as far as New York and Brooklyn are concerned, we simply mopped the floor with it. These false movements, and many more kindred circumstances that I could mention, have confused the judgment of our people, weakened the spring of their hope, and abashed their courage. Hence the existing popular apathy in the midst of popular misery; hence despondency despite unequaled opportunities for redress; hence the backwardness of the movement here when compared with that of Europe. To return now where I broke off. The Socialist Labor Party cannot, in our country, fulfill its mission”here less than anywhere else -- without it takes a stand, the scientific soundness of whose position renders growth certain, failure impossible, and without its disciplinary firmness earns for it the unqualified confidence of the now eagerly onlooking masses both in its integrity of purpose and its capacity to enforce order. It is only thus that we can hope to rekindle the now low-burning spark of manhood and womanhood in our American working class, and reconjure up the Spirit of `76. We know full well that the race or class that is not virile enough to strike an intelligent blow for itself, is not fit for emancipation. If emancipated by others, it will need constant propping, or will collapse like a dish-clout. While that is true, this other is true also: In all revolutionary movements, as in the storming of fortresses, the thing depends upon the head of the column”upon that minority that is so intense in its convictions, so soundly based on its principles, so determined in its action, that it carries the masses with it, storms the breastworks and captures the fort. Such a head of the column must be our Socialist organization to the whole column of the American proletariat. Again our American history furnishes a striking illustration. When Pizarro landed on the western slope of the Andes, he had with him about 115 men. Beyond the mountains was an empire”the best organized empire of the aborigines that had been found in America. It had its departments; it had its classes; it was managed as one body numbering hundreds of thousands to the Spaniards’ hundred. That body the small army of determined men were to capture. What did Pizzaro do? Did he say, “Let us wait till we get some more?” Or did he say, “Now, boys, I need every one of you 115 men"? No, he said to them: “Brave men of Spain, yonder lies an empire that is a delight to live in, full of gold, full of wealth, full of heathens that we ought to convert. They are as the sands of the sea, compared with us, and they are entrenched behind their mountain fastnesses. It needs the staunchest among you to undertake the conquest. If any, through the hardships of travel, feel unequal to the hardships of the enterprise, I shall not consider him a coward; let him stand back to protect our ships. Let only those stay with me who are determined to fight, and who are determined to conquer.” About twenty men stood aside, about ninety-five remained; with ninety-five determined men he scaled those mountains and conquered that empire. That empire of the Incas is today capitalism, both in point of its own inherent weakness and the strength of its position. The army that is to conquer it is the army of the proletariat, the head of whose column must consist of the intrepid Socialist organization that has earned their love, their respect, their confidence. What do we see today? At every recent election, the country puts me in mind of a jar of water”turn the jar and all the water comes out. One election, all the Democratic vote drops out and goes over to the Republicans; the next year all the Republican vote drops out and goes over to the Democrats. The workers are moving backward and forward; they are dissatisfied; they have lost confidence in the existing parties they know of, and they are seeking desperately for the party of their class. At such a season, it is the duty of us revolutionists to conduct ourselves in such manner as to cause our organization to be better and better known, its principles more and more clearly understood, its integrity and firmness more and more respected and trusted”then, when we shall have stood that ground well and grown steadily, the masses will in due time flock over to us. In the crash that is sure to come and is now just ahead of us, our steadfast Socialist organization will alone stand out intact above the ruins; there will then be a stampede to our party”but only upon revolutionary lines can it achieve this; upon lines of reform it can never be victorious. As the chairman said that time would be allowed for questions, I shall close at this point, but not before”you will pardon the assumption -- not before I call upon you, in the name of the 6,000 “wicked," revolutionary Socialists of New York and Brooklyn, to organize, here in Boston, upon the genuinely revolutionary plan. Your state is a large manufacturing state; there can be no reason why your vote should not grow, except that, somehow or other, you have not acted as revolutionists. Every year that goes by in this way is a year wasted. Never forget that every incident that takes place within your, within our, ranks is noted by a large number of workers on the outside. Tamper with discipline, allow this member to do as he likes, that member to slap the Party constitution in the face, yonder member to fuse with reformers, this other to forget the nature of the class struggle and to act up to his forgetfulness”allow that, keep such “reformers” in your ranks and you have stabbed your movement at its vitals. With malice toward none, with charity to all, you must enforce discipline if you mean to reorganize to a purpose. We know that in struggles of this kind, personal feelings, unfortunately, play a part; you cannot prevent that; let the other side, the reformer, fill the role of malice that its weak intellect drives it to; do you fill the role of the square-jointed revolutionist”and if there must be amputation, do it nobly, but firmly. Remember the adage that the tenderhanded surgeon makes stinging wounds, and lengthens the period of suffering and pain. The surgeon that has a firm hand to push the knife as deep as it ought to go, and pulls it out, and lets the pus flow out, that surgeon makes clean wounds, shortens pain, brings cure quickly about. No organization will inspire the outside masses with respect that will not insist upon and enforce discipline within its own ranks. If you allow your own members to play monkeyshines with the party, the lookers-on, who belong in this camp, will justly believe that you will at some critical moment allow capitalism to play monkeyshines with you; they will not respect you, and their accession to your ranks will be delayed. There is, indeed, no social or economic reason why the vote of Boston should not be one of the pillars of our movement. And yet that vote is weak and virtually stationary, while in New York and Brooklyn it has on the whole been leaping forward. If you realize the importance of the revolutionary construction of our army; if you comprehend the situation of the country”that there is a popular tidal wave coming; that, in order to bring it our way and render it effective, we must be deserving thereof, whereas, if we are not, the wave will recede with disastrous results; if you properly appreciate the fact that every year that passes over our heads brings to our lives greater danger, throws a heavier load upon the shoulders of our wives, makes darker the prospects of our sons, exposes still more the honor of our daughters -- if you understand that, then for their sakes, for our country’s sake, for the sake of the proletarians of Boston, organize upon the New York and Brooklyn plan. QUESTIONS MR. DOOLING: I would like to inquire what it is proposed shall replace wages? How are men to be supported when wages are done away with? Upon the answer to that question will depend largely whether the middle class will support Socialism. THE SPEAKER: I must disagree with the gentleman that the middle class is going to be brought into this movement by any information upon what is going to be substituted for wages. The middle class will have to be sold at auction by the sheriff. That alone will enlighten it as a class. When it has lost its property, whereby it is now skinning some unhappy devils, and its members have themselves become wage slaves, then it will see what this whole question of wages amounts to, and what should “substitute wages.” Individuals among the middle class may, however, be intelligent enough to study the question and, in that way, to learn, before they become wage slaves, the secret of the wages question. Now, what are wages? Wages are that part of the product of labor which the capitalist pays to the workingman out of the proceeds of the workingman’s own products. Say that a workingman produces $4 a day, and that $1 is paid him for his labor. That $1 is taken out of the wealth that he himself produces, and it is kindly given back to him by the capitalist, who pockets the other $3. That is one feature of wages. Another is that wages are the price of labor in the labor market, and that in the labor market, labor stands on the same footing as any other commodity. It is governed by the law of supply and demand, its price, the same as that of anything else hairpins, shoes or cast-off clothing, is determined by the law of supply and demand”the more there is of these, the cheaper their price. Likewise with labor. Under the capitalist system, labor is a commodity in the market. The workingman must sell his labor, which he gets paid for with the thing called wages, at the market price. If the supply of labor is so much larger than the demand, then, instead of getting his one dollar out of the four that he produces in the illustration above given, he may get only ninety-five cents; if the demand for labor goes down further, he may get ninety cents as the price of his labor; and if it goes still further below the supply, still further down would go the price of labor, i.e., wages. The price of labor may sink to I don’t know how low a level. Some of you may say that the workingman has to live, and there is a limit. No, there is no limit. The only limit that there is is a limit to the rapidity of the decline. Wages cannot fall from a hundred cents to ten cents, but they can fall by easy gradations even below ten cents. We have, for instance, this story about the Chinese that in some places they live only upon the rats they catch; that in other places, their stomachs having been squeezed still more, they live upon the tails of rats that others ate; and that in still other places there are Chinamen who live upon the smell of the tail of the rats. This may sound like a joke, and yet there is more truth than poetry about it. In the history of France we have it reported that large masses of the population lived, in the eighteenth century, during the ancient regime, upon herbs, the price of which for the whole year would not have been five francs. The human stomach is like an India rubber ball; you can squeeze it, and squeeze it, and squeeze it, and you can shave off and pare off the wants of the workingman till his wants are merely those of the beast. Wages, then, are the part of the product of labor which the capitalist allows the workingman to keep, and which the capitalist does not steal, along with the other three parts. Now, then, for the same reason that wages are what I have said, there can be, under Socialism, no “wages,” because sticking to my previous illustration, under Socialism that workingman must get all the four dollars which he produces. What are the things which compel the workingman today to receive wages? First”the capitalist class owns all the things necessary to produce with; it holds the land, the railroads and the machinery with which to labor. The working class owns none of these necessities, all of which it needs to labor with; hence it must sell itself. Second”The reason why the wageworker must put up with so small a return is that under this system he is not treated as a human being, Christianity to the contrary notwithstanding. The capitalists are refined cannibals; they look at the workingman in no other light than a horse; in fact, in a worse light; they will take care of a horse, but let the workingmen die. Labor is cheap, and is treated that way under capitalism. Under Socialism, standing upon that high scientific plane, we see a higher morality. We see that labor should not be treated as a chattel; it should not be treated as a commodity; it should not be treated as shoes, and potatoes and hairpins and cast-off clothing, but as a human being capable of the highest intellectual development. So treating him, the wageworker of today becomes a part owner in the machinery of production, and being part owner in the machinery of production he then gets the full return of his labor; he is then free from the shackles that compel him to accept wages; he becomes the boss of the machine, whereas today he is its appendage. Under Socialism, we don’t need potato bugs, as a friend puts it, to raise potatoes. Some people think that the wageworker class must carry the capitalist on its back. As well say that you must have potato bugs, or you won’t have any potatoes. If you remove the potato bugs, you will have all the more potatoes; remove the capitalist class and you will have the whole of your product; there will not then be any potato bug, i.e., capitalist, to sponge up the bulk of your product. JOHN F. O’SULLIVAN: I should like to ask the speaker if the four dollars, as per the illustration, given to the worker”in other words, if he gets the full product of his labor or work”wouldn’t that be wages all the same? THE SPEAKER: If you choose to call water Paris green, that’s your business. Suppose I came to you and said: “Paris green is not poisonous, it is an excellent thing for the human system"; and suppose I went on saying: “See here, I am taking Paris green, look at me. You see, it refreshes and does not kill me!” What ,would you think of that? You would he justified to say I was juggling with words. And that is what I tell you. You have no right to call water Paris green; it is known all the world over as water, and Paris green is known as Paris green, a poison. Now in the same way “wages” is a technical term. The term means in political economy that portion of the product of labor that the workingman is allowed to keep, and that is not stolen from him by the capitalist. Now you may say, “Well, granted; but suppose we call the revenue of a man his wages, and I mean by that the full proceeds of his labor - wouldn’t that be the same?” Yes, it would be the same if you mean the right thing, but here I would warn you”and in that consists one of the “wickednesses” of us New York and Brooklyn Socialists”we insist upon strict, technical terms, because if you juggle with terms in that way you will have a Tower of Babel confusion. The Bible, which I recommend to you to read carefully, furnishes in its Tower of Babel story a warning worth taking to heart. When the Lord wanted to confuse the Jews so that they shouldn’t build that tower and get into heaven by that route, he introduced the confusion of language among them. Thereupon, when a man said, “Bring me a brick,” they brought him a chair, and when a man said, “Bring me a chair,” they struck him over the head with a crowbar; and so, not being able to understand one another, the building of the tower was given up, and the people scattered to the four winds. Now, we Socialists brace ourselves against all Tower of Babel confusion. When we say “wages,” we mean the thing that is so styled by scientific political economy, and we won’t allow its well marked and sharply drawn character to be blurred. Wages are what they are understood to be technically, and we call them by no other name. The four dollars your workingmen would get would not be “wages.” Those four dollars would be the proceeds of labor. Today he gets wages, and wages mean only that part of his product, as I said before, which capital does not steal away from him. Unless you define wages in that way, you will not be able to have a clear, scientific understanding of what profits are, namely, that portion of the product of labor which the capitalist does steal from the worker. The worker produces a certain amount of wealth, and that is divided into two parts. One small part is called wages; the big part is called profits. Now, by sticking to scientific definitions, we are aided in the understanding of the nature of capitalism, and the relations that exist between the capitalist class and the workmen’s class. We are aided in understanding that capital, i.e., the capitalist class, and labor are enemies born. Since wages are a part of the product of labor, and profits are another part, it follows that you cannot increase profits without reducing wages, and you cannot increase wages without reducing profits. It follows that the interests of the man who gets profits are dead against the interests of the working class. In other words, the two are enemies born, and the fight between them cannot be patched up; it must be fought to a finish. You will now understand the danger of a loose use of the word “wages"; it simply aids the labor fakers -- [Applause, during which the speaker is informed that the questioner is the president of the Boston Central Labor Union.] It seems that I hit the nail more squarely on the head than I knew. Well, as I was saying: Such loose use of the term “wages” positively aids the labor faker in his work of bunco-steering you into the political shambles of the capitalists. The Democratic and Republican capitalists, at election time, seem to be enemies; but, after they get into their offices, shake hands and have a good laugh. Now, in order that these gentlemen should laugh, the political agents of their class must have been kept in office, and the representatives of the working class must have been kept out. To have that, the workingmen must have voted for the capitalist candidates -- it matters not whether Democratic or Republican, that is all one”and to induce the workers to cut their own throats in that way. They must be made to believe that “Capital and labor are brothers.” This is the important work for which the labor faker is commissioned by the capitalists. He must make it plausible to the workers that they and their skinners are brothers. So long as a workingman imagines capital is his brother, he will expect something from his “brother.” When the Irish worker first arrived in this country, they thought an Irishman all the world over was his brother, and united with him against the “iron heel of England,” and thus he trusted the Irishman capitalist. But his “brother,” the Irishman capitalist, while patting him on the back, skinned and bled and used him in the approved capitalist way. It was the same with the Jewish workingmen. They came to this country, and imagined that the Jewish capitalist was their brother”all of the seed of Abraham. The Jewish capitalist fostered the profitable delusion and rode on tie backs of his Abrahamic brothers. And so with the American capitalist and the American workingman, down to the end of the list of nationalities. By insisting upon a strict use of the terms “wages,” “profits,” etc., we enable the working class to understand and proceed from the fundamental truth that the interests of the workingmen bind these together, and are opposed to those of the capitalist”whether Jew or Gentile, Irishman or American, Democrat or Republican, silver bug or gold bug or bed bug. And, by doing that, we lame the arm of the labor faker that is sent to tell the workingman: “The capitalist is your brother; and I am your brother; so come to your dear brother, and get skinned.” QUESTION (no name): The social question is an economic question. Why should not an economic organization be enough? THE SPEAKER: The social question and all such questions are essentially political. If you have an economic organization alone, you have a duck flying with one wing. You must have a political organization or you are nowhere. Watch the capitalist closely, and see whether the social question is exclusively an economic one, or whether the political wing is not a very necessary one. The capitalist rules in the shop. Is he satisfied with that? Watch him at election time, it is then he works; he has also another workshop, not an economic one”the legislatures and capitols in the nation. He buzzes around them and accomplishes political results. He gets the laws passed that will protect his economic class interests, and he pulls the wires when these interests are in danger, bringing down the strong arm of political power over the heads of the striking workingmen, who have the notion that the wages or social question is only an economic question. Make no mistake: The organization of the working class must be both economic and political. The capitalist is organized upon both lines. You must attack him on both.

PRIME MINISTER TRANSCRIPT

This is a serious transcript of the Prime Minister: ‘I asked the Government who was in that club. Three ministers raised their hands' He added that he did not ask them if they had to leave their mobile phones at the entrance to the Club Telegram Editorial Office TELEGRAM EDITORIAL OFFICE 21 MINUTES AGO 0 RECOMMENDATIONS 0 COMMENTS LAST CHANGE: SEP 25, 2020PHOTO: SCREENSHOT / N1 On the eve of the session of the HDZ MPs' Club, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković commented on new details about the Janaf affair and the news that members of his Government were going to the club of the arrested Chief of Staff Dragan Kovačević . As Index was the first to announce yesterday, three ministers - Tomislav Ćorić , Josip Aladrović and Oleg Butković - entered Kovačević's club in Slovenska 9 in Zagreb during the lockdown . The latter allegedly came there to play white cards. 'I'VE NEVER BEEN TO A CLUB' Plenković told reporters today that he had never been to the famous Dragan Kovačević Club. Asked if he disputed that the ministers went to the Club, he replied that he had heard that many higher-ranking officials were also there. "I asked the government who he was, three ministers raised their hands. So that I would know where they go, who they hang out with, have dinner with, ”he said, adding that he did not ask them if they had to leave their mobile phones at the entrance. "Do you think I'm thrilled?" 'WE ARE CONSIDERING REINSTATING SECURITY CLEARANCE' The Prime Minister also commented on the return of the security check, stating that he would consider returning it. “If everything goes well in the check, it doesn’t mean that after that someone can’t be creative,” he said. He added that Stjepan Adanić , acting head of Janaf, has no information on possible job adjustments. He said there was no problem with discussing everything. "Once the opposition comes up with what it wants with the commission of inquiry, we will consider it," he stressed. THE TEXT CONTINUES AFTER THE AD Sponsored content Experience the thrill of moving into a new home with an RBA APN home loan. Experience that RBA feeling. Midas - Native Internet Advertising affair Janaf , Andrej Plenković , Dragan Kovačević , club FACEBOOK (0) TWITTER (0) E-MAIL CLICK AND START A DISCUSSION

JEDAN OD VEĆIH KRIMINALNIH MILEJA POD ZAŠTITOM JE CRKVE I NACIONALISTIČKE KORUPCIJE HRVATSKE

sport j2 money culture scene video subscription Krešimir Petek and his real estate ŠEŠA'S KINGDOM From driver to billionaire: How the business of Krešo Petek, the first defendant in the Janaf affair, grew When he made his first serious money, he bought a Boss suit and went out into the street with a label on his sleeve. Everyone laughed at him Writes: Filip PavićPosted: September 25, 2020 7:56 am Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail - Šešo is powerful, recognized, he built the image of a strong man, and I must admit, although I am not happy, that he worked hard on himself, he became a real manager for the last twenty years and learned to swim well in our waters - he told Jutarnji list former Mayor of Ivanić Grad Boris Kovačić . Kovačić knows the richest citizen of Ivanić, Krešimir Petek "Šeša", as the locals call him, a powerful local businessman suspected of bribery in the Janaf affair. They used to play football together recreationally in Križ on Fridays, and Kovačić is also familiar with the business and political path of a local entrepreneur who has long outgrown the local framework. Since Petek ended up in custody on suspicion of handing over two million kunas in bribes to his boss Janaf, we have been convinced that there has been a vow of silence in Ivanić Grad. The reason is simple. Friday funded everything in the city, from local radio stations, portals, newspapers, events to sports clubs and competitions. image Krešo Petek (right) Damir Krajač / Cropix Moreover, the revenues of Petek's companies, a total of 700 million kuna, are seven times higher than the budget of Ivanić Grad. In addition, it employs about 500 people in its power plant construction company Elektrocentar Petak, one of the largest construction companies in Zagreb County. In addition to Elektrocentar, about 50 employees work in its Hotel Sport, and a dozen in the Garfield restaurant. “Multiply that by the number of families who depend directly on him, and you understand why there is silence here,” say a few locals who wanted to talk to us. However, according to Kovačić, Šešo is just the tip of the iceberg. - I would not like it to turn out that I am defending Šeša, we haven't actually talked in recent years because he got angry with me after the election, but I think he just adapted to the way of doing business that has become a practice since the 90's. If corruption is already being addressed, then we should first start from politics, centers of power, and not entrepreneurs - the former mayor believes. Friday, he says, started in the 90s like most other entrepreneurs. He worked as a driver at Elektra in Križ and quickly figured out how to progress. At that time, the more resourceful employees of large state-owned companies, such as INA, HEP, Hrvatske šume, Voda, realized that they could start their own businesses and continue working for those companies, but for more money, externally, as contractors. Krešo Petek started the electric craft "Šešo" with a handful of employees and went into private waters. - He went with Ina first. Ina, and now Crosco, as you know, is ubiquitous here, and just at that time they were opening a lot of construction sites in Ivanić and working on infrastructure projects on which they also employed his installation company. All the companies that grew up here in the 90's were in one way or another related to INA - says Kovačić. On Friday, Kovačić added, growing mic by mic from a small trade. He soon renamed the company to Elektrocentar Petek, and he also applied for some city tenders. Thus, in the early 2000s, he maintained lighting and led the winter service in Ivanić Grad. The big business boom, however, did not come from small city jobs, but, Kovačić claims, through business connections in Zagreb. - He never hid that he was a HDZ sympathizer. His restaurant also housed the HDZ's 2013 election headquarters for the local elections. He was moving very well in that circle - Kovačić remembers. By the way, that year the SDP mayor Kovačić was taken over by the current mayor of Ivanić Grad, Javor Bojan Leš, with whom, it is no secret, Petek has very good relations. He remembers the former mayor and anecdotes from that time, which well outline the general modus operandi of Krešo Petek, and it is a tender that the City announced for the sale of one plot of land. - Šešo also applied for the tender, but he did not have the biggest offer, but another entrepreneur. In the end, the entrepreneur bought the land, but he later told me that Šešo wanted to shake it with a drink even before the tender. He told him: "Don't even answer, I have already agreed everything with Kovačić." That, of course, was not true, but he did not shy away from such intrigues either - says Kovačić. image Hotel Sport Željko Puhovski / Cropix Despite that, a part of Ivanić's locals will still describe Petek as the one who "took for himself, but also gave to others". They tolerate him because they depend on him, says Kovačić, but that he is loved and respected is not true. - There is a lot of gossip here, it's a small area. People often remember with ridicule when Šešo bought Boss's first suit. He showed up in that expensive suit, with a label left on his sleeve. It was funny to people because it showed that he was not yet used to that lifestyle. However, he quickly got used to it. He also has arrogance in himself, but on the other hand he also knows how to deal with people who need a smile to have the door open for him - Kovačić points out.