Lyric discussion by Genosse 

Reform and Counterreform in the Bureaucratic Bloc

...If ever an event had cast its shadow ahead of itself long before it happened, it was, for those who know how to read modern history, the Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia. It was long contemplated and, despite all its international repercussions, virtually inevitable. By bringing into question the omnipotence of bureaucratic power, Dubcek’s adventurous – though necessary – effort began to imperil this same power wherever it was to be found, and thus became intolerable. Six hundred thousand soldiers (almost as many as the Americans in Vietnam) were sent to put a brutal stop to it. Thus when the “antisocialist” and “counterrevolutionary” forces, continually conjured up and exorcised by all the bureaucrats, finally appeared, they appeared not under the portrait of Benes(4) or armed by “revanchist Germans,” but in the uniform of the “Red” Army.

A remarkable popular resistance was carried on for seven days – “the magnificent seven” – mobilizing virtually the entire population against the invaders. Paradoxically, distinctly revolutionary methods of struggle were taken up for the defense of a reformist bureaucracy. But what was not carried out in the course of the movement could certainly not he carried out under the occupation: the Russian troops, having enabled the Dubcekists to brake the revolutionary process as much as possible while they were at the borders, also enabled them to control the whole resistance movement after August 21. They played exactly the same role the American troops do in North Vietnam: the role of ensuring the masses’ unanimous support for the bureaucracy that exploits them...

SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL September 1969

bopsecrets.org/

The Magnificent Seven were the 7 public cemeteries built outside Victorian London because the city graveyards got too full. This song is about busting your butt only to have your final rest in one of the Seven.. In 1832 Parliament passed a bill encouraging the establishment of seven private cemeteries in a ring around outer London, to provide ample space for burial. These are known today as the Magnificent Seven. The first to open, in 1832, was Kensal Green, followed by West Norwood (1837), Highgate Cemetery (1839), Nunhead (1840), Brompton (1840), Abney Park (1840), and Tower Hamlets (1841),

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