On the system of the eternal capitalism ~;) plus pure neoliberalism. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
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On the system of the eternal capitalism ~;) plus pure neoliberalism. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Yes lots of starving people in America and Australia... whoops I mean lots of people dying from being Obese.
The day I can choose a better system then capitalism I will.
But I will not forfeit freedom of choice for despotism.
We need somebody to try doing an anarchist government. And we need a new crazy dictator. Kim doesn't cut it anymore.
P.S. And when I was a kid and teen during esn of 70s and all the 80s, I cuouldnt play PC games and stuff like that like lot of "young anarhists" here do :) I had to read books about Lenin, Stalin, crashing victories (off course, that everyoine knew (even from official history books) that WW2 Russia won alone and all those allies were just begging for help and mercy :) ), evil west and other bull%&^ things :)))
P.P.S. And forgot to say, that during Stalin regime we all would be in line waiting for wonderfull 20 years work in uranium mines or something like that just because we are discussing that post... :dizzy2:
Probably one of the worst ills done to the ability of the human race to advance politically was for Marx and Engels to call it the Communist Manifesto rather than the Marxist Manifesto or something else, and for Lenin to use it as the basis for what he called temporary "war communism" which would then become the permanent installation of a new kind of bourgeoisie - the chekists and apparatchiks who destroyed all of the other ideas which were functioning after the initial revolution, from the Makhnovists in the Ukraine to the factory syndicates to the farmer's unions. The Marxists began as a minor part of the revolution, with many other experiments in communism extant at the same time.
For people who have never read, or even heard of, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon or Mikhail Bakunin or Peter Kropotkin or Nestor Makhno to pronounce their understanding of communism, based upon the Communist Manifesto and resultant creation of Lenin, is rather like someone claiming to understand all modern art after seeing only one abstract expressionist painting by Mark Rothko, or even all of Rothko's works. Such a person might be able to carry on a reasonably informed discussion about Mark Rothko, a less informed discussion about abstract expressionism, and know nothing at all about the rest of modern art from the impressionists to the fauvists to the Dadaists, the cubists, the surrealists all the way up to op art. Does a painting by Rothko look anything at all like a Jackson Pollock or a Salvador Dali or a Max Ernst, much less a Renoir or a Klimt? Should someone who has never seen a Chagall be respected for voicing an opinion on Chagall after having seen a couple of Kandinsky paintings or maybe a Warhol or two? Wouldn't that be absurd?
Or to stretch another analogy to the limit, trying to understand and critique communism based solely upon the source of just one branch of communism is like trying to claiming to understand of the the entire Christian Bible and religion after reading only the pentateuch of the Old Testament. Absurd, but not much different than critiquing communism based upon one branch of communism.
But claims are made, apparently unaware that the Communist Manifesto is not the sum of all communist theory. Not even close. Bakunin was a contemporay or Marx. He even translated Das Kapital into Russian. But he was most definitely not a Marxist. Proudhon predates Marx, Engels and Bakunin, with his Qu'est-ce que la propriété? published 8 years before the Manifesto. Basing an opinion about communism upon the works of Marx and Engles and the resultant creation of Lenin ignores things like the communist/socialist kibbutzim established in what is now Israel in the 1890's and early 1900's which predate the Bolsheviks by a decade or more. Some of those kibbutzim still exist and still function with the same anarchist/syndicalist internal structure that they have had for over 100 years. The anarchist/communists of Barcelona fought both the fascist Falangists of Franco and the Stalinist Republican Army. And that was their downfall, fighting two stronger enemies at once. But they still managed to last 3 years in Catalonia. Marxism, Marxist/Leninism and most especially Stalinism are not all there is to communism. The old adage about the three blind men and the elephant comes to mind.
A little knowledge is not a good thing. It leads to more misunderstanding than no knowledge at all.
Aenlic, in fact, theme was not about ideology. But with communism is one big problem. As pure ideology in its best version its not that bad. Only problem - its never realizes and even more - its not possible I think to realize it in life. All the artists, writers, painters you noted - lot of them somehow i nspired from that ideology, but it was more as the protest to their life in conservative society - they were more "against" then "for". None of them have lived in those "branches" of communism which were available. The idea of ideology isnt bad, it says "to everyone for its needs". But... someone will decide "its needs", also your needs etc... And in all those revolutions in the beginning of 20 century was the same scenario - slaves fight for their freedom untill they became rulers - then they start to need slaves. Have you read Animal farm of Orvel? Its easy and clear view of communism ideology - everything started so nice, doesnt it? And result we can see (very very close to reality) in next book - 1984.
I suspect a bit of a language barrier, Edex; but I'll try to explain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Edex
My post wasn't meant for you; but for earlier posts which attempted to present the Communist Manifesto as the whole of communism.
Your point about Marxism, although I'm sure it has been often repeated as being communism, is correct. Marxism, as practiced by Lenin was a very bad thing. The world would have been better off had someone put a bullet in his head long before the revolution. The same for Stalin; but for him maybe a bullet would be too quick and painless a death. ~:)
And Animal Farm was not about communist ideology, although it has been portrayed as such. It was about the dangers of a bureaucratic state or totalitarianism, both anti-Stalinist and anti-fascist. So too was the later 1984. Orwell, or really Eric Arthur Blair - his real name, was a socialist. He fought for the communist Republican Army against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, but joined the more radical anti-Stalinist POUM. After being nearly killed with a bullet to the neck (not good being over 6 feet tall when everyone else in the battle is short), he went back to England and wrote a great essay called Homage to Catalonia about his experiences seeing the classless society created by the POUM in Barcelona. He had first-hand experience with the Stalinists who controlled the Republican Army and the Stalinists who controlled the English communists and socialists. He was very much against Stalinism and state control and very much for anarchist communism, as he saw it demonstrated in Barcelona. I highly recommend Homage to Catalonia.
While I highly respect your views against communism as it must appear to someone living in the former Soviet Union, I ask you not to judge the idea by the practice. Because what you endured there was communism only in name. It was actually closer to state-controlled, centralized capitalism than anything else.
Yes, I know that post wasnt ment fo me, but anyway. And as I also told - I agree hat its not fault of ideology. What I think is, that history unfortunately have prove that marxism, communism and similar ideologies are not made to work in real life or at least noone could make it. Thats what I was talking about. About Orwell - I know more or less of his biography and political views and that novels was not wrote to show ideology. i ment that those novels showed the result what happened with tries to make this ideology work by ordinary humans, even if it was not idea of the author - it didnt worked out. By the way - those two novels was strictly forbidden as the Orwell himself. I got the book when I was 13 in typewright with blue copy paper on old lightly yellow bad quality paper pages - medieval romantic :)
One more strange thing noone can explain about soeviet interpretation of communism is - if everybody must be equal, why they all must be equal poor, not equal rich nd free :)
anyway - its hard to split ideology and practice as we have nothing to compare with. All attempts to make communism to work in practice finished with something they shoud not, so we dont have positive experience in the world... If we would have, it would be easyer to talk about.
I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you say.
Was your copy of Orwell what was called a samizdat? I have always been intrigued by that wonderful idea. Anything, like the samizdat, which could worry the KGB at the time must have been terribly dangerous to have.
I think the internet is our modern samizdat. With it, hopefully, no country can ever fully control information again. At least we can hope.
Yes, its called so. Actually its not a special term - samizdat in russian language means "self publisher", thats it :) And internet really is a thing in that case. But I dont know if it works and if it helps much in the places where it could. I dont think that in ttalitarism countries which exist now there are much chance to access internet, but i dont know it for sure.
I think a sign that the internet is working is the vigor with which the Chinese government is trying to suppress it. Supression is often a sign of success. It is having an effect.
Yes, I heard about chinese government fight with this windmill
We can only hope that they have even less success than Don Quixote.
Funniest rant I have seen in a long time. Based fully upon your own assumptions about what others have read or not read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
Being well-read in all the books and currents you mentioned all the way from Proudhon to Kropotkin and back, I was rather impressed by your notion that marxism/leninism unjustly claimed an entire movement and its name for its own particular purposes. This whole panel of the history of the left is now mostly forgotten except by you and me and a few other voracious readers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
But you are stretching the truth about Animal Farm and its author's intentions if you claim that the book is about totalitarianism in general. Totalitarian movements have certain aspects in common, therefore the occurrence of any parallels between Animal Farm and, say, nazism or Italian fascism are no surprise. But there are just too many references to recent Russian history and the entire communist episode after 1917 in the book for anyone to deny that it targeted Russian communism.
I am not going to enumerate them here. Suffice it to say that the book's most famous proverb ('All animals are equal, but...') could only refer to the egalitarian rhetoric of communists (nazism and fascism were anti-egalitarian) and that the new revolutionary song of the animals, Beasts of England, contains countless references to the International and none whatsoever to the Deutschlandlied or the Horst Wessel Lied.
Animal Farm is clearly an anti-Soviet parable. But Aenlic has a point about 1984, which does take aim at a wider target. For example, I've read that Orwell was very disillusioned at life in wartime Britain and that partly underpinned the book's references to propaganda and perpetual war.
I find it consequential that you post the last two comments after I explained my reasoning of Power Corrupts absolutely power corrupts absolutely and linking Stalin and the Communist Manifesto to that statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
So to clarify - Is it your opinion that I am wrong about how the Communist Manifesto set the conditions for the tryanny that was done by Lenin and then Stalin in the name of the communist revolution. Or to be more precise, given the above mentioned quote:
Am I wrong in linking the Marxist doctrine of communism as shown in the Communist Manifesto for setting the conditions for the corruption of power by Lenin and most importantly Stalin - and all the other tryants that followed the Marxist doctrine of communism.
If you think I have only read the Communist Manifesto - then your sadly mistaken once again. I haven't even discussed the overall philisohy of communism - just the ideology as it applies to Stalin and the former USSR. (Now there is a fallacy used in that approach, but its a relative minor one given the impact of Marxism on the Communist ideologue)
Now lets look at the kibbutz functions verus the forcing of society that was advocated by those that supported the Marxist doctrine of communist ideology. I can give you a major clue - it was willing done. Even then the Kibbutz is not just a pure commune but has several unique political ideologues intermix into the system - to include democracy. The Kibbutz serves as one of the best community models for both communism and democracy.
warning a fallacy is about to take place
Now I will pronounce my ignorance on Catalonia and the efforts of the communist movement there - but again it seems instead of critiquing the linking of Stalins corruption of power and the linkage of the Communist Manifesto to that corruption - you chose to make a rather broad assumption of your own.
Oh wait - I guess we are now both guilty of argument logic fallacies.
Aenlic's ad hoc rescue was making the assumption quoted above and the its also contained in the first post he made after mine.Quote:
Psychologically, it is understandable that you would try to rescue a cherished belief from trouble. When faced with conflicting data, you are likely to mention how the conflict will disappear if some new assumption is taken into account. However, if there is no good reason to accept this saving assumption other than that it works to save your cherished belief, your rescue is an ad hoc rescue.
Redleg's well I will let Jag and Aenlic tell us what mine was.
Go ahead and deny the role marxist doctrine has had on the communist ideologue. Indeed the Marxist thought started out as a minor player in communist ideology - however it had the major impact on the ideology. Or would you argue against that also.
"an extremely evil man"
I prefer calling him paranoid(sp?) and selfseeking.
He killed about 10x the amount the Nazi's did in concentration camps. Almost ALL his own countrymen, not even POWS, his OWN PEOPLE. He tried too hard. The communist idea is fine, but I think he took it to far. It wasn't a mistake, he did it on purpose, but he could have done ALOT better without murdering all those people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
I specifically said that the book was intended as anti-Stalinist. But you must also remember when it was written. It was published in 1945. It contains a lot which is specifically anti-fascist as well. And it also contains elements which are specifically targetted at the Stalinist trend in British socialism and communism at the time. The main focus is anti-Stalinist. And I never claimed otherwise. I do maintain that it isn't specifially anti-communist, just like Marxist/Leninist ideology is all there is to communism. Blair understood this. He was very familiar with the differences between communism and socialism and Leninist and Stalinist version using those names. He took a bullet in the neck while fighting for one communist ideology (POUM) against the Stalinists. It might be helpful for someone else to note the phrase for which POUM is acronym. Be wary when saying that Blair was anti-Marxist.Quote:
Originally Posted by AdrianII
As for the use of references to the International. They make my point as well. Read Homage to Catalonia. In it he takes specific aim at the ComIntern for corrupting communism and socialism and spreading Stalinism instead. He wrote it specifically in response to what he saw happening to the movement in Britain, compared with what he saw as the ideal in Barcelona.
Animal Farm used the Soviet system and Stalinism, and the corrupt version of ideals which Blair supported, as a paintbrush to attack a much wider target. Saying that Animal Farm was only an attack on Soviet communism is somewhat narrow and focuses only on the allegory and not on the broader message. Blair, or Orwell, refined that attack and message in the later 1984; but you can see the elements in the earlier work.