[Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

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(Thread IKs: dead gay comedy forums)

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

Kaedric posted:

I'm not sure I'm understanding the criticism of those quotes above (Trotsky/Wang). It kind of sounds like Stalin could have indeed helped in China against the KMT? That seems like a valid complaint.

you are right that it is, here was the context that trotsky was responding too

quote:

Howard : May there not be an element of danger in the genuine fear existent in what you term capitalistic countries of an intent on the part of the Soviet Union to force its political theories on other nations?

Stalin : There is no justification whatever for such fears. If you think that Soviet people want to change the face of surrounding states, and by forcible means at that, you are entirely mistaken. Of course, Soviet people would like to see the face of surrounding states changed, but that is the business of the surrounding states. I fail to see what danger the surrounding states can perceive in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states are really sitting firmly in the saddle.

Howard : Does this, your statement, mean that the Soviet Union has to any degree abandoned its plans and intentions for bringing about world revolution?

Stalin : We never had such plans and intentions.

Howard : You appreciate, no doubt, Mr. Stalin, that much of the world has long entertained a different impression.

Stalin : This is the product of a misunderstanding.

Howard : A tragic misunderstanding?

Stalin : No, a comical one. Or, perhaps, tragicomic.

You see, we Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution. For example, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new, classless society.

But to assert that we want to make a revolution in other countries, to interfere in their lives, means saying what is untrue, and what we have never advocated.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm

# ? Aug 2, 2021 23:24

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# ? May 25, 2024 22:12

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

indigi posted:

in the USSR�s case it almost certainly would have in the period between Hiroshima and when they tested their first bomb. past that I think they had a little more leeway (as evidenced by them helping Vietnam and Cuba more) but it was still a delicate balancing act

the US had like 50 total lovely nukes until 1950

# ? Aug 2, 2021 23:25

Kaedric: Sep 5, 2000

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

you are right that it is, here was the context that trotsky was responding too

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm

Hm, I think I do not agree with what Stalin is saying here. If Capital will be applying pressure globally, it seems bad to leave other countries to their fates.

If he means that there is no intent to 'infiltrate' other countries and foment revolutions out of whole cloth, I suppose I understand. I can't help but want cross-country solidarity though for revolutions.

# ? Aug 2, 2021 23:31

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

re: the discussion some pages ago about lysenkoism, a lot of it comes down to the peculiar scientism of lenin. lenin was a very clever man and a competent philosopher, but a snag about his work was that his interpretation of dialectical materialism as summed up in materialism and empirio-criticism was taken as dogma, which is of course poison to dialectical thinking. it bears noting that lenin's own ideology and conviction of having essentially "solved" society through use of dialectical materialism lended itself to this anti-dialectical programme and made it self-contradictory.

now, materialism and empirio-criticism is a work which is well worth reading, but it's got definite flaws because lenin didn't think really think though the implications of the piece as a volume of philosophy of science. among them is the definite reducibility of matter, basically saying that if entity A is composed of entities B and C it is entirely explicable in terms of those entities. this posed serious problems for the early soviet nuclear programme. more generally, lenin refused to accept any notion of essentialism, which means that things are basically what their environment makes them (this is a vulgarisation, of course, but it's not a completely ridiculous one). now, making this kind of thing into dogma as the soviet union did is Bad News for the progress of science as a critical discipline, and they eventually did resolve it, but one can see how lysenko's stuff would've geled with it, especially considering stalin's even more dogmatic adoption of lenin's theory.

more generally, as a biologist, i think that evolution must be said to be a profoundly dialectical process. it's self-reproducing until annihilation and constantly shifting in the face of changing circumstances. gene regulation is more disposition than traditional causation, and expression can vary drastically depending on regulatory context, but care must always be taken to recall that the cell itself cannot express something that's not intrinsic to it, i.e. coded in its genome - the genome is a definite thing that exists (put vulgarly, a thesis) in a specific context of signals etc (antithesis) and produces some phenotype (synthesis). however, what comes out must be in accordance with the dispositions of what you put in - you cannot make a human cell start producing, idk, chitinase unless you alter its basic genetic code. it can in principle do this on its own, but it's a process of many generations. lysenko tried a process of socialisation which he had reason to believe from his vernalisation work and a peculiar, dogmatic interpretation of lenin's ontological theory, but it got hosed.

it does also bear noting that among grass people lysenko's apparently not considered a complete crackpot, even if he was basically wrong, but i'm not a grass person and the explanation i got was a little hard to follow so i don't know if the guy was just showing off a fun fact or if he represented some kind of consensus

# ? Aug 2, 2021 23:33

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Raskolnikov38 posted:

the US had like 50 total lovely nukes until 1950

Also, they needed to use propeller powered bombers like the B-29/36 which could be easily shot down by Soviet interceptor aircraft which were comparable to their Western counterparts at that point. It is why the entire idea of "dropping a bomb" on Moscow or other major Soviet cities is a joke.

(If anything the Mig-15 when it was introduced in 1949 was better than comparable American aircraft.)

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 00:01 on Aug 3, 2021

# ? Aug 2, 2021 23:57

swimsuit: Jan 22, 2009; yeah

apropos to nothing should post here again imo

# ? Aug 3, 2021 00:18

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

Kaedric posted:

If he means that there is no intent to 'infiltrate' other countries and foment revolutions out of whole cloth, I suppose I understand. I can't help but want cross-country solidarity though for revolutions.

that too, but also just acknowledging that when conditions and development are not equal, there is no one magic bullet that can be applied around the world.

quote:

The solution of the national question is possible only in connection with the historical conditions taken in their development.

The economic, political and cultural conditions of a given nation constitute the only key to the question how a particular nation ought to arrange its life and what forms its future constitution ought to take. It is possible that a specific solution of the question will be required for each nation. If the dialectical approach to a question is required anywhere it is required here, in the national question.

the anarchists and ultras would be wise to get their heads out of their asses, take Joes advice, and stfu about doing socialism correctly

# ? Aug 3, 2021 00:22

elaboration: Feb 21, 2020

i'm not 100% sure what this wiki is, but somebody reuploaded all of marx/engel's writings on the american civil war after they got copyright murdered from marxists.org a few months ago

https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/Collection:The_Civil_War_in_the_United_States

some incredibly good stuff here

# ? Aug 3, 2021 00:36

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Ardennes posted:

Also, they needed to use propeller powered bombers like the B-29/36 which could be easily shot down by Soviet interceptor aircraft which were comparable to their Western counterparts at that point. It is why the entire idea of "dropping a bomb" on Moscow or other major Soviet cities is a joke.

(If anything the Mig-15 when it was introduced in 1949 was better than comparable American aircraft.)

yeah and really until icbms were made the bomb was something that could only really be used on a fully supine enemy

# ? Aug 3, 2021 00:48

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

swimsuit posted:

apropos to nothing should post here again imo

The mods have stolen much from us.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 01:20

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Raskolnikov38 posted:

yeah and really until icbms were made the bomb was something that could only really be used on a fully supine enemy

which again makes Stalin a cuck. �Alexander had Paris� then go and take it you gently caress

# ? Aug 3, 2021 01:23

Centrist Committee: Aug 6, 2019

drake no: stalin was a monster
drake yes: stalin was a cuck

# ? Aug 3, 2021 01:52

MeatwadIsGod: Sep 30, 2004; Foretold by Gyromancy

Judge Dredd Scott posted:

i'm not 100% sure what this wiki is, but somebody reuploaded all of marx/engel's writings on the american civil war after they got copyright murdered from marxists.org a few months ago

https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/Collection:The_Civil_War_in_the_United_States

some incredibly good stuff here

If you want concise explanations of the slave power maneuvers of the 1840s-50s around reapportionment Marx's articles for Die Presse are great. Whenever he or Engels trash McClellan as a traitorous jackass it does my heart good

# ? Aug 3, 2021 01:55

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Raskolnikov38 posted:

which again makes Stalin a cuck. �Alexander had Paris� then go and take it you gently caress

Neither side really had that much of a distinct advantage for a easy victory, the Soviets would dominate on the ground until their supply lines got stretched.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 02:13

copy: Jul 26, 2007

indigi posted:

I think the key difference is when it comes to peasants who own large plots of land, whose class interests don't fully coincide with landless peasants/workers

dead gay comedy forums posted:

fair warning, this is a personal interpretation, not some high level theorycrafting

in the context of the industrial revolution - and especially in Western Europe - this difference was somewhat more evident to people in that period who were observing the peasantry being uprooted through several measures (enclosures, parish annulments, prohibition of medieval customs, etc) to be forced into becoming urban working class, the proletariat. The trick, the way I see it, is to understand that when the people closer to that time talk about peasantry, they are talking about the way of living rather than "rural working class", which is something more sophisticated that comes later on.

This is why early Marxism (and to be fair communists up to and including the bolsheviks) has a prejudice against the peasantry, because that preliminary understanding ~~didn't consider~~ considered that the social relations fostered by the peasantry were inherently conservative; their own understanding of being workers couldn't happen due to the intrinsic properties of laboring under serfdom. Marx revisited that topic multiple times during his lifetime as he honed his own theoretical ability - especially after others taught him about serfdom in Russia - and believed, eventually, that the peasantry wasn't inherently conservative at all, but had a different path to class consciousness to pursue than the urban proletariat

Ferrinus posted:

the distinction between peasants and agricultural workers is one that went over my head at first and which helps me think about the prole vs. peasant divide. the basic fact of being self-sufficient but parasitized from above, rather than literally having nothing but yourself and your fellow workers, mean the two classes are going to have different immediate needs and ideological tendencies

This was definitely part of the context I was missing out on and I believe that I, like Ferrinus correctly guessed, wasn't making a distinction between peasantry/serfdom and modern agricultural workers. I knew there was something unexamined that made that seem weird to me. I appreciate the responses and the perspective, friends.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 03:39

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

https://twitter.com/DJ90sHentai/status/1381727600389861376?s=20

# ? Aug 3, 2021 03:45

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Stairmaster posted:

https://twitter.com/DJ90sHentai/status/1381727600389861376?s=20

# ? Aug 3, 2021 04:43

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

V. Illych L. posted:

mostly, though, it's that peasants cannot effectively withdraw their labour without starving to death

can most workers? I don�t see this being a clear distinction at all

Ardennes posted:

Also, they needed to use propeller powered bombers like the B-29/36 which could be easily shot down by Soviet interceptor aircraft which were comparable to their Western counterparts at that point. It is why the entire idea of "dropping a bomb" on Moscow or other major Soviet cities is a joke.

(If anything the Mig-15 when it was introduced in 1949 was better than comparable American aircraft.)

Moscow or whatever is obviously a joke, though I don�t think getting a bomb from Scandinavia to Leningrad was out of the question. they�d also have been more likely to use it in Eastern Europe, porbably against the Soviet army.

I don�t think a nuclear war in the 1945-1950 period would have looked like how we imagine it today, which is usually heralded by the first detonation without weeks or months of conventional warfare building up to it

# ? Aug 3, 2021 05:35

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/Vorkuta_CLC/status/1422243346144284685

# ? Aug 3, 2021 05:59

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/Vorkuta_CLC/status/1422243346144284685

Stalin was a queer poc and that's why you're racist if you aren't a tankie. hth

# ? Aug 3, 2021 06:08

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Larry Parrish posted:

Stalin was a queer poc and that's why you're racist if you aren't a tankie. hth

As brown as the Georgian soil :hmmyes:

# ? Aug 3, 2021 06:09

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Larry Parrish posted:

Stalin was a queer poc and that's why you're racist if you aren't a tankie. hth

now this is some idpol I can get into

# ? Aug 3, 2021 06:10

swimsuit: Jan 22, 2009; yeah

CEO of Stalinism ☭ | Flag of North Korea Pro-DPRK Flag of North Korea | 18y | Wretched child of earth Red heartBlack heartRed heart

# ? Aug 3, 2021 06:27

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

indigi posted:

can most workers? I don�t see this being a clear distinction at all

Moscow or whatever is obviously a joke, though I don�t think getting a bomb from Scandinavia to Leningrad was out of the question. they�d also have been more likely to use it in Eastern Europe, porbably against the Soviet army.

I don�t think a nuclear war in the 1945-1950 period would have looked like how we imagine it today, which is usually heralded by the first detonation without weeks or months of conventional warfare building up to it

Leningrad would have still had a tight defense around it and US bombers would have to claw their way through an aggressive defense to get to the city. Also, if a bomber gets shot down, not only is it a loss of a hard to replace nuke but it maybe be captured by the other side. If anything I would think it would be last resort weapons (also they would be very clumsy for battlefield use).

I would say the real issue is simply a unclear victory for both sides.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 06:53

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

indigi posted:

can most workers? I don�t see this being a clear distinction at all

Moscow or whatever is obviously a joke, though I don�t think getting a bomb from Scandinavia to Leningrad was out of the question. they�d also have been more likely to use it in Eastern Europe, porbably against the Soviet army.

I don�t think a nuclear war in the 1945-1950 period would have looked like how we imagine it today, which is usually heralded by the first detonation without weeks or months of conventional warfare building up to it

workers can storm storehouses and rob shops if push comes to shove. a peasant commune going on strike means the fields going fallow and there simply being no food produced in the area. a more common form of peasant protest are attempts to withhold their crops, as some indeed tried against soviet rule, but that really did not end well

# ? Aug 3, 2021 09:24

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

gradenko_2000 posted:

more from "We Are Cuba!":

(if this is making GBS threads up the thread just yell at me and I'll stop)

Absolutely not, this is all new to me and is a handy reference for when i need to tell people about Cuba.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 11:26

Crusader: Apr 11, 2002

my dad posted:

Please continue.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 11:42

tokin opposition: Apr 8, 2021; I don't jailbreak the androids, I set them free.

WATCH MARS EXPRESS (2023)

a bunch of d&d posts, but good. Interesting. 🤔

Here's my contribution:

# ? Aug 3, 2021 11:53

Jonah Galtberg: Feb 11, 2009

get out T-man

# ? Aug 3, 2021 12:00

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

tokin opposition posted:

a bunch of d&d posts, but good. Interesting. 🤔

Here's my contribution:

https://youtu.be/ianb7qAGd9I

# ? Aug 3, 2021 12:28

Algund Eenboom: May 4, 2014

Lol

# ? Aug 3, 2021 14:10

Sarrisan: Oct 9, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

more from "We Are Cua!

(if this is making GBS threads up the thread just yell at me and I'll stop)

These posts were good enough to get me to buy the book, so thanks.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 14:49

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

(if this is making GBS threads up the thread just yell at me and I'll stop)

of loving course it is not my goonrade

# ? Aug 3, 2021 14:57

Kaedric: Sep 5, 2000

gradenko_2000 posted:

more from "We Are Cuba!":

___

___

(if this is making GBS threads up the thread just yell at me and I'll stop)

wth that owns

# ? Aug 3, 2021 15:00

LittleBlackCloud: Mar 5, 2007; xXI love Plum JuiceXx

It's a very good book. The author was actually in Cuba at time of the recent protests also.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 15:09

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Did they have anything interesting to say about those protests?

# ? Aug 3, 2021 15:32

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

(thank you for all the kind words. I will continue posting excerpts as I find interesting bits that don't take up too many pages)

One of the broad themes I've picked up from the book is that Fidel recognized that the emergence of a nomenklatura within the Soviet Union "corrupted" it and lead to its downfall, and he used the mass mobilizations of the Special Period, and of the Battle of Ideas, in order to stamp-out this tendency.

What I find myself musing about is whether there is a parallel construction that could be said with regards to the Cultural Revolution, and how much it mattered that China and Cuba, who underwent such processes, managed to persist longer than the USSR, which didn't (or indeed, in its failure taught the rest of the socialists of the world what was to be done).

# ? Aug 3, 2021 15:46

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# ? May 25, 2024 22:12

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

(thank you for all the kind words. I will continue posting excerpts as I find interesting bits that don't take up too many pages)

One of the broad themes I've picked up from the book is that Fidel recognized that the emergence of a nomenklatura within the Soviet Union "corrupted" it and lead to its downfall, and he used the mass mobilizations of the Special Period, and of the Battle of Ideas, in order to stamp-out this tendency.

What I find myself musing about is whether there is a parallel construction that could be said with regards to the Cultural Revolution, and how much it mattered that China and Cuba, who underwent such processes, managed to persist longer than the USSR, which didn't (or indeed, in its failure taught the rest of the socialists of the world what was to be done).

I think it's a fair call to say that. There's the thing - among some of us at least - where the criticism of such problems is understood as a matter of faith rather than a practical problem, like, taking shots at Soviet bureaucracy during Stalin is necessarily Trotskyist so gently caress you etc, which misses the point entirely, which is to find why those problems happened in the first place - this is as practical as Marxism as can be.

# ? Aug 3, 2021 16:02

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