double nine posted:

V. Illych L. posted:

he's also being stupid.

Ferrinus posted:

you might think i'm kidding, but check this out

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/09/liberation.htm

i actually posted this in the first marxism thread as a joke (i changed the name in the quote) ages ago when someone started hypothesizing pro-bolsnaro tankies. as you might imagine this is sandwiched between griping about stalinists but if you didn't know the context you might've thought it came straight out of Foundations of Leninism

gradenko_2000 posted:

WWI did result in the USSR, so it's impossible to say if it's good or bad

my dad posted:

One day I'll talk about how Trotsky would not shut the gently caress up about certain things about the Balkans which he utterly misinterpreted

genericnick posted:

Is it? The argument seems to be entirely by outcomes. The UK can impose another fascist on Brazil if it wins, but if they lose it opens the window to good things since Brazil lacks that power.
Not that it matters for citizens of the imperial core since the operational part is the same.

vyelkin posted:

lmao at equating Israeli apartheid to a student group doing something dumb

AnimeIsTrash posted:

There is a certain type of older person who's brain completely breaks when it comes into contact with what they perceive as "wokeness".

sube posted:

Well, it's both: it's worthy of support due to facing imperialism (he takes a similar stance with, say, China and Chiang Kai-Shek being leader of it resisting Japan); and also, that a victory against imperialism can strengthen progressive forces due to Brazil being non-imperialist, which is just the argument Marx makes in support of Irish independence being important for English workers as well, for ex.

Trotsky posted:

If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

how in the gently caress I never read Trotsky talking about Brazil

and he fell right into the trap of many a foreign commie of doing poo poo analysis about Latin America lmao. in many practical ways Vargas was doing extensive left-wing policy, but because Latin America, ideological construction has its peculiarities due to caudillo basis and its never that simple.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

how in the gently caress I never read Trotsky talking about Brazil

sube posted:

Wdym with 'left-wing policy'? He promoted unionisation, but it was to achieve the taming of the working class. Except for 51-54, it seems he was simply a conservative modernizer, completing the bourgeois revolution in '30 with the crushing of rural coffe oligarchy. His repression of integralists was due to their involvement in the formation of EN in '37 leading them to hope to occupy various minister positions, which when denied resulted in a coup attempt by them, as far as I know

dead gay comedy forums posted:

so, Getúlio Vargas was president of Brazil from 1930-45 and from 51-54. As a political figure, he is perhaps the most anomalous one in our history. In 1930, he seized power thanks to a populist uprising against the early republican system, which among other things, favored the coffee-exporting economies of the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo.

During his years as president-dictator, he came up with the most extensive project of both state and national construction and development that Brazil ever had, especially in federal terms. The largest economic enterprises in Brazilian history were started in his government and as public companies. Along with that, a vast social development initiative was carried out especially through laborism, by using labor rights and standards as a form to uplift the masses, which made him "pai dos pobres" (father of the poor)

the usual way to refer to a guy like this would be "populist authoritarian", but it doesn't cut it like that for him. In my own read, Vargas would be a very rare, perhaps unique type of political figure: an utopian socialist tyrant. He had Fourier and Saint-Simon as his bedtime reads often. He, against what most utopian socialists believe, actually levied a movement to seize power. He was an authoritarian. He used that authority towards socio-economic development with success. And he tripped upon himself hard when he tried to act as a napoleonic power in politics, above all ideological concern. When he decided to crack down on socialists and communists, he lost a very significant part of his support, which until then he could count upon to defend himself against liberals and conservatives

had he simply accepted them as a force that would be critical of him but defensive of his social and economic policies, he wouldn't have to worry about much and would probably die of old age as president

dead gay comedy forums posted:

so, he went far and beyond FDR and the New Deal, to be quite honest. We are talking more "Peasants into Frenchmen" mixed with almost Soviet levels of economic direction. Almost every single economic activity of note in the country had a government organization created to manage it. For example, to harness the mineral wealth of the greater hinterland beginning from northern Minas Gerais, Vale do Rio Doce was created, providing an incredibly important channel for cheap iron, manganese and bauxite to the benefit of the USA (US Steel/Bethlehem got record profit marks once FDR and Vargas signed accords).

The allies needed rubber? Brazil had it. To increase the exports to what the Allies needed per diplomatic treaty, a massive settlement program was organized to bring people from the Northeastern hinterland (sertões) into the Brazilian North, i.e. the Amazon. The Amazonian Navigation Service, the Superintendency for the Provision of the Amazonian Valley, the Special Public Health Service and more were created because of that, in what was a typical Vargas move: using a matter of diplomacy and trade as a pretext to liberals and conservatives ("to honor our commitments to our friends in Washington" etc), he would actually seize the opportunity to effect far-reaching structural programs.

However, I chose this example in specific because it also demonstrates Vargas' sudden bouts of timidity to actually go all the way against locally entrenched power structures: while the federal actions had means and capability, many local powerbrokers (caudillos, coronéis, etc) did abominable poo poo like putting the migrants into effectively debt slavery and what not, while leaving many to die to the Amazonian attrition.

The thing is that Vargas himself was, ultimately, a landowner from Rio Grande do Sul, a state with a very strong caudillo culture, and thus a man of such politics. He suffered from the disconnect that utopian socialists have of their policies being objectively better but being incapable of carrying them full effort because it is an attack to the prevalent structure

as for his legacy, well, our labor laws descend from his government. Every single major public company was either created or affected by that, too: Petrobras was created to discover oil and uphold a state monopoly to the country's benefit. The first major organized industrial effort was made under his government, etc. The biggest road and rail building efforts also happened under him. Most contemporary federal institutions were created during that time as well, so on and on

dead gay comedy forums posted:

I think Vargas is perhaps the most circumstantial of the big three examples (Cárdenas, Perón, Vargas). Also, it's not coincidence that they are representatives of the three major powers of Latin America: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. Getting into the thick of it requires some analysis, which I'll try do it briefly.

The interwar period was, to put it bluntly, the biggest structural break and opportunity that Latin American economies had in ever. As independent but secondary economies, the complete shortage of industrial goods naturally drove the most enterprising political factions into economic development policies that, well, worked. Brazil diverges from the rest here because it already had a modest degree of such policy, thanks to the late imperial cabinet having industrialists and the influence of foreign investors from the UK and USA.

It gets interesting when the winds of the Revolution get here, brought by immigrants and refugees, which finds an incredibly favorable environment to spread around. Revolutionary socialism finds in Latin America a deeply fertile ground; in Brazil, with slavery abolished only in 1888, a significant parcel of former slaves or those born in once-enslaved families saw in revolution the cause to correct that injustice. For the deeply conservative, colonial legacy of the elites of the continent, it was clear how incredibly threatening this scenario became: not only there was a dramatic economic displacement going on, but also a tremendous, totally novel political surge specifically aimed at destroying that establishment.

Of course, Europe had another very fashionable thing going on: fascism. This is where the magic trick happens, at least according to some of the best Latin American historians. The cultural influence of Europe in Latin America is undeniable, but when world war one cuts off the usual economic arrangement, Latin America starts to redevelop itself and, having far more resources than the old continent, sorta rediscovers itself in material terms and capabilities. This creates a new political dynamic, with a new form of political thought by the newer generation of the caudillo elite raised in modernity. In fascism, they see the element of imposition of authority that was for ever necessary in Latin America because of imperialism and colonialism, which also allows them to persuade the conservative and reactionary elements of society by the affirmation of strength. This aspect ties extremely well to the historical practice of the caudillos since, well, ever.

But, when the Great Depression happens, it confirms to this class that, to ensure this "more independent" economic position, liberalism is simply too limited. Moreover, national development and national sovereignty ultimately require social development, which is the other common thread that ties those leaders together. All of them truly believed in social policy as fundamental drivers of national development, which tied together with the rising socialist/communist movements. Using laborism as a friendlier label, which also allowed them to work with the Church and other traditional political base, many socialist politics were employed in order to develop a national industrial base and, eventually, attempt to build their countries into something actually modern.

What they have in common is that they had, for the first time in the history of the continent, achieved some success in that goal.

genericnick posted:

But he writes:

He explicitly expects Brazil's victory to lead to the collapse of the regime for some reason, but I see no claim about Brazil being an imperial power or otherwise. Just the implied claim that it is much weaker.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

got my posts from latin america thread

double nine posted:

GalacticAcid posted:

vargas panders

AnimeIsTrash posted:

There is a certain type of older person who's brain completely breaks when it comes into contact with what they perceive as "wokeness".

Epic High Five posted:

I wish I was a little bit taller

Epic High Five posted:

I wish I was a little bit taller

AbysmalPeptoBismol posted:

I wish I was a baller

gradenko_2000 posted:

I wish I had a girl who look good, I would call her

vyelkin posted:

here are some horrifying stories of murder and rape attributed to the far right, but did you know the woke left tried to hold a university event for people other than white men? I literally cannot see the difference between these two things

Danger posted:

is Sebastian-montefuore’s Young Stalin just lib poo poo or is it actually good? reading reviews makes me think the former. what’s a good book on Stalin?

Danger posted:

what’s a good book on Stalin?

disaster pastor posted:

don't know if it's good but I'm waiting for the new translation of Losurdo's history and critique, which I hope is still coming.

mawarannahr posted:

it was fun to read but lib

Danger posted:

is Sebastian-montefuore’s Young Stalin just lib poo poo or is it actually good? reading reviews makes me think the former. what’s a good book on Stalin?

Ferrinus posted:

i liked ludo martens's "another view of stalin". i also keep hearing that the kotkin biographies are good, or at least the first one is, despite the fact that kotkin is himself a conservative liberal, but i haven't read them myself