unwantedplatypus posted:

I'm not normal and I don't think I can make myself be normal. I would like to be an effective communist despite that.

Mr. Lobe posted:

Possess or develop either of those and you'll do fine

Communist Thoughts posted:

Is the tendency of some to defend stalin just contrarianism?

You often get online lefties talking an odd mix of actually Stalin wasn't that bad but usually those same lefties are the ones also making dark references to stuff like "when the revolution comes we can solve a lot of these problems with bullets"

Seems like a bad mix. I can't imagine anything more offputting to normies or less scary for capitalists to hear

Homeless Friend posted:

its like two guys are playing with toys. this guy whips out pinochet but you whip out stalin. obvious stalin is going to win. hes s-tier. the chilean is going to get piledrivered.

Epic High Five posted:

One thing I always think about whenever this sort of thing comes up was how in one of the book threads, when Grapes of Wrath came up, a goon mentioned that at their nice liberal arts prep school they were assigned to read it but were told they could skip the intercalary chapters lol. Apparently it's a not uncommon take among book sickos that they're just useless fluff which is wild to me.

fart simpson posted:

???

quote:

Intercalary chapters are parts of a novel that don't further enhance the plot but add background information or context for the reader to create a broader picture. Those chapters in The Grapes of Wrath are 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29. For example, Chapter 5 shows the eviction of residents by property owners. Chapter 11 depicts abandoned, empty houses. As the novel goes on, these chapters relate to the struggles of the Joad family. The people being removed from their homes show what life was like for others, for the general population. Though some book critics dislike the use of these pages, they add insight to the story that might have not been inferred otherwise.

quote:

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

quote:

The question of the form of repression, or of its degree, of course, is not one of 'principle'. It is a question of expediency. In a revolutionary period, the party which has been thrown from power, which does not reconcile itself with the stability of the ruling class, and which proves this by its desperate struggle against the latter, cannot be terrorized by the threat of imprisonment, as it does not believe in its duration. It is just this simple but decisive fact that explains the widespread recourse to shooting in a civil war.

Or, perhaps, Kautsky wishes to say that execution is not expedient, that 'classes cannot be cowed'. This is untrue. Terror is helpless - and then only 'in the long run' - if it is employed by reaction against a historically rising class. But terror can be very efficient against a reactionary class which does not want to leave the scene of operations. Intimidation is a powerful weapon of policy, both internationally and internally. War, like revolution, is founded upon intimidation. A victorious war, generally speaking, destroys only an insignificant part of the conquered army, intimidating the remainder and breaking their will. The revolution works in the same way: it kills individuals, and intimidates thousands. In this sense, the Red Terror is not distinguishable from the armed insurrection, the direct continuation of which it represents. The state terror of a revolutionary class can be condemned 'morally' only by a man who, as a principle, rejects (in words) every form of violence whatsoever - consequently, every war

and every rising. For this, one has to be merely and simply a hypocritical Quaker.

'But in that case, in what do your tactics differ from the tactics of tsarism?' we are asked by the high priests of liberalism and Kautskianism.

You do not understand this, holy men? We shall explain to you. The terror of tsarism was directed against the proletariat. The gendarmerie of tsarism throttled the workers who were fighting for the socialist order. Our Extraordinary Commissions shoot landlords, capitalists and generals who are striving to restore the capitalist order. Do you grasp this ... distinction? Yes? For us Communists it is quite sufficient.

gradenko_2000 posted:

croup coughfield posted:

croup coughfield posted:

fart simpson posted:

yeah those chapters aren’t the plot, but they are the story itself. the part you quoted is literally the best part and the heart of the book

Falstaff posted:

Also, it's downright criminal to get students to skip so much of The Grapes of Wrath, it's all fantastic and relevant.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

why in the motherfuck people are told to skip those chapters in _literature courses_

dead gay comedy forums posted:

why in the motherfuck people are told to skip those chapters in _literature courses_

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

the movie is very boring

the only part i remember is how they use dead grandma to get past a checkpoint

Tempora Mutantur posted:

reminds me of that article posted about a school losing its poo poo over a teacher reading The Sneetches because the kids slowly started to ask "did... did we treat some people like poo poo? for no reason??"

wow that was two weeks ago, felt longer https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2023/01/09/olentangy-schools-halts-reading-of-dr-seuss-book-during-npr-podcast/69791362007/

StashAugustine posted:

lmao this book is about racism, how can it be about economics?

Tempora Mutantur posted:

reminds me of that article posted about a school losing its poo poo over a teacher reading The Sneetches because the kids slowly started to ask "did... did we treat some people like poo poo? for no reason??"

wow that was two weeks ago, felt longer https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2023/01/09/olentangy-schools-halts-reading-of-dr-seuss-book-during-npr-podcast/69791362007/

dead gay comedy forums posted:

why in the motherfuck people are told to skip those chapters in _literature courses_

IDK who said it but there's something about "the men of American letters" being some of the worst petit-bougie on earth. We had this discussion elsewhere: it's that dumbass that praises Updike and shoots down Steinbeck

gradenko_2000 posted:

too political

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

It must be pointed out that the star-bellied sneetches began the story with a significant material advantage: they had more balls to play with, more hot dogs for weenie roasts. They were not just star-bellied, but wealthier, for reasons left unexplored.

quote:

“I just feel like this isn't teaching anything about economics, and this is a little bit more about differences with race and everything like that.”

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

if you want me to read more than that ima begatin' outta here

gradenko_2000 posted:

Do you grasp this ... distinction? Yes?

Falstaff posted:

I've honestly never encountered that use of the term, thanks.

Also, it's downright criminal to get students to skip so much of The Grapes of Wrath, it's all fantastic and relevant.

croup coughfield posted:

sunny side up i need you to correct this mistake

1.0: Sunny Side Up

quote:

What is the meaning of the principle of the sacredness of human life in practice, and in what does it differ from the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill'? Kautsky does not explain. When a murderer raises his knife over a child, may one kill the murderer to save the child? Will not thereby the principle of the 'sacredness of human life' be infringed? May one kill the murderer to save oneself? Is an insurrection of oppressed slaves against their masters permissible? Is it permissible to purchase one's freedom at the cost of the life of one's jailers? If human life in general is sacred and inviolable, we must deny ourselves not only the use of terror, not only war, but also revolution itself. Kautsky simply does not realize the counter-revolutionary meaning of the 'principle' which he attempts to force upon us. Elsewhere we shall see that Kautsky accuses us of concluding the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: in his opinion we ought to have continued war. But what then becomes of the sacredness of human life? Does life cease to be sacred when it is a question of people talking another language, or does Kautsky consider that mass murders organized on principles of strategy and tactics are not murders at all? Truly it is difficult to put forward in our age a principle more hypocritical and more stupid. As long as human labour-power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the 'sacredness of human life' remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.

quote:

'At the elections of 26 March[, 1871], eighty members were elected to the Commune. Of these, fifteen were members of the government party (Thiers), and six were bourgeois radicals who were in opposition to the government, but condemned the rising (of the Paris workers). 'The Soviet Republic', Kautsky teaches us, 'would never have allowed such counter-revolutionary elements to stand as candidates, let alone be elected. The Commune, on the other hand, out of respect for democracy, did not place the least obstacle in the way of the election of its bourgeois opponents'

We have already seen above that here Kautsky completely misses the mark. First of all, at a similar stage of development of the Russian Revolution, there did take place democratic elections to the Petrograd commune, in which the Soviet government placed no obstacle in the way of the bourgeois parties; and if the Kadets, the SRs and the Mensheviks, who had their press which was openly calling for the overthrow of the Soviet government, boycotted the elections, it was only because at that time they still hoped soon to make an end of us with the help of armed force. Secondly, no democracy expressing all classes was actually to be found in the Paris Commune. The bourgeois deputies - Conservatives, Liberals, Gambettists - found no place in it.

'Nearly all these individuals,' says Lavrov, 'either immediately or very soon, left the council of the Commune. They might have been representatives of Paris as a free city under the rule of the bourgeoisie, but were quite out of place in the council of the Commune, which, willy-nilly, consistently or inconsistently, completely or incompletely, did represent the revolution of the proletariat, and an attempt, feeble though it might be, of building up forms of society corresponding to that revolution'. If the Petrograd bourgeoisie had not boycotted the municipal elections, its representatives would have entered the Petrograd council. They would have remained there up to the first Social Revolutionary and Kadet rising, after which - with the permission or without the permission of Kautsky - they would probably have been arrested if they did not leave the council in good time, as at a certain moment did the bourgeois members of the Paris Commune. The course of events would have remained the same: only on their surface would certain episodes have worked out differently.

In supporting the democracy of the Commune, and at the same time accusing it of an insufficiently decisive note in its attitude to Versailles, Kautsky does not understand that the Communal elections, carried out with the ambiguous help of the 'lawful' mayors and deputies, reflected the hope of a peaceful agreement with Versailles. This is the whole point. The leaders were anxious for a compromise, not for a struggle. The masses had not yet outlived their illusions. Undeserved revolutionary reputations had not yet had time to be exposed. Everything taken together was called democracy.

'We must rise above our enemies by moral force', preached Vermorel. 'We must not infringe liberty and individual life ... ' Striving to avoid fratricidal war, Vermorel called upon the liberal bourgeoisie, whom hitherto he had so mercilessly exposed, to set up 'a lawful government, recognized and respected by the whole .population of Paris'. The Journal Officiel, published under the editorship of the internationalist Longuet, wrote: 'The sad misunderstanding, which in the June days (1848) armed two classes of society against each other, cannot be renewed . . . Class antagonism has ceased to exist' (30 March). And, further: 'Now all conflicts will be appeased, because all are inspired with a feeling of solidarity, because never yet was there so little social hatred and social antagonism' (3 April).

At the session of the Commune of 25 April, Jourde, and not without foundation, congratulated himself on the fact that the Commune had 'never yet infringed the principle of private property'. By this means they hoped to win over bourgeois public opinion and find the path to compromise.

'Such a doctrine', says Lavrov, and rightly, 'did not in the least disarm the enemies of the proletariat, who understood excellently with what its success threatened them, and only sapped the proletarian energy and, as it were, deliberately blinded it in the face of its irreconcilable
enemies' (p. 137). But this enfeebling doctrine was inextricably bound up with the fiction of democracy. The form of mock legality it was that allowed them to think that the problem would be solved without a struggle. 'As far as the mass of the population is concerned,' writes Arthur Amould, a member of the Commune, 'it was to a certain extent justified in the belief in the existence of, at the very least, a hidden agreement with the government.' Unable to attract the bourgeoisie, the compromisers, as always, deceived the proletariat. The clearest evidence of all that, in the conditions of the inevitable and already beginning civil war, democratic parliamentarism expressed only the compromising helplessness of the leading groups, was the senseless procedure of the supplementary elections to the Commune of 6 April. At this moment, 'it was no longer a question of voting,' writes Arthur Arnould. 'The situation had become so tragic that there was not either the time or the calmness necessary for the correct functioning of the elections. . . . All persons devoted to the Commune were on the fortifications, in the forts, in the foremost detachments. . . . The people attributed no importance whatever to these supplementary elections. The elections were in reality merely parliamentarism. What was required was not to count voters, but to have soldiers: not to discover whether we had lost or gained in the Commune of Paris, but to defend Paris from the Versaillais.' From these words Kautsky might have observed why in practice it is not so simple to combine class war with inter-class democracy.

'The Commune is not a constituent assembly,' wrote in his book, Milliard, one of the best brains of the Commune. 'It is a military council. It must have one aim, victory; one weapon, force; one law, the law of social salvation.'

'They could never understand', Lissagaray accuses the leaders, 'that the Commune was a barricade, and not an administration.' They began to understand it in the end, when it was too late. Kautsky has not understood it to this day. There is no reason to believe that he will ever understand it.

quote:

The problem of the Commune was to dissolve the National Assembly. Unfortunately it did not succeed in doing so. Today Kautsky seeks to discover for its criminal intentions some mitigating circumstances.

He points out that the Communards had as their opponents in the National Assembly the monarchists, while we in the Constituent Assembly had against us socialists, in the persons of the SRs, and the Mensheviks. A complete mental eclipse! Kautsky talks about the Mensheviks and the SRs, but forgets our sole serious foe - the Kadets. It was they who represented our Russian Thiers party - i.e., a bloc of property-owners in the name of property: and Professor Miliukov did his utmost to imitate the 'little great man'. Very soon indeed - long before the October Revolution - Miliukov began to seek his Galliffet in the generals Kornilov, Alexeiev, then Kaledin, Krasnov, in turn. And after Kolchak had thrown aside all political parties, and had dissolved the Constituent Assembly, the Kadet Party, the sole serious bourgeois party, in its essence monarchist through and through, not only did not refuse to support him, but on the contrary devoted more sympathy to him than before.

The Mensheviks and the SRs played no independent role amongst us - just like Kautsky's party during the revolutionary events in Germany. They based their whole policy upon a coalition with the Kadets, and thereby put the Kadets in a position to dictate quite irrespective of the balance of political forces. The Social Revolutionary and Menshevik parties were only an intermediary apparatus for the purpose of collecting, at meetings and elections, the political confidence of the masses awakened by the revolution, and for handing it over for disposal by the counter-revolutionary imperialist party of the Kadets - independently of the issue of the elections.

The purely vassal-like dependence of the SRs and Menshevik majority on the Kadet minority itself represented a very thinly veiled insult to the idea of 'democracy'. But this is not all.

In all districts of the country where the regime of 'democracy' lived too long, it inevitably ended in an open coup d'etat of the counter-revolution. So it was in the Ukraine, where the democratic Rada, having sold the Soviet government to German imperialism, found itself overthrown by the monarchist Skoropadsky. So it was in the Kuban, where the democratic Rada found itself under the heel of Denikin. So it was - and this was the most important experiment of our 'democracy' - in Siberia, where the Constituent Assembly, with the formal supremacy of the SRs and the Mensheviks, in the absence of the Bolsheviks, and the de facto guidance of the Kadets, led in the end to the dictatorship of the tsarist Admiral Kolchak. So it was, finally, in the north, where the Constituent Assembly government of the Socialist Revolutionary Chaikovsky became merely a tinsel decoration for the rule of counter-revolutionary generals, Russian and British. So it was, or is, in all the small border states - in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Georgia, Armenia - where, under the formal banner of 'democracy', there is being consolidated the supremacy of the landlords, the capitalists and the foreign militarists.