adri
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That’s not really an accurate headline by the Global Times. China has been promoting the private sector since at least the economic liberalization policies of the Deng era. Incidentally, it’s sort of funny how the Trump administration and other people on the right around the world continue referring to China, almost instinctively, as “red China” and “communist China.” If you want to see how “red” China is (not), a good documentary is China Blue, which shows how the industrial/textile sector is heavily dependent on the exploitation of people from the countryside.
I knew the answer; I was just a bit afraid of the prize. A million pounds of what? A million pounds of snakes?! No thanks!
Jim Morrison is actually buried not far from where Communards were executed by the Thiers government in the Père Lachaise Cemetery during the Bloody Week, which is today a memorial site known as the Communards’ Wall.
Can and will the working class rise up? Or is this all just wishful thinking on my part? One thing’s for sure if this keeps up the country’s structure must crumble.
Yeah, there are protests all over the place, including against Musk and his businesses, which have been severely affected. It probably won’t instill much class consciousness among people, but I’m still sticking with my original bet of Trump (and possibly Musk) not lasting the first year in office. My general impression is that people are fed up, especially government workers who are currently facing a wave of firings. The entire nonprofit sector is also being affected because of these buffoons’ withholding of grants and their reassessment of grant eligibility (e.g. they don’t want to award grants to nonprofits with DEI language). Countless other industries/sectors are also being negatively impacted, including consumers themselves, due to the utterly moronic tariffs.
It’s rather disappointing that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, especially for liberals and some other leftists, is now becoming a matter of “Trump vs Ukraine,” as if it were ever that simple. I don’t understand how difficult it is for these people to read about things like Crimeans’ views on being “liberated” by Ukraine, Ukrainians’ acts of resistance against the war and the Ukrainian regime’s forced mobilization, the policies of the post-Maidan regime and the hostility towards them by people in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, etc. They only see that Trump wants the mineral resources in Ukraine and automatically assume that Zelensky and the post-Maidan government are innocent saints. They just don’t approach the matter seriously at all. If you now criticize the Ukrainian regime, then you risk being lumped into the Trump camp. The disastrous meeting yesterday, which I have a feeling was partly planned by the Trump team, certainly helped to promote this false dichotomy.
Incidentally, the propaganda expression “save Ukraine” sort of reminds me of Chomsky’s critcisms of the expression “support our troops”:
The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, “do you support our policy?” But you don’t want people to think about that issue. That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: “do you support our policy?”
There shouldn’t be any surprise regarding Sanders’ views on the Russo-Ukrainian War; he’s just the left of capital after all. He had similarly supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” following the 7 October Attacks, ignoring how Israel had already successfully repelled the attacks and how bombing Gazans to bits in fact did little to “protect” Israel. (The Israeli right’s policies are really the biggest security threat to Israel owing to how they’re merely creating resentment among Palestinians/Arabs and contributing to cycles of violence; Israel is its own biggest security threat.) Only later did Sanders actually begin condemning Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Like other Western leftists, he likes to think that Putin has “imperial ambitions” and wants to resurrect the Russian Empire before conquering all of Europe, without providing any actual evidence to back any of these claims up. Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was abhorrent, but there were pretty concrete reasons for his opposition to the post-Maidan government, none of which have anything to do with supposedly wanting to “resurrect the Russian Empire” or “conquer Europe.” Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, for example, was mostly motivated by a fear of Russia losing access to Sevastopol following the 2014 Maidan Coup and the rise of an openly Russo-phobic government in Kiev. The 2022 Invasion was similarly sparked by the Russo-phobic policies of the post-Maidan government (e.g. its push to join NATO and persecution of Russian speakers) together with years of NATO expansion up to the borders of Russia, contrary to what the US had promised Russia during the dissolution of the Soviet Union; it had little to do with Putin’s so-called imperial ambitions or his desire to “conquer Ukraine and Europe.” NATO itself had also originally been aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War and should have dissolved following the dissolution of the Soviet Union (and preferably should have never existed in the first place), so Russians’ concerns over such a “security” alliance that is directed at them again are not without some legitimacy.
Another one of your ridiculous, arrogant, rambling posts:
Citizenofthenewworld wrote: I have been reading and studying Marx and Engels for many years ago since I was a very young person, and I have read several of his biography and one of the best one has been written by one of his closest friend which was Franz Mehring
Mehring wasn’t one of Marx’s “closest friends” and never even personally knew him. In fact, around the time of Marx’s death, both Marx and Engels were bitterly criticizing him for making claims about them in an article regarding their disagreements with the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat newspaper, in addition to claims about Marx’s frail health. Here’s what Engels had to say about Mehring in a letter to Eduard Bernstein on 15 July 1882:
Engels wrote: As for the actual contents of the thing, there is no reason for us to intervene. Mehring has treated the world to so many lies about us that, were we to deny just one of them, it would be tantamount to an admission that all the rest were true. For years we have let all this mendacious tittle-tattle pass unheeded, unless absolute necessity compelled us to reply. (MECW, Vol. 46, p. 292)
Citizenofthenewworld wrote: and several of his biographers have clearly indicated that he learned the concept of stateless society, leaderless, and freely associated labor, and according to their needs from the French anarchists when he was living in France.
Cite one source—any serious source (that’s how scholarship works)—regarding Marx’s supposed debt to French anarchists for specifically “teaching him,” as you claim, the concept of a stateless society and leaderless, freely associated labor. Proudhonian anarchism—let alone anarchist communism—wasn’t even a major socialist tendency in France when Marx visited in the 1840s. If anything, it was actually Marx who contributed to Proudhon’s understanding of Hegel during his sojourn in Paris. You’re just talking complete nonsense. The first anarchists who helped found the First International in 1864 (together with English trade unionists and others) were similarly mostly Proudhonists who pushed for Proudhon’s petty-bourgeois form of market socialism—which had nothing to do with a socialist/communist society as envisioned by Marx or by anarchist communists themselves. Anarchist communism, as characterized by production for need (rather than exchange), wasn’t even the most popular anarchist school of thought when the International was founded and only became so later on.
Citizenofthenewworld wrote: P[S?] Marx and Engels used the concept of communism and socialism interchangeable [nobody claimed they didn’t!], and the Communist Manifesto was not a communist documents either because it contains several reformist clauses and state capitalist clauses,
What so-called “reformist” and “state-capitalist clauses”? What are you on about?? Point to what passages you’re referring to.
Citizenofthenewworld wrote: and they used the name communist due to historical convenience,
They regarded the terms interchangeably and used the word “communist” due to how “socialist” was then associated with various forms of utopian socialism, as Engels himself later indicated in the 1888 English preface to the Manifesto (see here). The Manifesto was absolutely a communist work, in which both Marx and Engels advocated a classless society based on production for need as a goal. They similarly stated in their 1872 German preface to the Manifesto that the main thrust of the work was as relevant as ever, i.e. indicating that they still agreed with its overall themes:
Marx and Engels wrote: However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever.
There are just so many other ridiculous claims by you here that they’re not even worth engaging with. My recommendation is for you to slow down and start basing your claims on actual sources/documents.
(Don’t know why I can’t see my posts; this site really needs to modify its spam filters.)
What this forum needs are more topics on real socialist issues, and topics related to the needs of the world working class.( World Socialist Movement ) Wi[th?] music workers do not pay rent, utilities, education, and groceries. I was a crate diggers and I am still a music collector and I had a large collection of LP vinyl that I sold to a collector and a record store owner, but I made money by selling them
Wet blanket over here. You’re not exactly a model for serious discussion when you claim that Marx became a communist when he came into contact with anarchists…
Re Elvis, I prefer Eddie Cochran. Here’s his “Summertime Blues” (1958),
“I’m gonna take two weeks /
Gonna have a fine vacation /
I’m gonna take my problem /
To the United Nations /
Well, I called my congressman /
And he said, quote: /
‘I’d like to help you, son /
But you’re too young to vote'”I’m sure the line about being “too young to vote” resonated with the youth of the ’60s and ’70s, who were forced to fight in a war that they had no say or vote over. (The age of voting in the US was only lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971.) Barry McGuire more directly references this lack of representation—not that bourgeois democracy is worth much to begin with, or that lowering the age of voting would have prevented the American War in Vietnam—in his cover of “Eve of Destruction” (1965):
“The Eastern world, it is explodin’ /
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’ /
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’ /
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’? /
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'”Personally, I think they were more influenced by the French Anarchists in order to become socialists and many of their conceptions came from the French Anarchists, for me, the communist manifesto is not a communist document, it was revolutionary during their time but several of the concepts expressed in that documents were abandoned by them, and still there are many so called marxists who have not moved away further than the communist manifesto
https://jacobin.com/2024/12/marx-communist-republicanism-historical-context. How Karl Marx became a communist. I think Marx and Engels became communist when the came into contact with the Anarchists [!!!]
Oh come on now—Marx and Engels were communists before anarcho-communism was even a major anarchist tendency!; the original anarchists, such as those who helped found the First International, were mostly Proudhonists who advocated for Proudhon’s petty-bourgeois form of market socialism and small-scale handicraft production. (Proudhon himself was also far from a model anarchist by modern-anarchist standards, especially considering that he literally became a member of parliament following the 1848 Revolution in France. His later advocacy of abstentionism was also partly due to his opposition to the 1851 coup of Louis Napoleon. That, together with his repugnant misogyny, is also why many contemporary anarchists disown him entirely.) Marx’s and Engels’ communism was also present in earlier works like the Manifesto, even if they later considered certain aspects of the Manifesto obsolete (e.g. the revolutionary measures at the end of Section II). The abolition of bourgeois/private property and the control of production by society as a whole, according to a definite plan as opposed to the anarchy of capitalist production, is a central idea throughout the work. Marx’s comments on the state and political power during a revolutionary period are also largely consistent with later works like his Civil War in France. Marx and Engels themselves, in their 1872 preface to the Manifesto (i.e. after the Paris Commune), also explicitly stated that the main thrust of the work was as relevant as ever, with the exception of certain aspects mentioned above:
Marx and Engels wrote: However much the state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Association, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.
As that Pankhurst article makes quite clear the “left communists” fell for both the mythology of the Russian Revolution and their own wishful thinking.
I’m not quite sure what the SPGB’s initial reaction to the Russian Revolution was, but a large number of socialists of different persuasions in fact welcomed the abolition of tsarist rule and the later overthrow of the Kerensky government, including anarchists like Goldman and Berkman. It was the betrayal of this revolution by the Bolsheviks/Russian Communist Party (e.g. their suppression of the Kronstadt revolt and weakening of the soviets) that socialists like Pankhurst and other left communists began to critique as events unfolded. (The objective conditions facing Lenin and the Russian Communist Party, together with the failure of revolution to spread in Western Europe, also undeniably played a significant, though by no means decisive, role in some of their policies.) While Pankhurst is critical enough in her comments on Lenin’s pamphlet, she became even harsher in her language over time, especially as the anti-working-class nature of the Russian Communist Party became more apparent to her. See for example what Pankhurst was writing about the so-called “workers’ government” in Russia by 7 July 1923, while commenting on the “Manifesto of the Unemployed Workers’ Organisation”:
Pankhurst wrote: One phrase has crept into the manifesto of the Unemployed Organisation which requires discussion. It is a phrase of which all Communists have made use, both of late and also since the days of Marx, Engels and Bachunin [Bakunin]. We refer to the term “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” This in its original use meant the rigid suppression of the middle and upper classes in so far as they may endeavour to resist the coming of Socialism and to combat the popular will.
Latterly, under the inspiration of Russian bureaucrats, the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” has been used to justify the dictatorship of a party clique of officials over their own party members and over the people at large. So far has the dictatorship been carried [out] that the parties submitting to it have become utterly sterile as instruments of education and action. In Russia the dictatorship has robbed the revolution of all it fought for; it has banished Communism and workers’ control.
As I mentioned in my first post, it’s wildly inaccurate to dismiss left communists as “followers of Lenin” when the name “left communist” itself was used to describe people who were to the left of Lenin and the policies of the Bolsheviks/Russian Communist Party. One can hardly characterize Pankhurst as a “follower of Lenin,” as you originally claimed that all left communists were, when she wrote about how he and the Russian Communist Party had “banished communism and workers’ control” in Russia.
Here’s something Marx actually said…
Marx and Engels never limited their tactics to parliamentary means nor argued that workers’ strategies should be everywhere the same, especially considering the different modes of production found throughout the world of the nineteenth century. Here, for example, is also “something Marx actually said” (emphasis is mine):
Marx said: You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries—such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland—where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.
Taking nineteenth-century Russia, for instance, which had no parliament or democratic institutions until after the 1905 Revolution (with the Duma that emerged from that Revolution largely being a complete farce), both Marx and Engels expressed their belief in how Russia could possibly avoid capitalist development on the basis of the Russian peasantry/commune. Engels also emphasized, in the same series of articles under the title of Refugee Literature cited above, how the outbreak of a proletarian revolution in Western Europe would be crucial to facilitate Russian peasants’ emancipation (my emphasis again):
Engels wrote: It is clear that communal ownership in Russia is long past its period of florescence and, to all appearances, is moving towards its disintegration. Nevertheless, the possibility undeniably exists of raising this form of society to a higher one, if it should last until the circumstances are ripe for that, and if it shows itself capable of developing in such manner that the peasants no longer cultivate the land separately, but collectively; of raising it to this higher form without it being necessary for the Russian peasants to go through the intermediate stage of bourgeois small holdings. This, however, can only happen if, before the complete break-up of communal ownership, a proletarian revolution is successfully carried out in Western Europe, creating for the Russian peasant the preconditions requisite for such a transition, particularly the material things he needs, if only to carry through the revolution, necessarily connected therewith, of his whole agricultural system. It is, therefore, sheer bounce for Mr. Tkachov to say that the Russian peasants, although “owners”, are “nearer to socialism” than the propertyless workers of Western Europe. Quite the opposite. If anything can still save Russian communal ownership and give it a chance of growing into a new, really viable form, it is a proletarian revolution in Western Europe. (MECW 24, p. 48)
As the quotes above illustrate, the idea that Marx and Engels argued for creating a socialist/communist society solely through the ballot box or parliamentary means is simply not supported by their writings.
