Log in

View Full Version : Beatrice Potter Books



Saint-Just
23rd October 2003, 16:47
I don't think this particularly goes in literature as it is more about the theories of two people and how they were 'Stalinists'

It will mostly be British people who know these books, I do not know if they are popular in the U.S. They are fiction books mostly concerned with the adventures of rabbits. They have been very popular in Britain, I imagine everyone here who lives in Britain knows them as have probably read some when they were young, or had them read to them.

Anyway, the woman who wrote these books, Beatrice Potter, married a man called Sydney Webb to become Beatrice Webb. In the 30's she visited the USSR with her husband. In 1935 they produced a book called Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?

In 1937 they updated this book as Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation. They had removed the question mark.

Beatrice Potter said this about the USSR "[Soviet Russia] represents a new civilisation and a new culture with a new outlook on life, involving a new pattern of behaviour alike in personal conduct and in the relation of the individual to the community; all of which I believe is destined to spread, owing to its superior intellectual and ethical fitness, to many other countries in the course of the next hundred years."

They also said the USSR was a new civilisation for such reasons:
"European dancing is taboo", and "promiscuity is banned by the Communist Conscience".

These two individuals were important figures in the Fabian society for decades. I am sure the British here know the Fabian society as it has previously been very influential in Labour Party policies with many members having been high up in the Labour Party.

Saint-Just
23rd October 2003, 18:28
I remember her name being Beatrix instead of Beatrice, and I checked some marriage records and it was not Beatrix Potter who married Sydney Webb, but Beatrice Potter. Anyway, ignore the books part but the Fabain involvement is correct. In addition, curiously they died in exactly the same year and were born not too far apart either.

RyeN
23rd October 2003, 19:31
Peter rabit and famer mcgregory right.

Saint-Just
23rd October 2003, 20:29
Thats right.

El Commandante
23rd October 2003, 20:56
I remember watching Peter Rabbit this new years day when I was stoned off my tits ... I'd just woken up in the dog's beanbag and I stumbled into the TV room where my mates were and watched this. We then discussed whether peter rabbit was too violent for children at great depth ... we found it was very violent.

redstar2000
23rd October 2003, 22:11
Chairman Mao, I don't mean to sound impatient, but just what is it that you want to discuss in this thread?

If you want to talk about children's books, it definitely belongs in Literature.

On the other hand, if this was all an excuse to insert...


They also said the USSR was a new civilisation for such reasons: "European dancing is taboo", and "promiscuity is banned by the Communist Conscience".

...then all I can do is :lol:!

Yes, state-monopoly capitalism in the USSR was quite puritanical. (Stalin outlawed legal abortions in 1936.) To suggest that this had anything to do with "communist conscience" is ludicrous.

Calling the USSR "a new civilization" is something I would expect from a couple of muddle-headed Fabian reformists; they wouldn't have known real communism if it had walked up to them and bit them in the leg!

http://anarchist-action.org/forums/images/smiles/redstar.gif

The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

Saint-Just
26th October 2003, 21:08
Redstar2000, the western bourgeois historians say that the outlawing of abortion was part of a drive to increase population. Kasama from What Is To Be Done? said it was the beginning of the rise of old bourgeois ideas. I agree with you on the puritanical aspect.

Actually my point was that these two Fabiens upon visiting the USSR became M-L. This is a weak post inthe theory part but it was to do with their ideologies. In addition I did not know where to post it since it is about the individuals not the books. Although now the book part of the post is irrelevent, so I urge you to delete the thread entirely.