If the primitivists Won

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

If there was a revolution/social war/etc. and the primmies won, and we all had to go back and live with nature, where would you live? Would you stay where you are, or would you change? Also, pretend like you have no ties to the area, (family, etc). I recently drove to Florida, and we passed through Tennessee. That place has beautiful forests through the hills, I might go there. What about you guys?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Won, not one. My bad.

[Magón]

Is this you admitting your a closet Primmie?

[Positivist]

I'd hollow out a big tree and live in it, and start my own cookie factory.

[Blake's Baby]

Nah. If the primitives (I presume you mean, Anarcho-Primitivists and their ilk, not the 1980s indie-pop band from Coventry, UK) won, then only 500,000 people (or is it 50,000?) are going to survive.

We'd all be killed (or die in the cold) so it doesn't really matter. Only people who know how to harvest a yurt and gain shelter from the droppings of solar-powered goats will be allowed in their leafy, shit-smelling utopia.

[Ostrinski]

The day the primmies win is the day I start hoarding nukes!

[Lynx]

I would hope to be on an island not too far from the equator.

[Ele'ill]

To the Lost Coast area in northern Cali/southern Oregon.

[Sasha]

I def stay put, stalking deer on damsquare, sleep in the royal palace burning priceless antiques to stay warm, the occasional raid on the bijenkorf (dutch harrods) across the street for supplies, around the corner is a store full of hunting knives and crossbows.... here I know where to find shit, no one is getting me to the woods..

[Comrade Samuel]

I would take the last rocket to the Mars colony because that is the only way they would ever take over the world: if all the not completely stupid people left.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Is this you admitting your a closet Primmie?

Lol, no. It just seemed like an interesting question.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

To the Lost Coast area in northern Cali/southern Oregon.

That seems to be where most of the primitivists are now.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Nah. If the primitives (I presume you mean, Anarcho-Primitivists and their ilk, not the 1980s indie-pop band from Coventry, UK) won, then only 500,000 people (or is it 50,000?) are going to survive.

We'd all be killed (or die in the cold) so it doesn't really matter. Only people who know how to harvest a yurt and gain shelter from the droppings of solar-powered goats will be allowed in their leafy, shit-smelling utopia.

Well, you know, it was just a question for fun, but okay.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Either what Mari3l said (lost coast / Northern California in general), south Louisiana, South Carolina near the coast, or possibly Cuba / somewhere in the Caribbean.

Fish = no iodine deficiency, fats for my brain to work
Fruit = no scurvy (arrrrr matey!)
Louisiana / South Carolina = you can dig up Palmetto and eat the root bundle/soft interior in a hurry and it's EVERYWHERE ... just don't set up camp where it grows, usually on a flood plain and paradise for snakes

[Blake's Baby]

Well, you know, it was just a question for fun, but okay.

What, I'm not allowed to point out 'for fun' that all us computer-using cosmopolitan intellectuals would be herded over cliffs by club-wielding bearded loons for being decadent?

And I made the 'Primitives' joke as well.

Is the problem that I'm taking the question too seriously, or not seriously enough? I'm confused.

[Lynx]

Being herded over a cliff is no fun, and not really the style of VHEM or non-authoritarian primitivists.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Or worse, if the primitivist two.

[mew]

probably just kill myself. i don't want to have to live like some hippie in the middle of the woods.

[Red Rabbit]

I would move to Norway and become a viking.

[ВАЛТЕР]

NKERC6F7mSM

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I'd find a big white cliff to jump off of.

[electrostal]

Do "Primitivists" even exist outside the Internet or their suburbias?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

for all me and you know, there could be loads living in caves and forests etc. we just don't hear from them coz you can't hook up wifi to a tree-trunk

[Magón]

Do "Primitivists" even exist outside the Internet or their suburbias?

Yeah, ever been to Big Sur, California?

And also, Primmies aren't like Anarcho-Capitalists, they don't exist on the Internet. Anyone saying they're Primitivist on the Internet is likely not actually one, or is just speaking for a Primmie.


Also forgot to mention, in Rolling Stone magazine they had a article on Occupy's across the US, and there was a little blurb when the guy was at Occupy Portland, about talking with a guy saying he was a Primmie.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

From what I know from my dad (onky seen him a few times) he was a primitivist. And was actually in a primitivist kibbutz in Israel. I dont think he holds the same views anymore though. I'm exactly the opposite to him(ML, anti-Israel:rolleyes:).
So yes they did exist outside the internet(mostly because you didnt had internet in the 60s/70s), don't know if there still some.

[hatzel]

primitivist kibbutz

As one may have said in the '90's:

"Oh yeah that totally makes sense...not..."

[Deicide]

I would run around naked in the woods, always.

[Prometeo liberado]

Ixtapa, Mexico. The fish come to you and the Shrimp are bigger than babies! The surronding vegetation will supply you with everything else.

[kitsune]

I don't mind roughing it. I have wilderness survival and homesteading skills.

A tropical coastline would probably be the easiest environment to survive in primitive conditions, but I think I'd prefer a temperate forest. I guess that's just where I feel most at home.

[Positivist]

How could primitivists "only exist on the Internet"? Isn't that a little contradictory.

[Welshy]

I would lead a robot uprising, take over the world and enslave the primmies to do our bidding after I have successfully merged myself with the machines.

[Sasha]

or we could nick a few of these babies and go all waterworld reenacment; http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/02/tech/orsos-island-luxury-travel/

[piet11111]

i would take a 2x4 put a nail through it and rule the world with my superior weapons technology.

[Agent Ducky]

I'd have to go somewhere that's not Southern California because it's just one bigass desert here... But like others have said, probably somewhere tropical.
Probably after a while I'd go insane and pull a machete on whoever started this mess and ask them "WHY DO YOU HATE SCIENCE?"

[The Douche]

I like how people on revleft treat primitivists as this boogeyman that may or may not exist if any of you got out and got active and intrracted with anarchists you would meet some primitivists. Back during the anti-war movement you'd see black and green flags in the bloc right next to black and red ones, and if you were around for the anti-globalization movement lots of the people you worked with would've been primitivists. I still have copies of green anarchy, and consider myself to be anti-civilization.

[Blake's Baby]

Oh man, Green Anarchy (I thought it was Green Anarchist? I could be wrong though) was rubbish. 'When Hippies Go Bad' as a cheap TV show might have called it. Anti-humanist shit of the highest order in my humble.

'Anti-civilisation' is a bit of a loaded term. There's a recognition, on the one hand, that our current system doesn't provide for human needs, and that a sensible system that allows humans the opportunities to develop to our full potential means that as a society we have to profoundly alter our attitude to our 'environment' (ie, we need to recognise that we are not seperate from our context both social and bio-chemical); and on the other hand there's the belief that the human race is a cancer and it needs to be erradicated almost to the point of extinction.

Fuck living as a hunter-gatherer on a planet with only 50,000 people on it. Any theory of society that predicates itself on the belief that 99.99999% of the population has to die can go and fuck itself with a septic carrot.

[hatzel]

@BB

1. You've used the word 'anti-humanist' quite wrongly. I know this because the likes of Zerzan are committed humanists who have written whole essays attacking the so-called 'postmodernist' boogeyman for challenging humanism. Good humanist that he is. There probably were some anti-humanists writing in GA and related journals (particularly in the early years, when Foucauldian stuff was still doing the rounds), but I hardly think it would be at all accurate to claim that they somehow controlled the editorial line or anything like that.

2. I feel you're making use of the most boring (mis)characterisations and silliness. Kinda makes it difficult to take you all that seriously. If you're lucky I could go quoting from GA and other anti-civ/civ-critical types that totally contradict your accusations, but...not now, too much effort...

[Blake's Baby]

Well, I've always considered that you're an intelligent and thoughtful poster so if you tell me that the Green Anarchists have upped their game (I stopped reading it in the late 1990s I guess) and no longer put forward the idea that the problem is humanity, then I'll believe you.

[Ismail]

Why would anybody classify themselves as anti-civilization? As Lenin said, "Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture."

Then again he said Marxism and not anarchism so yeah.

[Ravachol]

Why would anybody classify themselves as anti-civilization? As Lenin said, "Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture."

Then again he said Marxism and not anarchism so yeah.

Too bad for you and your fetish for the corpses of the disciples of Kautsky, primitivism is originally a Marxist current, not an anarchist one. It originates within intermingling between the post-Bordigist milieu (Camatte), folks like Fredy Perlman and Frankfurter schule critical theory. Most of the basis of primtivism is derived from a Marxist critique of the division of labour and alienation, a historical materialist study of the origin of property and the state and the idea that real subsumption has fully replaced formal subsumption on a global scale.

[Ravachol]

To stay on the original topic though and indulging in some post-apocalyptic hunter-gatherer fantasies:

As I live on the edge of the forest I'd most likely stay here, construct a few camouflaged wooden outposts overlooking the marshlands, which are rich bird hunting grounds. There's also plenty of (semi-)wild deer and the occasional small boar. I'm a vegan but in a hunter-gatherer situation I wouldn't have to many problems adapting to it, though original paleolithic diets didn't involve much meat as pre-civilisation humans were mostly carrion feeders and fruit foragers, with hunting being an exception.

I'd attempt small-scale permaculture or horticulture though it's return-upon-investment is probably only worth it if you have a small communal settlement instead of being a lone survivor. In addition to that, scavenging the remnants of civilization for useful artifacts and abandoned supplies would seem like a wise idea.

[Princess Luna]

I like how people on revleft treat primitivists as this boogeyman that may or may not exist if any of you got out and got active and intrracted with anarchists you would meet some primitivists. Back during the anti-war movement you'd see black and green flags in the bloc right next to black and red ones, and if you were around for the anti-globalization movement lots of the people you worked with would've been primitivists. I still have copies of green anarchy, and consider myself to be anti-civilization.
Why? I understand civilization entails a lot of negative stuff, but how can you say the negative out ways the good when diseases that once major threats are now easily treatable and in some cases have been completely wiped out?

[Ismail]

Too bad for you and your fetish for the corpses of the disciples of Kautsky, primitivism is originally a Marxist current, not an anarchist one. It originates within intermingling between the post-Bordigist milieu (Camatte), folks like Fredy Perlman and Frankfurter schule critical theory. Most of the basis of primtivism is derived from a Marxist critique of the division of labour and alienation, a historical materialist study of the origin of property and the state and the idea that real subsumption has fully replaced formal subsumption on a global scale.Bordigism is irrelevant, as is the Frankfurt School. I can't speak for Perlman because I don't know but from a quick search he didn't seem influential either (plus he seemed to sympathize with anarchism.) Tell me of Marxist-Leninists or Trots who pioneered primitivism and I'll care.

Reminds me of Engels on Proudhon (only dumber because at least Proudhon didn't claim to hate civilization):

Consequently a reactionary character runs throughout the whole of Proudhonism; an aversion to the industrial revolution, and the desire, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly expressed, to drive the whole of modern industry out of the temple, steam engines, mechanical looms and the rest of the swindle, and to return to the old, respectable hand labour. That we would then lose nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our productive power, that the whole of humanity would be condemned to the worst possible labour slavery, that starvation would become the general rule – what does all that matter if only we succeed in organising exchange in such a fashion that each receives “the full proceeds of his labour,” and that “eternal justice” is realized? Fiat justitia, pereat mundus! Justice must prevail though the whole world perish!

And the world would perish in this Proudhonist counter-revolution if it were at all possible to carry it out.

[hatzel]

Proudhon? The guy who wrote that '[w]ith the introduction of machinery into economy, wings are given to LIBERTY. The machine is the symbol of human liberty'? The guy who said 'that man, in inventing a machine, serves his liberty'? That guy? The same guy wants to 'drive the whole of modern industry out of the temple, steam engines, mechanical looms and the rest of the swindle, and to return to the old, respectable hand labour'? I...don't really get it, sorry...

...though both of those quotes I just pulled out of chapter VI of The Philosophy of Poverty are pretty stupid, I'll give you that...

[Ismail]

Engels was discussing the petty-bourgeois nature of Proudhonism. As he says before that, "Was not the final reason with which class differences were defended always: there must be a class which need not plague itself with the production of its daily subsistence, in order that it may have time to look after the intellectual work of society? This talk, which up to now had its great historical justification, has been cut off at the root once and for all by the industrial revolution of the last hundred years. The existence of a ruling class is becoming daily more and more a hindrance to the development of industrial productive power, and equally so to science, art and especially cultural human relations. There never were greater boors than our modern bourgeois. But all this is nothing to friend Proudhon. He wants 'eternal justice' and nothing else. Each shall receive in exchange for his product the full proceeds of his labour, the full value of his labour. But to reckon that out in a product of modern industry is a complicated matter. For modern industry obscures the particular share of the individual in the total product, which in the old individual handicraft was obviously represented by the finished product. Further, modern industry abolishes more and more the individual exchange on which Proudhon’s whole system is built up, namely direct exchange between two producers, each of whom takes the product of the other in order to consume it."

[Sentinel]

Primitivists do definitely exist, even though there -- due to the sheer absurdity of their ideas -- obviously aren't many of them. They could never 'win' in the sense that most people supported them, but some of them are dangerous terrorists. And as they lack a proper class analysis, their actions also target the working class.

Such thought did have some influence on certain anarchists in the 90s and early 00s. On Revleft we've had some otherwise respectable members in good standing, who valued primitivism for it's critiques of capitalism to the degree, that they opposed the rule to restrict them.

Luckily primitivism, green anarchism etc have lost most of the -- very small -- popularity they used to have, while instead the serious, class war left (marxists and classwar anarchists) has regained some of it's former strenght. With the crisis of capitalism, class struggle and socialist ideas have become appealing again, and that has made people forget about thing like 'primitivism'.

It gives me some hope about the future of mankind. :lol:

[Ravachol]

Bordigism is irrelevant, as is the Frankfurt School. I can't speak for Perlman because I don't know but from a quick search he didn't seem influential either (plus he seemed to sympathize with anarchism.) Tell me of Marxist-Leninists or Trots who pioneered primitivism and I'll care.


You mean those 'highly relevant' fossilized relics that nobody cares about? Christ I forget what it was like to 'debate' the red alert cosplay fanclub...

Anybody who considers Bordigism or the Frankfurt school to be irrelevant (which they are, as is most ideology in general. Ideology is not the motor of social processes) while they think the dinosaur remnants of early and mid 20th century state capitalism are the pinacle of relevance needs to get himself checked out.

But hey I guess you need some kind of 'comeback' to disassociate primitivism from it's Marxist roots and who needs arguments for that when you can prop up the corpse of Stalin and parade it on a stick.


And as they lack a proper class analysis, their actions also target the working class.


You obviously haven't read anything from the Primitivist & Anti-Civ. milieu.

[Ismail]

You mean those 'highly relevant' fossilized relics that nobody cares about? Christ I forget what it was like to 'debate' the red alert cosplay fanclub...Probably because you don't debate on the basis of reality if you think Leninists are somehow not relevant and are "red alert cosplay fanclub" members. I can't really see Ernst Mandel or Bill Bland in Red Army uniforms, but alright then. Fact is when people think communism they don't think Bordiga or, uh, Fredy Perlman.

I also don't see what relevance Marxism has to primitivism outside of pure theory in-re alienation since the view that industrialization is a historically progressive phenomenon which brings forth the proletariat which will abolish class society is clearly incompatible with "industrialization is evil and we need to get rid of class society by reverting back to a time when mankind was too primitive for it to develop."

It seems like a fact of life that "non-dogmatic" Maoists, "21st century socialists," and academic/cultural Marxists have no voice within the working-class whatsoever.

[Ravachol]

Probably because you don't debate on the basis of reality if you think Leninists are somehow not relevant and are "red alert cosplay fanclub" members. I can't really see Ernst Mandel or Bill Bland in Red Army uniforms, but alright then. Fact is when people think communism they don't think Bordiga or, uh, Fredy Perlman.


When people think 'communism' they don't think communism, they think gulags, bread lines and massive concrete walls. Your argument isn't really making sense though. If you think Leninists (or whatever post-fix they append to that label) are somehow relevant today outside of their cosplay clubs you are truly delusional. Never mind that they represent Capital's left wing anyway but whatever.



I also don't see what relevance Marxism has to primitivism outside of pure theory in-re alienation since the view that industrialization is a historically progressive phenomenon which brings forth the proletariat which will abolish class society is clearly incompatible with "industrialization is evil and we need to get rid of class society by reverting back to a time when mankind was too primitive for it to develop."


That is not the primitivist baseline position but please go on and show you are commenting on something you haven't read about.



It seems like a fact of life that "non-dogmatic" Maoists, "21st century socialists," and academic/cultural Marxists have no voice within the working-class whatsoever.

As opposed to the glorious mass movement of Stalinist fossils and their innumerable banner waving hordes! :laugh:

[Drosophila]

If you think Leninists (or whatever post-fix they append to that label) are somehow relevant today outside of their cosplay clubs you are truly delusional. Never mind that they represent Capital's left wing anyway but whatever.

Really?? So then the SWP, WWP, PSL, WPA, CPGB, etc. are just cosplay clubs? Alrighty then.

[Positivist]

First of all thank you to whoever changed the title of the thread, I couldn't look at it the other way any longer.

As for the "irrelevancy" of Leninists, I am curious, which communist tendency is of popular relevance? If you mean then that the ideas of Leninism are outmoded, then you are ignoring reality. Obviously many of the ideas were only intended for, and are only applicable to early 20th century Russia, but the principles of Leninism certainly have use today. The necessity of third world countries to rapidly industrialize, the need to exclude the former bourgiose from social, cultural and economic activities, and the concept of a vanguard party handling public policy in the wake of revolutionary strife certainly are important to today's struggles.

Now does that mean that I unequivocally support everything that happened in the Soviet union? Does that mean that I believe that the Soviet model should be pursued under all circumstances? Does that mean that I don't think other marxists make important contributions to theory? Absolutely not. It means that I, as a student of Lenin, believe in the adjustment of theory according to respective material conditions, and that theory will change to fit different circumstances.

If you don't reject these, then I hardly think you can even speak of relevancy.

[Ravachol]

As for the "irrelevancy" of Leninists, I am curious, which communist tendency is of popular relevance?


Communism is not an ideological tendency. It manifests itself as a real movement, a social tendency from within the proletariat. Something that is not conjured up by militants or their irrelevant groupuscules.



Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.




If you mean then that the ideas of Leninism are outmoded, then you are ignoring reality.


I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this comment.



The necessity of third world countries to rapidly industrialize


Yes, because that is working out so well for the planet right now. :rolleyes: But perhaps those thousands of Indian farmers who oppose the construction of hydroelectric dams that flood their valleys, the indigenous tribes of the amazon who fight tooth and nail against the lumber industry tearing down their hunting grounds, the utterly impoverished proletarians of the MEND delta who blow up oil rigs, etc. just haven't read Lenin and haven't swallowed his unwavering love for the Capitalist surplus extraction methods of Taylor. After all, communism is smoking chimneys, working in coal mines and standing next to a conveyor belt all day is it not? :rolleyes:



the concept of a vanguard party handling public policy in the wake of revolutionary strife certainly are important to today's struggles.


God forbid if anything went 'nasty' in 'the wake of revolutionary strife' and people might recompose society without good old father Party to guide them. We'd want to keep things orderly and civil!



Absolutely not. It means that I, as a student of Lenin, believe in the adjustment of theory according to respective material conditions, and that theory will change to fit different circumstances.

Yet all I see is Leninists still waving around 'What is to be done', advocating the same political line they have advocated since the '50s (with some minor changes depending on what side they took in the geopolitical strife between the various blocks within the state capitalist sphere of 'real existing socialism') and expecting different results.

[Ismail]

When people think 'communism' they don't think communism, they think gulags, bread lines and massive concrete walls.... and when they think communism, they, again, don't think of Bordiga or whatever other irrelevant ultra-leftist one subscribes to. Hell the only person who sorta qualifies is Gramsci and even then he's seen as a caricature who said "ALRIGHT GUYS WE CAN'T TAKE POWER BY WORKERS' REVOLUTION, LET'S TEACH THAT GAY MARRIAGE IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT SO THE STATE IS DISCREDITED AND WE TAKE POWER AND ENSLAVE EVERYONE."

Also "when people" thought communism in the late 1800's they thought of a crazy guy called Karl Marx who called for terror and "outrages" against all civilized people. Then communists came along to correct them. I don't see the issue.


If you think Leninists (or whatever post-fix they append to that label) are somehow relevant today outside of their cosplay clubs you are truly delusional.You seem to be extending your dislike of Leninism to this idea that it's somehow irrelevant. I'm sure this is psychologically comforting.


As opposed to the glorious mass movement of Stalinist fossils and their innumerable banner waving hordes!Well lets see, in Ecuador the PCMLE is doing alright, opposing the Correa government at at a time when various revisionists and liberals are praising it to the skies. In Brazil the PCR has street presence, in Africa the parties in Benin and the Ivory Coast have a presence, etc.

But your line seems to be that the proletariat shouldn't actually be organized, it just magically wakes up one day and adheres to Marxism and takes power. It's a convenient line for a lack of any real-world examples of your tendency having any influence whatsoever. There's no actual effort, just a quasi-mysticism about how one day the workers will take power and the only thing you exist for is to write about random shit that won't assist said workers in anything.


Yet all I see is Leninists still waving around 'What is to be done', advocating the same political line they have advocated since the '50s (with some minor changes depending on what side they took in the geopolitical strife between the various blocks within the state capitalist sphere of 'real existing socialism') and expecting different results."Real existing socialism" was a Brezhnevite concept actively opposed by the Chinese and Albanians, but alright then. Using it as a buzzword isn't a very good idea.

Your position, fundamentally, isn't much different from Kasama and other groups. They look at the past 60 years and don't draw appropriate conclusions, just "WE WERE TOO DOGMATIC" and how Marxism sucked because it didn't embrace this or that social issue or functionally irrelevant academic sect's teachings.

The end result is tailing mass movements and, eventually, adopting reformism after one finds out tailism doesn't work.

[Positivist]

Ravachol, whether or not you agree with the positions of Leninism, that doesn't make them "irrelevant." Relevant, means that it applies to the situation.

For example the need of third world countries to rapidly industrialize, is relevant because most of the world remains undeveloped at the expense of the inhabitants. Now you may say that third world countries don't need to industrialize, they just need to be alleviated of exploitation, and though I may maintian that industrialization is necessary, your point is still relevant.

[Ravachol]

... and when they think communism, they, again, don't think of Bordiga or whatever other irrelevant ultra-leftist one subscribes to. Hell the only person who sorta qualifies is Gramsci and even then he's seen as a caricature who said "ALRIGHT GUYS WE CAN'T TAKE POWER BY WORKERS' REVOLUTION, LET'S TEACH THAT GAY MARRIAGE IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT SO THE STATE IS DISCREDITED AND WE TAKE POWER AND ENSLAVE EVERYONE."

Also "when people" thought communism in the late 1800's they thought of a crazy guy called Karl Marx who called for terror and "outrages" against all civilized people. Then communists came along to correct them. I don't see the issue.


I'm starting to doubt you have even read anything other than Revleft and the mindnumbing nonsense of Hoxha and Stalin...



You seem to be extending your dislike of Leninism to this idea that it's somehow irrelevant. I'm sure this is psychologically comforting.

Well lets see, in Ecuador the PCMLE is doing alright, opposing the Correa government at at a time when various revisionists and liberals are praising it to the skies. In Brazil the PCR has street presence, in Africa the parties in Benin and the Ivory Coast have a presence, etc.


If existence is proof of relevance then sure, talking about psychological comfort. We both know this is not the case.



But your line seems to be that the proletariat shouldn't actually be organized, it just magically wakes up one day and adheres to Marxism and takes power.


Yes, that is totally my 'line' :rolleyes:



It's a convenient line for a lack of any real-world examples of your tendency having any influence whatsoever. There's no actual effort, just a quasi-mysticism about how one day the workers will take power and the only thing you exist for is to write about random shit that won't assist said workers in anything.


What is my tendency? Can you back up your statement that there is no actual militant effort coming from those associated with what you seem to identify as 'my tendency'? (Despite the fact that the martyrish sacrifices of individual militants have little to no influence upon the levers of history, unlike what the bourgeois romantic partisans of the vanguard party would like to claim)



"Real existing socialism" was a Brezhnevite concept actively opposed by the Chinese and Albanians, but alright then. Using it as a buzzword isn't a very good idea.


I'm sure the chinese and albanian proletariat basked in the glory of belonging to the correct geopolitical faction of state capitalism....



Your position, fundamentally, isn't much different from Kasama and other groups. They look at the past 60 years and don't draw appropriate conclusions, just "WE WERE TOO DOGMATIC" and how Marxism sucked because it didn't embrace this or that social issue or functionally irrelevant academic sect's teachings.


Is that my position? I'm of the opinion that the only sensible relationship to the academy today is a criminal one, it's hardly of any use vis a vis the communist project. I'm also not about embracing 'social issues' but you seem to take particular issue with 'gay liberation' or whatever. Having a hard time reconciling the broken idols of the eastern side of the iron curtain with that matter?



The end result is tailing mass movements and, eventually, adopting reformism after one finds out tailism doesn't work.

Word of advice: stop making a fool out of yourself. You're ranting into nowhere. I don't know what you think my positions are, but from what I've posted in this thread and a cursory look at my posts it should be very clear I'm lightyears removed from 'tailing mass movements' or whatever windmill you seem to be combating.


Ravachol, whether or not you agree with the positions of Leninism, that doesn't make them "irrelevant." Relevant, means that it applies to the situation.


I'm well aware of the meaning of the word relevant. I don't think Leninism is relevant, not in the sense that it 'applies to the situation' nor in the sense that the concrete existence of the various small leninist sects has any particular influence that contributes towards the communist project. And then I'm not even discussing the fact whether or not Leninism is even part of that project (which it is not, imo).



For example the need of third world countries to rapidly industrialize, is relevant because most of the world remains undeveloped at the expense of the inhabitants. Now you may say that third world countries don't need to industrialize, they just need to be alleviated of exploitation, and though I may maintian that industrialization is necessary, your point is still relevant.

The question of industrialization is moot. Communism is not brought about by the 'development of the productive forces'. The linear progressivist view of history is a circular dead end which sees within Capital's autonomous development the seeds of communism. But they are not there. Communism is forged within the real movement that springs up from the antagonism between the conditions capital imposes upon us and the tendency to transcend those, the tendency towards the human community or our 'species being'. This tendency is not accelerated or decelerated by the state of the productive forces. In fact, the productive forces are developed in such a way that their technical composition reflects the needs of Capital and they recompose the proletariat towards those needs, ie. the particular structure and development of the productive forces shapes labour power as variable capital. This does not move it closer to the self-negation necessary for communism, often it does the contrary.



He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.

[bcbm]

Also "when people" thought communism in the late 1800's they thought of a crazy guy called Karl Marx who called for terror and "outrages" against all civilized people. Then communists came along to correct them

with terror and outrages

[Ismail]

I'm starting to doubt you have even read anything other than Revleft and the mindnumbing nonsense of Hoxha and Stalin...I've read plenty of Lenin, too. And Marx and Engels.


If existence is proof of relevance then sure, talking about psychological comfort. We both know this is not the case.The PCMLE is a national force in Ecuador. You can talk about them with any Ecuadorian who is into politics. I know Chilean communists who have talked with Acción Proletaria (which is pro-Albanian) members on the street (including one whose Professor is a member.) French media have reported on the activities of the Ivorian communists and their work in various organizations (namely trade unions) before.

I'm not talking about existence. Obviously Bordiga existed, so did whatever parties and groups followed his line. I'm asking you what activity these parties and groups conduct that helps the cause of communism and/or the working-class in general.


Can you back up your statement that there is no actual militant effort coming from those associated with what you seem to identify as 'my tendency'?Can you give any examples? One example?


(Despite the fact that the martyrish sacrifices of individual militants have little to no influence upon the levers of history, unlike what the bourgeois romantic partisans of the vanguard party would like to claim)It was Hoxha who said that, "In our opinion, the theory that the revolution is carried out by a few 'heroes' constitutes a danger to Marxism-Leninism." The vanguard party is quite unlike anarchist terrorists or what have you.


I'm sure the chinese and albanian proletariat basked in the glory of belonging to the correct geopolitical faction of state capitalism....The Chinese proletariat did not, for as noted by the Albanians Mao pursued a rightist course and carried out only a bourgeois-democratic revolution under a bastardized, "Sinicized" "Marxism." The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" saw "Red Guard" youth fighting workers.

In Albania by contrast the workers did indeed enjoy this quite a bit. Bourgeois historians note that the decision to openly denounce the Soviet revisionists and their plans to turn Albania into a neo-colony was a popular act. Furthermore unlike "non-dogmatic" Yugoslavia which ended in a debt explosion and genocide, Albania continued onwards with the task of socialist construction as late as 1990, eliminating taxation, pursuing the world's most egalitarian wage structure, the world's lowest rents, absolutely no raises in the price of goods, etc. In the 1980's Poland endured inflation and Romania imposed super-austerity measures, both unknown in Albania.


I'm also not about embracing 'social issues' but you seem to take particular issue with 'gay liberation' or whatever. Having a hard time reconciling the broken idols of the eastern side of the iron curtain with that matter?No. It just seems that most academic Marxists seem to slide into nothing more than issues which can be more or less resolved via voting in bourgeois elections. This includes generic academic Marxists like David Harvey (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/harv-n23.shtml). Obviously there are those who don't do this, but they just become irrelevant sects.


Communism is not brought about by the 'development of the productive forces'.That's news to me, considering that the point about the development of these forces allows for problems of scarcity, etc. to be remedied and for the whole principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" to take effect.


In fact, the productive forces are developed in such a way that their technical composition reflects the needs of Capital and they recompose the proletariat towards those needs, ie. the particular structure and development of the productive forces shapes labour power as variable capital. This does not move it closer to the self-negation necessary for communism, often it does the contrary.Lenin pointed out that imperialism creates a section of the working-class which becomes a "labor aristocracy," i.e. willing to defend imperialism because of the "assurances" it gives them in terms of living standards and supposed security.


with terror and outrages"The total figures of executions, published in 1921, were as follows. In the first half of 1918 [before the Red Terror] they were 22, in the second half some 6,300, and for the three years 1918-20 (for all Russia) 12,733. When it is remembered that in Rostov alone about 25,000 workers were shot by the Whites upon occupying the city, not to speak of many other towns, the Red terror will fall into rather more just perspective."
(Andrew Rothstein. A History of the U.S.S.R. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1951. p. 106.)

[bcbm]

"The total figures of executions, published in 1921, were as follows. In the first half of 1918 [before the Red Terror] they were 22, in the second half some 6,300, and for the three years 1918-20 (for all Russia) 12,733. When it is remembered that in Rostov alone about 25,000 workers were shot by the Whites upon occupying the city, not to speak of many other towns, the Red terror will fall into rather more just perspective."
(Andrew Rothstein. A History of the U.S.S.R. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1951. p. 106.)

how many were executed in subsequent years?

[Ismail]

how many were executed in subsequent years?If I recall right J. Arch Getty has said that it's not too far above 380,000 for the whole USSR in 1937-38. That's a lot, although below the millions promoted by the types who would publicize how communism = gulags and whatnot.

[bcbm]

that is a lot. terror and outrages

[Sentinel]

And as they lack a proper class analysis, their actions also target the working class.

You obviously haven't read anything from the Primitivist & Anti-Civ. milieu.

Well, you're right that I haven't read much primitivist theory directly from the source. I have one book by Pentti Linkola (who is more like an eco-fascist and hostile towards the left anyway), but that's it. The fact that the implementation of their ideas, regardless if one is talking about anti-industrial or totally anti-technology ones, would lead to enormous human suffering and lowering of living standards -- especially for the poor -- has kept me occupied with more pressing issues.

I'm more familiar with primitivist thought from discussing with primitivists and green anarchists in real life, and on this website. I stood side by side with some during the G20 protests in Melbourne 2006, and we had some discussions. As for on Revleft, we went through these things a hundred times back in the last half of the 00s, when we decided (by overwhelming majority vote) to restrict primitivists.

Some members would still try to prevent us from executing the rule by defending each individual poster accused of being one, and would make lengthy posts describing the differences between primitivism, anti-civilisationism green anarchism etc. From these discussions (and from the fact that one nutcase even threatened to send me a mail bomb!) I reached the conclusion that class analysis is somewhat lacking at least when it comes to primitivists. :lol:

As for green anarchists, I've found that the term is too vague and inclusive for one to have a coherent opinion on them. Some have more of a class war perspective, others don't, but that's becoming increasingly irrelevant as that line of thought is being increasingly marginalised anyway.

[Sentinel]

This discussion is too serious for Chit Chat. I'd move it to Learning, but there it would run a risk of becoming an echo chamber. In Opposing Ideologies, on the other hand, also primitivists are allowed to post.

Moved to OI.

[Zav]

This thread.
Once again RevLeft's ignorance of what Primitivism is and stands for is astounding. I swear half of you have secret reactionary tendencies.
I like my forests, so I'll be fine. I'm pretty much in the woods anyway.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This thread.
Once again RevLeft's ignorance of what Primitivism is and stands for is astounding.Enlighten us then.

[Ravachol]

Can you give any examples? One example?


You conveniently snipped off the first halve of my question. What is my tendency of which you seem to know that there is 'no real world presence' and make such hasty conclusions?



It was Hoxha who said that, "In our opinion, the theory that the revolution is carried out by a few 'heroes' constitutes a danger to Marxism-Leninism." The vanguard party is quite unlike anarchist terrorists or what have you.


I'm happy to hear the vanguard party is unlike anarchists, if that were not the case I would have to consider moving on from anarchism.



In Albania by contrast the workers did indeed enjoy this quite a bit. Bourgeois historians note that the decision to openly denounce the Soviet revisionists and their plans to turn Albania into a neo-colony was a popular act. Furthermore unlike "non-dogmatic" Yugoslavia which ended in a debt explosion and genocide, Albania continued onwards with the task of socialist construction as late as 1990, eliminating taxation, pursuing the world's most egalitarian wage structure, the world's lowest rents, absolutely no raises in the price of goods, etc. In the 1980's Poland endured inflation and Romania imposed super-austerity measures, both unknown in Albania.


I'm sure the Albanian workers who died next to the assembly lines or working the same machine each day, spending their lives generating surplus value for the state to extract, are happy their fatherly party chose the correct line into oblivion.

I know quite a few Yugoslav and Albanian immigrants. In general, they all prefer the old regimes to the current situation. Doesn't say much.



That's news to me, considering that the point about the development of these forces allows for problems of scarcity, etc. to be remedied and for the whole principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" to take effect.


There was no scarcity in hunter-gatherer bands and in early communal pastoral societies, as evident from troves of anthropological and archaeological research. This was not due to the state of the productive forces but due to the social structure that animated their societies. If your 'abundance' involves having to stand next to an assembly line all day, you can gladly choke on it.

Can you explain why the development of the productive forces allows for the elimination of scarcity? You honestly think that further industrialization of the planet is even feasible? I'm sure we would all enjoy your 'abundance' amidst the rising sea levels, unbreathable air and arid concrete wastelands.



Lenin pointed out that imperialism creates a section of the working-class which becomes a "labor aristocracy," i.e. willing to defend imperialism because of the "assurances" it gives them in terms of living standards and supposed security.


You do realize that this has nothing to do with what I said right? Simply taking a quote from "lenin 101" and pasting it somewhere is not an argument.


If I recall right J. Arch Getty has said that it's not too far above 380,000 for the whole USSR in 1937-38. That's a lot, although below the millions promoted by the types who would publicize how communism = gulags and whatnot.

I bet they were all kulaks and landowners. How many proletarians do you think died in the vast deep mines? As a result of working accidents because productivity rates had to be accelerated in order to 'develop the productive forces'? How many people went to their graves as ghosts only having repeated the same repetitive task over and over again, spending their wages on the scraps that fell of the state-accumulation machine? Is your road to 'communism' littered with the discarded corpses of empty generations who will simply have to 'put up with it'?

[Zav]

Enlighten us then.
Very well. Primitivism is the idea that humans are better off without advanced technology. That is all. Primitivists do not advocate genocide to reach a stable population size. Most desire a communal tribal culture with what is essentially a gift economy (a la primitive Communism), not being Neanderthals. They do not condone the use of force against the majority of the population to reach their goals (unlike some). Most are neither New Agey nor belong to the Hippy subculture. The make a connection between the advance of technology and the decline in civility, health, and culture. It's a flawed analysis, but it certainly doesn't deserve threats of nuclear obliteration. There is a correlation, but the cause is power, and Capitalism getting better at creating Consumerism. They're closer to being Communists than some Dem. Soc.s.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Very well. Primitivism is the idea that humans are better off without advanced technology. That is all.

I suppose that depends on how one defines "better off".

Sure, we may have had a lot of free time before developing settled civilisation, but on the other hand we were massively ignorant. What good is all that free time if you know next to nothing of the world beyond your clan/tribe/extended family?

More generally, while millions more die today than they did in our ancestor's days, billions more are living, and somehow I think if you were to ask them whether they want to end their "miserable" industrialised existence or abandon technology they'd turn the offer down.

[l'Enfermé]

What the hell, I'm in agreement with Ismail in this thread, that's a first!

Anyways, I would like to join an equestrian-based nomadic culture and rape and pillage my way through the entire world. Genghis Khan style.

[Sasha]

i'm more of a technocrat than a primmie; cold fusion meets replicators is way more likely to bring communism and make capitalism a thing of the past than either leninist-fordist industrialism or primitivism.
primitivism while correct in their analysis of alienation mistakenly identifies technology and not wage-slavery as the root problem.
but yeah, i still agree with ravachol...

[Lanky Wanker]

First thing I'd do is build a shower out of old bottles or something, I couldn't live without the wonderful technology of showering. Then I'd make some organic shampoo and shower gel... I hate feeling dirty, sweaty and greasy (and smelling like absolute shit). Well, actually I'd do that after making a shelter out of dead trees and foliage and stuff. Then I'd annoy all of you veganarchists by going hunting for my dinner if there was no decent edible plant matter or whatever nearby — which there isn't in the UK, besides a few berries — and make some clothes out of the dead animals... mmm yes, a dead squirrel would make a nice fuzzy thong to attract all of the primitive laydehz. I'd then set out to make a natural lubric— erm, I mean, never mind.



I swear half of you have secret reactionary tendencies.


On this site it's hard to NOT be a reactionary or get banned at some point.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

i'm more of a technocrat than a primmie; cold fusion meets replicators is way more likely to bring communism and make capitalism a thing of the past than either leninist-fordist industrialism or primitivism.

Technocracy isn't the same thing as advocacy for technology, even though many technocracy advocates are also technophiles*. I've sometimes had idle thoughts about a socioeconomic system I term "feudalistic technocracy", basically a society run by networks of guilds. I imagine it's the sort of thing that could be done with pre-industrial technology, but I'll admit it doesn't sound progressive relative to what we have today, which is why I consider it idle musings since the feudal mode of production is practically non-existent these days (to my knowledge).

Fordism has several problems, which is partly why I reject orthodox technocracy in favour of a model which takes into account the fact that individuals do better in societies that respect autonomy and which have as few barriers as possible with regards to economic and political participation.

I think I've come to understand how primitivism can be appealing; no managerial bullshit, the bounties of nature being there for all; a simpler, more innocent existence. But I like technology and knowing my place in the universe too much for that to be my kind of thing.

One thing I'd like to live to see (among many other things) is for cities to become compact and efficient enough for there to be significant wild spaces (or at least spaces left to go wild) for people to wander off into if they feel like doing so.

*I'm using the term in the general sense of someone who has an actual interest in technology, as opposed to simply being a collector of commercialised toys like iPhones or iPads. I think of myself as a technophile, but I don't even have a camera on my mobile (which is now approaching 10 years of reliable service).

[Ismail]

You conveniently snipped off the first halve of my question. What is my tendency of which you seem to know that there is 'no real world presence' and make such hasty conclusions?I don't know what to call it. It isn't left-communism, it's not "Anarcho-Trotskyism" (as Intelligitimate used to half-jokingly call some people), it's just... vague academic stuff that doesn't deserve a name probably. I mean you have "hipster communism" so yeah.


I'm sure the Albanian workers who died next to the assembly lines or working the same machine each day, spending their lives generating surplus value for the state to extract, are happy their fatherly party chose the correct line into oblivion.Good point, industrial development was clearly a bad idea. Let's see how workers from the 1930's fared vis-à-vis their brethren suffering under the malady of STALINISM by the end of the 80's:



1938: life expectancy of 38, malaria and syphilis are common, infant mortality rate so high that 1 out of 2 babies don't make it very far, blood feuds are a significant force in northern tribal life, famines are a common threat because of utterly backward agriculture and an inability to cultivate more land, etc.
1988 (or 1985, or 1976, etc.): life expectancy in the early 70's, malaria and syphilis eradicated, an infant mortality rate slightly higher than the Lithuanian SSR (i.e. not bad), blood feuds eradicated, Albania is self-sufficient in grain production, plus basic rights like free health care and education, in addition to quite generous vacation, maternity leave and other benefits.


So short of abolishing work itself I don't see your point. It isn't like Albanian Stakhanovites died while building Nike factories.


Can you explain why the development of the productive forces allows for the elimination of scarcity?Well yes, the advent of machinery generally makes production easier. Ergo more machinery and its continued development makes production still easier.


You honestly think that further industrialization of the planet is even feasible? I'm sure we would all enjoy your 'abundance' amidst the rising sea levels, unbreathable air and arid concrete wastelands.I'd imagine that planned economic development would, if anything, ensure a better balance between economic development and environmental need, especially in a world of socialist states.


I bet they were all kulaks and landowners.Actually the Great Purges tended to target bureaucrats. The kulaks were generally deported to Siberia in the early 30's and by the late 30's many had either returned to the villages as normal peasants in collectives or started life anew in the towns.


How many proletarians do you think died in the vast deep mines? As a result of working accidents because productivity rates had to be accelerated in order to 'develop the productive forces'?And yet the context was one of perceived capitalist encirclement, which culminated in the Nazi invasion of June 1941. In fact one significant contributory factor to a lack of raised living standards during the mid and late 30's was the sudden large increase in armaments production. The point is that this needs to be seen in the context of the precarious situation the USSR found itself in. In addition, though, there is also the fact that many workers did feel that they were genuinely contributing to a new world. This is noted by various sources (academic and non-academic), one that immediately comes to mind is Behind the Urals (non-academic), an account by an American worker.


Is your road to 'communism' littered with the discarded corpses of empty generations who will simply have to 'put up with it'?The world is a fair bit more industrialized now than 80 years ago, so probably not.

[Zav]

Technocracy isn't the same thing as advocacy for technology, even though many technocracy advocates are also technophiles*. I've sometimes had idle thoughts about a socioeconomic system I term "feudalistic technocracy", basically a society run by networks of guilds. I imagine it's the sort of thing that could be done with pre-industrial technology, but I'll admit it doesn't sound progressive relative to what we have today, which is why I consider it idle musings since the feudal mode of production is practically non-existent these days (to my knowledge).

Fordism has several problems, which is partly why I reject orthodox technocracy in favour of a model which takes into account the fact that individuals do better in societies that respect autonomy and which have as few barriers as possible with regards to economic and political participation.

I think I've come to understand how primitivism can be appealing; no managerial bullshit, the bounties of nature being there for all; a simpler, more innocent existence. But I like technology and knowing my place in the universe too much for that to be my kind of thing.

One thing I'd like to live to see (among many other things) is for cities to become compact and efficient enough for there to be significant wild spaces (or at least spaces left to go wild) for people to wander off into if they feel like doing so.

*I'm using the term in the general sense of someone who has an actual interest in technology, as opposed to simply being a collector of commercialised toys like iPhones or iPads. I think of myself as a technophile, but I don't even have a camera on my mobile (which is now approaching 10 years of reliable service).
Wow I actually agree with you on something. That's a first.
And apparently Borz agrees with Ismail. Yep, the end is nigh.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Wow I actually agree with you on something. That's a first.

I did ramble on a bit. Anything in particular?

[Zav]

I did ramble on a bit. Anything in particular?
That Fordism is flawed, understanding the appeal of Primitivism but liking the positive aspects of technology too much to give them up (this second-most), not wanting Earth to look like Coruscant (this most), and thinking Apple products are toys. Also you are awesome for still having an old phone.

[Ravachol]

I don't know what to call it. It isn't left-communism, it's not "Anarcho-Trotskyism" (as Intelligitimate used to half-jokingly call some people), it's just... vague academic stuff that doesn't deserve a name probably. I mean you have "hipster communism" so yeah.


I like that, the nameless tendency. I think I'll stick to that.



So short of abolishing work itself I don't see your point. It isn't like Albanian Stakhanovites died while building Nike factories.


No, they died building the surplus extraction machine of state capitalism.



Well yes, the advent of machinery generally makes production easier. Ergo more machinery and its continued development makes production still easier.


Ah yes, we can clearly see that at this historical high point of the development of the productive forces scarcity is less of a problem than ever before. The productive forces in Albania have developed way beyond Hoxha's wildest dreams, so according to your thesis scarcity should today be less of a problem than it was back in the day.

If you conceive of 'communism' as nothing more than ever increasing productivity rates and steel quota I don't think we have much left to say to eachother.



I'd imagine that planned economic development would, if anything, ensure a better balance between economic development and environmental need, especially in a world of socialist states.


The key word being imagine yes. Can you back this up or are you just throwing out statements?



Actually the Great Purges tended to target bureaucrats. The kulaks were generally deported to Siberia in the early 30's and by the late 30's many had either returned to the villages as normal peasants in collectives or started life anew in the towns.


I am glad to hear of this glorious move towards the unmediated human community.



The point is that this needs to be seen in the context of the precarious situation the USSR found itself in. In addition, though, there is also the fact that many workers did feel that they were genuinely contributing to a new world.


As do many workers under 'regular' capitalism. Ideology is the softly burning candle that leads us ever deeper into the marshes. Your communism is always-ever postponed until the Party's assessment concludes 'the conditions are right', in 20 years perhaps? Stakhnovite sacrifice for the construction of 'the new world to come' is the perfect mirror of the Christian sacrificing himself for the wealth that is laid down in heaven.



The world is a fair bit more industrialized now than 80 years ago, so probably not.

So I suppose only the 'third world' will have to keep on throwing themselves between the gears of productivity in order to reach the appropriate, party-approved rates of production?

I'm already looking forward to how worker absenteeism, refusal of work and workplace sabotage are applauded just before and up until the capture of state power, only to be shouted down and purged the minute after as 'counter-revolutionary sabotage'. Never mind what the great party will do to those rural farmers resisting the construction of hydroelectric dams or the indigenous tribes destroying logging equipment (by then "The people's logging equipment" I suppose). I bet they're petit-bourgeois Kulaks and underdeveloped 'primitives' who simply don't understand Lenin. Poor them.

[Ismail]

Ah yes, we can clearly see that at this historical high point of the development of the productive forces scarcity is less of a problem than ever before. The productive forces in Albania have developed way beyond Hoxha's wildest dreams, so according to your thesis scarcity should today be less of a problem than it was back in the day.If we assume that Hoxha said before he died that all Albania was perfectly industrialized and that Albania = the entire world, then your statement would make sense.

But yes, obviously scarcity was less an issue in relative terms. Not like Albania didn't have Europe's fastest growing population rate and other factors.


If you conceive of 'communism' as nothing more than ever increasing productivity rates and steel quota I don't think we have much left to say to eachother.I don't, nor does any Marxist I know.


The key word being imagine yes. Can you back this up or are you just throwing out statements?Are you denying that central planning allows for one to have a fair bit more control over nature than individual capitalist enterprises?


I am glad to hear of this glorious move towards the unmediated human community.Kulaks were free to not resist. Those who did not, peacefully became collective farmers. Those who did were deported. I don't see the issue unless actually resisting exploiters is a horrible thing to you.


Your communism is always-ever postponed until the Party's assessment concludes 'the conditions are right', in 20 years perhaps? Stakhnovite sacrifice for the construction of 'the new world to come' is the perfect mirror of the Christian sacrificing himself for the wealth that is laid down in heaven.I don't think industrializing a country and advancing the cause of the proletarian revolution across the world is the same as killing infidels in battle but alright then.


So I suppose only the 'third world' will have to keep on throwing themselves between the gears of productivity in order to reach the appropriate, party-approved rates of production?Unless you're a Maoist or otherwise believe that the proletariat has no leading role in the overthrowing of capitalism then yes.


I'm already looking forward to how worker absenteeism, refusal of work and workplace sabotage are applauded just before and up until the capture of state power, only to be shouted down and purged the minute after as 'counter-revolutionary sabotage'.Well yeah, obviously when state power is in the hands of the working-class sabotage becomes a counter-revolutionary act. Your belief that Lenin was just a bourgeois democrat and that the October Revolution was just one gigantic bourgeois conspiracy doesn't change this.


Never mind what the great party will do to those rural farmers resisting the construction of hydroelectric damsRelocate them? Not like the hydroelectric dam won't provide power to thousands or millions of people.


or the indigenous tribes destroying logging equipment (by then "The people's logging equipment" I suppose). I bet they're petit-bourgeois Kulaks and underdeveloped 'primitives' who simply don't understand Lenin. Poor them.Kulaks arise out of peasant populations, which in turn arose under the feudal mode of production. Again throwing around terms you know nothing about is rather dumb.

And yes, they are primitive. Unless you believe the whole "noble savage" concept and that somehow educating these people and introducing them to modern civilization is bad. I mean we're not even talking about what Marx called "the idiocy of rural life" (i.e. peasantry under feudalism), we're talking about something even more backwards.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

That Fordism is flawed, understanding the appeal of Primitivism but liking the positive aspects of technology too much to give them up (this second-most), not wanting Earth to look like Coruscant (this most), and thinking Apple products are toys. Also you are awesome for still having an old phone.

I forgot to mention when I was talking of more compact and efficient cities that I was including their supporting infrastructures also. I'm thinking high-rise cities linked together by high-speed rail, each with a buffer of agricultural greenbelt surrounding them. With there now being more people living in urban areas than rural, I think it's time we considered bringing agriculture closer to home.

Heavy road traffic should be routed through underground tunnels if not shifted outside urban centres completely. I like the idea of plenty of trees and green spaces within cities, there's bound to be enough really shit buildings we can knock down in order to make the space. I reckon reduced traffic and more greenery would serve to make cities more "human" places to live.

[Zav]

I forgot to mention when I was talking of more compact and efficient cities that I was including their supporting infrastructures also. I'm thinking high-rise cities linked together by high-speed rail, each with a buffer of agricultural greenbelt surrounding them. With there now being more people living in urban areas than rural, I think it's time we considered bringing agriculture closer to home.

Heavy road traffic should be routed through underground tunnels if not shifted outside urban centres completely. I like the idea of plenty of trees and green spaces within cities, there's bound to be enough really shit buildings we can knock down in order to make the space. I reckon reduced traffic and more greenery would serve to make cities more "human" places to live.
Why not grow food in permaculture gardens in windows and on rooftops as well as outside the city limits? That's even better. I hate cities, personally and as a concept, but if one can be engineered to produce all it's own food and power and produce no carbon emissions or other pollutants (including nuclear waste) I'll gladly support it. Of course for that to be possible cities would need to be far smaller in scale than they are now. For such places to be built we need better solar and wind technology, better bioplastics and e-cretes, and better modes of transport.

[Ele'ill]

I remember a time on this forum when those advocating any hint of post-civ or primitivist ideology would be restricted.

[Drosophila]

I remember a time on this forum when those advocating any hint of post-civ or primitivist ideology would be restricted.

You're an admin, why don't you do something about it? Cmoney restricts/bans people at the drop of a hat. It's only fair that you be able to to as well.

[Zav]

I remember a time on this forum when those advocating any hint of post-civ or primitivist ideology would be restricted.
Is there going to be another Great Purge?
No one has ever satisfactorily explained why they are reactionary though, especially the post-civs.

It's amazing I haven't been restricted yet (for being sympathetic to Primitivists or a host of other unpopular opinions I have). I'm no Primmie, but even mentioning it is taboo around here, and I merely think it slightly flawed in its analysis.

Now I've probably jinxed it.

[Ele'ill]

I'm not a primitivist but the critique of industry and work is valid in my opinion.

[Ismail]

Is there going to be another Great Purge?Not unless the primitivist sympathizers start bringing in Neo-Nazis.

[Zav]

Not unless the primitivist sympathizers start bringing in Neo-Nazis.
How's that supposed to work? They're vastly different ideologies, like liberals and An-Caps, totally unrelated.

[Astarte]

Is there going to be another Great Purge?
No one has ever satisfactorily explained why they are reactionary though, especially the post-civs.

It's amazing I haven't been restricted yet (for being sympathetic to Primitivists or a host of other unpopular opinions I have). I'm no Primmie, but even mentioning it is taboo around here, and I merely think it slightly flawed in its analysis.

Now I've probably jinxed it.

I think if you get banned at all it should be for your gross-out user title, not so much for anarcho-primitivist tendencies. Just sayin' . . .

[Ocean Seal]

They won't there is no class basis for them to win. Only to form communes and bomb a few things.

[Zav]

I think if you get banned at all it should be for your gross-out user title, not so much for anarcho-primitivist tendencies. Just sayin' . . .
What's gross about biological fluids?:confused:
I'm a piracy advocate and I like semen more than rum, so there you go.

[Ismail]

How's that supposed to work? They're vastly different ideologies, like liberals and An-Caps, totally unrelated.My point is that the "Great Purges" in December were due to a bunch of Neo-Nazis mainly.

[Zav]

My point is that the "Great Purges" in December were due to a bunch of Neo-Nazis mainly.
Ah, alright. I thought you meant there was a connection between them. Confusion resolved.

[rylasasin]

probably just kill myself. i don't want to have to live like some hippie in the middle of the woods.

I second this.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The problem is, minus a revolutionary leftist movement, there is a possibility of major social regression. That means the primitivists win by default.

BTW Could Murray Bookchin to some extent be considered a primitivist?

[Ravachol]

BTW Could Murray Bookchin to some extent be considered a primitivist?

No.

For those interested, some of the works underlying and outlining the primitivist current (though much, much more has obviously been written):

The origins of Primitivism (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/various-authors-the-origins-of-primitivism-1977-1988) - Published by Fifth Estate

The wandering of humanity (http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/wanhum/index.htm) - Jacques Camatte

Against Domestication (http://libcom.org/library/against-domestication-jacques-camatte) - Jacques Camatte

Against his-story, Against Leviathan (http://noblesavagery.blogspot.nl/2007/03/fredy-perlmans-against-his-story.html) - Fredy Perlman

Society against the state (http://www.primitivism.com/society-state.htm) - Pierre Clastres

The human species and the earth's crust (http://libcom.org/library/human-species-earths-crust-amadeo-bordiga) - Amadeo Bordiga

Against Civilization (http://www.scribd.com/doc/20299216/Zerzan-Against-Civilization-Readings-and-Reflections) - Edited by John Zerzan

The primitivist critique of society (http://primitivism.com/primitivist-critique.htm) - Richard Heinberg

Revolution and primitivism (http://libcom.org/library/revolution-primitivism-miguel-amoros) - Miguel Amoros (and insurrectionary critique of primitivism of the 'noble savage' variety)

Also, there field of paleoanthropology seems to be in overwhelming agreement with the primitivist analysis of civilization (though they may not share the strategical point of view of the current):

Hunter-Gatherers and the Mythology of the Market (http://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy) - John Gowdy

How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Their Egalitarian Ways (http://libcom.org/history/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways-peter-gray) - Peter Gray



Marx claimed that "the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of ... modern capitalist societies." This claim has since been vindicated by numerous studies which are neatly summarised in this entry from the prestigious Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers.


I bet Marx was just a primitive savage, even more backwards than the feudal serfs! Perhaps the white man's burden lauded by the Leninists in this thread just wasn't his thing after all...

[Zav]

No.

For those interested, some of the works underlying and outlining the primitivist current (though much, much more has obviously been written):

Congratulations. You have made the first useful post on this thread. You win a cookie shaped like Marx's beard.

[Ismail]

I bet Marx was just a primitive savage, even more backwards than the feudal serfs!Nah, it's just some primitivst taking a Marx quote out of context, kinda like how left-coms look at Lenin saying "Russia" and "state-capitalism" in the same sentence and go "SEE LENIN SAID SOVIET RUSSIA WAS CAPITALIST QED."

He was talking about Russian commune (you know, the kind inhabited by peasants.) In this same letter he says the following: "If it possesses in the communal ownership of the soil the basis of collective appropriation, its historical surroundings, its contemporaneity with capitalist production, lend it all the material conditions of communal labour on a vast scale. It is thus in a position to incorporate all the positive acquisitions devised by the capitalist system without passing through its Caudine Forks. It can gradually replace parcel farming with large-scale agriculture assisted by machines, which the physical lie of the land in Russia invites. It can thus become the direct point of departure for the economic system towards which modern society tends, and turn over a new leaf without beginning by committing suicide. On the contrary, it would be necessary to begin by putting it on a normal footing." (bold added by moi)

Furthermore on primitive communities (which Marx only discusses in relation to how communal forms came into being) he remarks right after the quote given by the primitivist that "the causes of their decline stem from economic facts which prevented them from passing a certain stage of development, from historical surroundings not at all analogous with the historical surroundings of the Russian commune of today."

The letter in question is here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm

If this is "Marxist" primitivsm then it sucks pretty bad.

[Welshy]

Nah, it's just some primitivst taking a Marx quote out of context, kinda like how left-coms look at Lenin saying "Russia" and "state-capitalism" in the same sentence and go "SEE LENIN SAID SOVIET RUSSIA WAS CAPITALIST QED."



Yeah because that what leftcoms base their analysis of the soviet union on.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Why not grow food in permaculture gardens in windows and on rooftops as well as outside the city limits? That's even better.

Sounds quite labour intensive? I was thinking more of a graduated system where smaller scale agricultural activities are placed closer than larger ones. Correct me if I'm wrong, but permaculture seems more suited to growing things like herbs and vegetables, with small livestock like goats and chickens. But what about things like grains, potatoes, soybeans, etc? I'm thinking relatively large mixed stretches of such crops, with a rotation appropriate to the terrain and climate, with any necessary artificial irrigation being provided by the drip method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_irrigation). These larger outward areas would be highly mechanised with their proximity to the city being a useful source of fertiliser from human and livestock sources.


I hate cities, personally and as a concept, but if one can be engineered to produce all it's own food and power and produce no carbon emissions or other pollutants (including nuclear waste) I'll gladly support it.

There is no form of human existence which does not produce pollution. Even hunter-gatherers leave junk and crap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden) lying around. What's important is how pollution is dealt with. Carbon emissions can be largely offset by abandoning fossil fuels in favour of something else. My preference is for a mix of nuclear fission and various large-scale forms of renewable energy, including waste-derived biogas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas).

I think it's a mistake to write off nuclear fission as an energy source. Unparalleled energy density, sorely lacking in material investment but with much potential, and it will last thousands of years. If we're gluttonous. If we're more careful, it could last a hell of a lot longer. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing) into useable fuel, extending its usefulness about 60 times. Designs like the Integral Fast Reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor) can even burn up dangerous nuclear wastes as fuel. We can even get rid of stuff like depleted uranium by sticking it in there.


Of course for that to be possible cities would need to be far smaller in scale than they are now. For such places to be built we need better solar and wind technology, better bioplastics and e-cretes, and better modes of transport.

I can't help but feel that North American cities would be more amenable to any municipal downsizing, as compared to European cities which have a hell of a lot more architectural history embedded in them. That was why I was proposing underground motorways and knocking down the crappy shit nobody will miss. Barring disaster or utter neglect, stuff like the Victorian houses built in London are going to stick around for at least another century or two, and people seem to have grown fond of them as a form of housing.

[Sentinel]

I remember a time on this forum when those advocating any hint of post-civ or primitivist ideology would be restricted.

They still are, according to the rules, but on a case by case basis if they identify as leftists. There needs to be a BA vote for such.


It's amazing I haven't been restricted yet (for being sympathetic to Primitivists or a host of other unpopular opinions I have). I'm no Primmie, but even mentioning it is taboo around here, and I merely think it slightly flawed in its analysis.

Comrade, if you read my posts in this thread you will realise that we never restricted people purely for being sympathetic to primmies. If that had been the case, there would indeed have been great purges here for years ago already.

A lot of people have defended them, some of them members in very good standing.

But luckily, as noone would want that, we restrict primitivists - and others with opposing ideologies - not people sympathetic or apologetic of them. ;)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Very well. Primitivism is the idea that humans are better off without advanced technology. That is all. Primitivists do not advocate genocide to reach a stable population size. Most desire a communal tribal culture with what is essentially a gift economy (a la primitive Communism), not being Neanderthals. They do not condone the use of force against the majority of the population to reach their goals (unlike some). Most are neither New Agey nor belong to the Hippy subculture. The make a connection between the advance of technology and the decline in civility, health, and culture. It's a flawed analysis, but it certainly doesn't deserve threats of nuclear obliteration. There is a correlation, but the cause is power, and Capitalism getting better at creating Consumerism. They're closer to being Communists than some Dem. Soc.s.

Well this is essentially what I thought it was, so I don't know how you get the idea that all the posts here are ignorant. Supporters of primitivism may not call for genocide, but I think the criticism is that if their goals were actually achieved it would inevitably wipe out a sizable chunk of the human population because "primitive communism" or band lifestyles or even communal for-use farming can not sustain the numbers of people currently living under capitalist modes of production where a little labor can create a lot of wealth (for the owners and bosses obviously, but not inherently as a result of technology itself). Not to mention what this would mean is that anyone who needs medical technology to continue living would die.


Why not grow food in permaculture gardens in windows and on rooftops as well as outside the city limits? That's even better. I hate cities, personally and as a concept, but if one can be engineered to produce all it's own food and power and produce no carbon emissions or other pollutants (including nuclear waste) I'll gladly support it. Of course for that to be possible cities would need to be far smaller in scale than they are now. For such places to be built we need better solar and wind technology, better bioplastics and e-cretes, and better modes of transport.Yes and most of this is possible today - in fact I think we could have larger cities which are actually much nicer to live in and produce large-scale farming within large buildings that can also filter water or recycle water for the city (the centralization of ag production would use more energy and cost more initially, but would minimize pollution due to cultivating miles and miles of open land and shipping products from rural areas to shipping centers and then into cities). This would free-up all the land currently used for feeding urban populations which could then be reclaimed as part of the natural ecosystems or made into preserves or whatever. This is all potentially possible now - or at least making large strides towards this - but it wouldn't be profitable. Capitalism needs technology but also holds back technological developments and implementation of technology.

[Davide]

I will also so to Tennessee forests and make my house between the bunches of a huge tree and enjoy my lief in forest. :)

[DasFapital]

well thank god the primitivists advocating the end of language have to shut the hell up by virtue of their own ideology

[helot]

well thank god the primitivists advocating the end of language have to shut the hell up by virtue of their own ideology

I actually favour such primitivists as that's the logical outcome of the ideology. Humans will always create more advanced technologies so long as we have complex language. Even supposing some apocalyptic event in which all modern infrastructure is destroyed complex technologies will eventually be created again because it's advantageous to our existence and due to language we're capable of communicating complex ideas.

It's quite silly though as humans won't unlearn language. To propose such a notion is absurd.

[Ismail]

Yeah because that what leftcoms base their analysis of the soviet union on.Never claimed that. Instead I've seen a large number of them distort Lenin quotes to "prove" that Lenin thought Soviet Russia was capitalist and to try and boost their own arguments.

[Ravachol]

Nah, it's just some primitivst taking a Marx quote out of context


Except that the author is not a primitivist but a generic anthropologist. Perhaps you should read what you comment on.



He was talking about Russian commune (you know, the kind inhabited by peasants.)


No (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm), he was talking about primitive communism in relation to the russian communes.



But in any event the research has advanced far enough to establish that: (1) the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. societies, and, a fortiori, that of modern capitalist societies; (2) the causes of their decline stem from economic facts which prevented them from passing a certain stage of development, from historical surroundings not at all analogous with the historical surroundings of the Russian commune of today.


So his comment still stands in regards to the vitality of primitive communism surpassing that of capitalist societies, whether you like it or not. In fact, the entire letter was concerned with the so-called 'Russian road' and the possibility of bypassing the capitalist stage of development, which runs right into the face of your notion that 'T3h productive forces have to be developed further!!1!!'



Furthermore on primitive communities (which Marx only discusses in relation to how communal forms came into being) he remarks right after the quote given by the primitivist that "the causes of their decline stem from economic facts which prevented them from passing a certain stage of development, from historical surroundings not at all analogous with the historical surroundings of the Russian commune of today."


That does not mean what you think it means.... read it again in light of the entire letter and then redraw your conclusions.

I also suggest you actually read the material I posted instead of lashing out wildly at single quotes. Come on, it won't do any harm and it can hardly be more boring and mindnumbing than the proceedings of the 7th congress of the party of labour of Albania.

[Ismail]

Except that the author is not a primitivist but a generic anthropologist. Perhaps you should read what you comment on.Okay, a generic bourgeois anthropologist misquoting Marx. Great. What's your point again?


In fact, the entire letter was concerned with the so-called 'Russian road' and the possibility of bypassing the capitalist stage of development, which runs right into the face of your notion that 'T3h productive forces have to be developed further!!1!!'You'd think that me upholding Albania as a socialist country is a pretty good indication that I obviously don't fetishize the productive forces. In fact Albanian writers discussed this topic a fair bit, e.g. "Possibilities of Building Socialism Without Passing Through the Stage of Developed Capitalism (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/mara.htm)."

I simply treat it in a Marxist manner, i.e. I recognize that the proletariat is the most progressive class and the one which will see through the ending of classes themselves and the establishment of communism. The development of the productive forces worldwide sees the growth of the proletariat and the ability to create abundance for all.

In fact your attempt to use that letter to prove anything about primitivism shows how little you know about Marxism. Marx was analyzing the commune in the context of capitalist development in other countries and noted that it was possible for it to enjoy mechanization and other attributes of modernized farming, and had the possibility of bypassing the capitalist stage of development through these things.

This wasn't ignored by Russian Marxists. In fact an entire country, Mongolia, was pretty much based on the idea (advanced by Marx and Lenin) that there could be non-capitalist development. Not to mention that the Russian countryside didn't exactly go through capitalist development in the 1920's, but went largely from feudalism with the kulak, middle and poor peasantry to mechanized and collectivized farming.

[Ravachol]

Okay, a generic bourgeois anthropologist misquoting Marx. Great. What's your point again?


What makes him bourgeois other than your dislike of him and his text you haven't read?



I simply treat it in a Marxist manner, i.e. I recognize that the proletariat is the most progressive class and the one which will see through the ending of classes themselves and the establishment of communism. The development of the productive forces worldwide sees the growth of the proletariat and the ability to create abundance for all.


How does the growth and extension of the proletarian conditions imply the abolition of that condition in itself? Can you substantiate that claim? How does the expansion of a condition of dispossession, ie. the proletarian condition, contribute to the spread of abundance?



In fact your attempt to use that letter to prove anything about primitivism shows how little you know about Marxism.


I find your frustration entertaining.



Marx was analyzing the commune in the context of capitalist development in other countries and noted that it was possible for it to enjoy mechanization and other attributes of modernized farming, and had the possibility of bypassing the capitalist stage of development through these things.


Except that the fragment I was quoting (from the anthropological article) was not related to the letter but to the specific statement of Marx regarding the vitality of primitive communism. This still stands. The productive forces of Western capitalism had developed way beyond primitive communism, yet Marx was of the opinion this had nothing to do with the vitality of such communities.



This wasn't ignored by Russian Marxists. In fact an entire country, Mongolia, was pretty much based on the idea (advanced by Marx and Lenin) that there could be non-capitalist development.


You mean the ideological shroud of socialism?



Not to mention that the Russian countryside didn't exactly go through capitalist development in the 1920's, but went largely from feudalism with the kulak, middle and poor peasantry to mechanized and collectivized farming.

Yes, they went through 'socialist' development, which has nothing to do with communism.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

One could say that the failure of the Soviet Union and the "actually existing" socialist states and their eventual implosions points to the necessity of building a socialism based on the working class from the developed countries.Silvia Federici and others pointed to the possibility of a non-capitalist development, but for many reasons including global climate change, the greater "globalization" of capitalism and internationalization of finance, and the law of combined and uneven development, that avenue has long since been closed off.

The PLP blames "socialism" for the failure to create communism. This seems a bit ultra-leftist.Do you advice going straight to pure communism?

[Art Vandelay]

One could say that the failure of the Soviet Union and the "actually existing" socialist states and their eventual implosions points to the necessity of building a socialism based on the working class from the developed countries.Silvia Federici and others pointed to the possibility of a non-capitalist development, but for many reasons including global climate change, the greater "globalization" of capitalism and internationalization of finance, and the law of combined and uneven development, that avenue has long since been closed off.

The PLP blames "socialism" for the failure to create communism. This seems a bit ultra-leftist.Do you advice going straight to pure communism?

While I realize that this was not directed at me, all it shows is the necessity of building socialism on a global scale.

[thriller]

I'll stay put. I can hunt the primmies in my own area for food :D

[Ravachol]

The PLP blames "socialism" for the failure to create communism. This seems a bit ultra-leftist.Do you advice going straight to pure communism?

I don't think socialism has anything to do with communism. I don't buy into any transitional phase that is supposedly neither capitalist nor communist. I also don't think capitalism will morph into communism within a day by magic.

Instead, I conceive (like Marx) of communism as a real movement manifesting itself within capitalism and not a state of affairs to be constructed through five-year plans. Capitalism will be abolished by communism, not for communism (http://libcom.org/tags/communisation).

[l'Enfermé]

I don't think socialism has anything to do with communism. I don't buy into any transitional phase that is supposedly neither capitalist nor communist. I also don't think capitalism will morph into communism within a day by magic.

Instead, I conceive (like Marx) of communism as a real movement manifesting itself within capitalism and not a state of affairs to be constructed through five-year plans. Capitalism will be abolished by communism, not for communism (http://libcom.org/tags/communisation).
Your knowledge of Marxism seems to be based on out of context quotes and leftcom bullshit. In reality, Marx and Engels differentiated between "lower stage" communism and "higher stage" communism, Lenin simply called the first one "socialism" and the second one "communism"(what a heretic!). For Marx, Communism or Socialism was not merely a movement but a mode of production as well, to imply otherwise is ridiculous.

[Ismail]

What makes him bourgeois other than your dislike of him and his text you haven't read?Well if he's a "generic anthropologist" then that obviously means he's not a Marxist, unless anthropology is a field dominated by Marxism or something that we can call adherents to it "generic."


How does the growth and extension of the proletarian conditions imply the abolition of that condition in itself? Can you substantiate that claim? How does the expansion of a condition of dispossession, ie. the proletarian condition, contribute to the spread of abundance?Because the development of industry allows for greater production, bringing into the factories ever increasing numbers of proletarians who, increasingly centralized within these factories (not to mention increasingly numerous) begin to obtain a sense of class consciousness (since obviously they don't share the fruits of increased production and face exploitation) which when turned into communist consciousness entails seizing the means of production and allowing abundance for all and not just letting it go to waste or monopolized in the hands of capitalists for profit?

This is literally Marxism 101.


The productive forces of Western capitalism had developed way beyond primitive communism, yet Marx was of the opinion this had nothing to do with the vitality of such communities.Probably because they didn't have alienated labor or other ills caused by class society, which is why Marxists have called the situation back then "primitive communism." It still doesn't mean that Marx in any way wanted to turn back the clock or opposed industrialization.


Yes, they went through 'socialist' development, which has nothing to do with communism.Well yeah, communism is stateless and classless. Socialism has the state and has non-antagonistic classes (i.e. the proletariat and collectivist peasantry.) Of course you'd just call that state-capitalist but whatever.

[Ravachol]

For Marx, Communism or Socialism was not merely a movement but a mode of production as well, to imply otherwise is ridiculous.



Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.


Ridiculous!


Your knowledge of Marxism seems to be based on out of context quotes and leftcom bullshit. In reality, Marx and Engels differentiated between "lower stage" communism and "higher stage" communism.


Which has nothing to do with socialism. I suggest a proper 'return to Marx' for you if he means so much to you.


Well if he's a "generic anthropologist" then that obviously means he's not a Marxist, unless anthropology is a field dominated by Marxism or something that we can call adherents to it "generic."


So if his analysis isn't Marxist (which you apparently didn't bother to check out) he is bourgeois? I love your infantile Manicheanism.



Because the development of industry allows for greater production, bringing into the factories ever increasing numbers of proletarians who, increasingly centralized within these factories (not to mention increasingly numerous)


Perhaps the memo regarding the transition out of Fordism and the restructuring of class composition since the late '70s hasn't arrived yet at the party bureau, my apologies.



begin to obtain a sense of class consciousness (since obviously they don't share the fruits of increased production and face exploitation) which when turned into communist consciousness entails seizing the means of production and allowing abundance for all and not just letting it go to waste or monopolized in the hands of capitalists for profit?


Where is this class consciousness now? The factories have dispersed in the West, the proletariat has been scattered and isolated. Even when your utopian conditions were at their historical high point, after the completion of the industrial revolution (which happens to be one of the periods with the worst living conditions for proletarians ever, a 'development of the productive forces' you nonetheless seem to applaud) the development of 'communist consciousness' seems to have taken the biggest leap in Russia, where these developments had not yet taken place to the same degree they had in the European core. So whatever.

It's a moot point anyway, the taylorite/fordist dream is largely over, whilst decentralisation has been the core dictum in the West, the garment-working proletarians in Bangladesh have chosen to burn their factories and loot the remaining commodities over taking them over.

The means of production are just as much the products, in the social and technical sense, of capitalism as it's various commodities are. But I suppose those (no doubt 'backwards') Bangladeshi should never question this stuff, they should simply operate the machinery as we inherit it from the bourgeoisie. I suppose communism is standing next to a conveyor belt for 40 hours a week, but this time it's "for the revolution, comrade!".



It still doesn't mean that Marx in any way wanted to turn back the clock or opposed industrialization.


Nobody advocates the former. Regarding the latter I suggest you read 'Fragment on the machines', where he most certainly did not advocate industrialization.



Well yeah, communism is stateless and classless. Socialism has the state and has non-antagonistic classes (i.e. the proletariat and collectivist peasantry.) Of course you'd just call that state-capitalist but whatever.


Yeah, whatever indeed. I don't think there's much left to say here. I suppose I can only look forward to the roaring central committee condemnations of 'insubordinate counter-revolutionary workers' who refuse to worship the chimney and conveyor belt idols you hand to them, the virulent denunciations of the farmers who fight back the relocations to build the "glorious people's dams" and the slaughter of native tribes who refuse to give up their ancestral homelands to the woodchippers of socialist development.

That is, if Stalinist cosplaying would actually mean anything in the real world.

[Ismail]

So if his analysis isn't Marxist (which you apparently didn't bother to check out) he is bourgeois? I love your infantile Manicheanism.Is he an anarchist? No? Is he a Marxist? No? Then yes, he probably subscribes to the bourgeois (i.e. idealist) view of history. This would explain among other things why he badly misquotes Marx to apparently justify his own seemingly peculiar views.


Perhaps the memo regarding the transition out of Fordism and the restructuring of class composition since the late '70s hasn't arrived yet at the party bureau, my apologies.Yes, industry in the US has declined. It has risen in other parts of the world where cheap labor and larger profits are to be found. What's your point?


Where is this class consciousness now? The factories have dispersed in the West, the proletariat has been scattered and isolated.Drowned out by reformist trade union bureaucrats, illusions about the "uniqueness" of America (in Europe there's still a notably more militant climate in many countries), a lack of a notable alternative among the various communist parties and organizations, and by the relative "prosperity" of the US economy achieved via American imperialism.


Even when your utopian conditions were at their historical high point, after the completion of the industrial revolutionIt was completed? Where? Britain? USA? Maybe, but what about Albania? What about Italy even? Not to mention Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. There were no industrial revolutions in these areas. To this day the majority of Arabs and Africans appear to live as nomads or in tribes. Do you seriously think these elements could be class conscious about anything?


(which happens to be one of the periods with the worst living conditions for proletarians ever, a 'development of the productive forces' you nonetheless seem to applaud)So did Marx, apparently, considering that he was astute to both note the moral depravity of capitalism and at the same time its self-devouring nature as it created its gravediggers, i.e. the proletariat.

The fact that you can't seem to separate morality and the analysis of historical forces you in the camp of the utopian socialists.


the development of 'communist consciousness' seems to have taken the biggest leap in Russia, where these developments had not yet taken place to the same degree they had in the European core. So whatever.Sheila Fitzpatrick notes in The Russian Revolution that this was due to a number of reasons. For instance, there was no trade union movement that called for reconciliation with the state. The state itself was repressive and only grudgingly (i.e. under intense pressure and after shooting people) made minor changes. Fitzpatrick also says (p. 21) that, "Moreover, the peasants who migrated to towns and became workers were often young, freed from family restraints but still unused to the discipline of the factory, and bearing the resentments and frustrations that go with dislocation and incomplete assimilation to an unfamiliar environment." Not to mention that conditions in factories were, of course, less than wonderful.


the garment-working proletarians in Bangladesh have chosen to burn their factories and loot the remaining commodities over taking them over.Reminds me of yet another Marx quote in regards to the Luddites, in Capital:

"The enormous destruction of machinery that occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of this century, chiefly caused by the employment of the power-loom, and known as the Luddite movement, gave the anti-Jacobin governments of a Sidmouth, a Castlereagh, and the like, a pretext for the most reactionary and forcible measures. It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used."


Nobody advocates the former.There are primitivists who rant against the concept of human language. That's not turning back the clock? Oh wait, some want to abolish the very concept of time. My bad.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

This work should clear a lot of things up

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

[bcbm]

Not to mention Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. There were no industrial revolutions in these areas.

uh asia is heavily industrialized, perhaps you have heard of japan? china? korea? india? etc. africa and the middle east saw a wave of industrialization during the decolonization period in the 50s, 60s and 70s. latin america had no industrial revolution? you live in a strange world.


To this day the majority of Arabs and Africans appear to live as nomads or in tribes.

oh wow.

much of the population in the middle east is urban. in africa the divide skews more towards rural populations overall, but many countries do have significant urban centers (kinshasa, for instance).

[Grenzer]

uh asia is heavily industrialized, perhaps you have heard of japan? china? korea? india? etc. africa and the middle east saw a wave of industrialization during the decolonization period in the 50s, 60s and 70s. latin america had no industrial revolution? you live in a strange world.

If I remember right the majority of the population in both China and India are peasants, so there are literally at least a billion peasants in Asia and the Indian sub-continent alone. The idea that China has finished industrialization is anachronistic. There are urban centers that are heavily industrialized, but greater still is the rural countryside which remains more or less untouched by modern industry. So really, the class situation in China and the class situation in Japan aren't even remotely analogous from neither a Marxist nor demographic viewpoint.

Likewise, much of Latin America remains only semi-industrialized with large peasant populations. While China and India have been making extremely rapid progress the last two decades, the process of industrialization and the proletarianization of the peasantry has a long ways to go; but I can understand how someone might get another impression.

[l'Enfermé]

India's population is 70 percent rural, China's is 55 percent rural. The peasantry makes up the majority of the population in both countries and the proletariat makes up a minority, so China and India relatively are not that industrialized.

[Ismail]

Not to mention that "urban" doesn't mean "here be proletarians" or that it has had extensive industrialization, Kinshasa being a case in point.

[bcbm]

If I remember right the majority of the population in both China and India are peasants, so there are literally at least a billion peasants in Asia and the Indian sub-continent alone. The idea that China has finished industrialization is anachronistic.

i didn't say anything about 'finished,' i was calling into question ismail's statement that 'no industrial revolution has taken place' there, which is obviously completely false. the us was a majority rural country until the 1910s, had it experience 'no industrial revolution' until then?


There are urban centers that are heavily industrialized, but greater still is the rural countryside which remains more or less untouched by modern industry. So really, the class situation in China and the class situation in Japan aren't even remotely analogous from neither a Marxist nor demographic viewpoint.

analogous? no, but what you're saying here is still inaccurate. the rural countryside is hardly 'more or less untouched' in china. farming is a huge industry but less than half the rural population participate in it. industry and manufacturing are huge in china which has the third largest industrial output in the world. this is not a country where 'no industrial revolution has taken place.'


Likewise, much of Latin America remains only semi-industrialized with large peasant populations. While China and India have been making extremely rapid progress the last two decades, the process of industrialization and the proletarianization of the peasantry has a long ways to go; but I can understand how someone might get another impression.

i never said it didn't have a long ways to go


India's population is 70 percent rural, China's is 55 percent rural. The peasantry makes up the majority of the population in both countries and the proletariat makes up a minority, so China and India relatively are not that industrialized.

51.3% of the population is urban as of the end of 2011 in china and living in a rural area does not automatically make you a peasant and having a peasant majority does not mean that 'no industrial revolution' has occurred; every country that industrializes begins as majority rural...


Not to mention that "urban" doesn't mean "here be proletarians" or that it has had extensive industrialization, Kinshasa being a case in point.

actually i was using kinshasa to illustrate a different point namely your vision of people living as 'nomads' isn't really reality. a lot of people live in cities and those who don't, while often living in miserable conditions, are not quite living in the stone age either.

[Ismail]

i didn't say anything about 'finished,' i was calling into question ismail's statement that 'no industrial revolution has taken place' there, which is obviously completely false. the us was a majority rural country until the 1910s, had it experience 'no industrial revolution' until then?Albania had a "industrial revolution" (in terms of "oh hey it industrialized quite a bit relatively") in the 50's-70's. It was still considered primarily an agrarian economy and society by outside observers even though its national income mostly came from industry.

By Marxist standards, industry still has ways to go in Latin America, Africa, etc.


actually i was using kinshasa to illustrate a different point namely your vision of people living as 'nomads' isn't really reality. a lot of people live in cities and those who don't, while often living in miserable conditions, are not quite living in the stone age either.I thought I didn't say the word "nomad" but it appears I did. My apologies, tribes still stand.

[bcbm]

Albania had a "industrial revolution" (in terms of "oh hey it industrialized quite a bit relatively") in the 50's-70's. It was still considered primarily an agrarian economy and society by outside observers even though its national income mostly came from industry.

By Marxist standards, industry still has ways to go in Latin America, Africa, etc.


i never said it didn't have a long ways to go


I thought I didn't say the word "nomad" but it appears I did. My apologies, tribes still stand.

tribe is vague though. in many cases it refers to basically an ethnic group, not people living a truly tribal existence which is actually quite rare.

[Ismail]

i never said it didn't have a long ways to goWell then the issue still stands: they're underdeveloped countries and one cannot speak of an "industrial revolution" having been completed in the same sense as Britain and whatnot. The only thing that can be said is the obvious: in the span of two centuries some industrial development has occurred.

[bcbm]

Well then the issue still stands: they're underdeveloped countries and one cannot speak of an "industrial revolution" having been completed in the same sense as Britain and whatnot. The only thing that can be said is the obvious: in the span of two centuries some industrial development has occurred.

yes. i think this is different than 'no industrial revolution' has occurred. that was my problem with your statement, not the specific level of industrialization.

and development is happening very fast in some of these places.

[Teacher]

Is a primitivist.

Mods a website.

:confused:

[bcbm]

is a communist.

buys things at the store.

:confused:

[Vanguard1917]

Too bad for you and your fetish for the corpses of the disciples of Kautsky, primitivism is originally a Marxist current, not an anarchist one. It originates within intermingling between the post-Bordigist milieu (Camatte), folks like Fredy Perlman and Frankfurter schule critical theory. Most of the basis of primtivism is derived from a Marxist critique of the division of labour and alienation, a historical materialist study of the origin of property and the state and the idea that real subsumption has fully replaced formal subsumption on a global scale.

Too bad for you, such "Marxism" has absolutely nothing to do with what the co-founder of Marxism actually thought, said and fought for.

"modern natural science ... with modern industry, has revolutionised the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude towards nature as well as to other forms of childishness. [I]t would be desirable that Bavaria's sluggish peasant economy, the ground on which grow priests and Daumers alike, should at last be ploughed up by modern cultivation and modern machines."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/02/daumer.htm

Marx was criticising Daumer's infantile artistic fantasies about nature, but he would surely have LOL'ed especially hard at your little day dream:




As I live on the edge of the forest I'd most likely stay here, construct a few camouflaged wooden outposts overlooking the marshlands, which are rich bird hunting grounds. There's also plenty of (semi-)wild deer and the occasional small boar. I'm a vegan but in a hunter-gatherer situation I wouldn't have to many problems adapting to it, though original paleolithic diets (http://www.revleft.com/vb/if-primitivists-won-t173351/index3.html#) didn't involve much meat as pre-civilisation humans were mostly carrion feeders and fruit foragers, with hunting being an exception.

I'd attempt small-scale permaculture or horticulture though it's return-upon-investment is probably only worth it if you have a small communal settlement instead of being a lone survivor. In addition to that, scavenging the remnants of civilization for useful artifacts and abandoned supplies would seem like a wise idea.

[La Guaneña]

I would go to the Amazon or the Araguaia live with a native tribe, planting mandioca and peanuts to survive.

[hatzel]

Too bad for you, such "Marxism" has absolutely nothing to do with what the co-founder of Marxism actually thought, said and fought for.

Yes, you're right, primitivists differ from Marx and Marxism (and 'mainstream' anarchism, of course), which is why they're primitivists rather than Marxists (or 'mainstream' anarchists) but that's so obvious a statement you can hardly expect to win any points for saying it.

But luckily it was never claimed that primitivists are just parrots of Marx (and are all the better for it), only that many (or perhaps even the bulk) of their concepts and arguments spring from a broadly Marxist analysis. As in, primitivism is the result of a realisation that the 'solutions' forwarded by Marx(ists) are inadequate to deal with the 'problems' highlighted by Marx(ists). Or, as they themselves might say, that 'mainstream' Marxism remains trapped within the logic of capital and the accompanying (bourgeois) modes of thought, and as such fails to live up to its own promise/potential. And I think you'll find this is pretty much exactly what Ravachol said, not that the primitivists are all dogmatic adherents of the Gospel of Marx. Though you clearly believe that's what was claimed, because your post would make absolutely no sense in any other situation...

[Vanguard1917]

Yes, you're right, primitivists differ from Marx and Marxism (and 'mainstream' anarchism, of course), which is why they're primitivists rather than Marxists (or 'mainstream' anarchists) but that's so obvious a statement you can hardly expect to win any points for saying it.

But luckily it was never claimed that primitivists are just parrots of Marx (and are all the better for it), only that many (or perhaps even the bulk) of their concepts and arguments spring from a broadly Marxist analysis. As in, primitivism is the result of a realisation that the 'solutions' forwarded by Marx(ists) are inadequate to deal with the 'problems' highlighted by Marx(ists). Or, as they themselves might say, that 'mainstream' Marxism remains trapped within the logic of capital and the accompanying (bourgeois) modes of thought, and as such fails to live up to its own promise/potential. And I think you'll find this is pretty much exactly what Ravachol said, not that the primitivists are all dogmatic adherents of the Gospel of Marx. Though you clearly believe that's what was claimed, because your post would make absolutely no sense in any other situation...

Ravachol called primitivism a 'Marxist current'. What i'm saying is that it would take an extremely wild stretch of one's imagination to place primitivism anywhere near to what Marx actually believed. Primitivism might use terms like 'alienation' and 'division of labour', but there is no actual connection between the two perspectives - indeed they are diametrically opposed in all of their fundamental positions.

[Ravachol]

Too bad for you, such "Marxism" has absolutely nothing to do with what the co-founder of Marxism actually thought, said and fought for.

"modern natural science ... with modern industry, has revolutionised the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude towards nature as well as to other forms of childishness. [I]t would be desirable that Bavaria's sluggish peasant economy, the ground on which grow priests and Daumers alike, should at last be ploughed up by modern cultivation and modern machines."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/02/daumer.htm

Marx was criticising Daumer's infantile artistic fantasies about nature, but he would surely have LOL'ed especially hard at your little day dream:





I said primitivism originated in Marxism, not that it was a current that remained fully within it's confines. But I guess I shouldn't have mentioned "HIS" name when the crumbling scripture vultures have made these fora their nest. For if Marx said something, that is truth and subsequent critical reflection is superfluous.

Also, if you took the time to read the subsequent discussion you would have learned this, in addition to noticing that the original thread was located in chit-chat and was nonsense about 'what to do in post-apocalyptic collapse'.


Ravachol called primitivism a 'Marxist current'.



primitivism is originally a Marxist current


Learn how to read. It originated within Marxism, it is not "a marxist current" and I have never claimed this.



Primitivism might use terms like 'alienation' and 'division of labour', but there is no actual connection between the two perspectives - indeed they are diametrically opposed in all of their fundamental positions.

I did you the favor of compiling a reading list: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2481229&postcount=93

But since you or any of the other parrots in this thread seem incapable or unwilling to do some actual reading, I'm not going into this anymore. This discussion isn't going anywhere.

Whatever, threads like these are good though to keep reminding me that all you and your ilk have to offer is Stakhnovism, Sotssorevnovanie, more chimneys and conveyor belts. This time however, to 'build our glorious socialist future' (which remains perpetually in the future).

[MaximMK]

Id live in a big hollow tree maybe we can even find several trees and make them hollow and build a village completely of hollow trees in some forest.

[Ismail]

This time however, to 'build our glorious socialist future' (which remains perpetually in the future).Not really, considering that it was under Stalin that discussions began concerning the construction of communist society (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n1/gosplan.htm). Ironically one of the measures to help this process along was termed the "Stalin Plan to Transform Nature," which aimed to control erosion, promote forest belts and gardens in steppe and other arid regions.

But then Stalin died, the plan was scrapped and "communism" from Khrushchev onwards became equated with overcoming the USA in consumer goods production.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Id live in a big hollow tree maybe we can even find several trees and make them hollow and build a village completely of hollow trees in some forest.
Only if you change your name to Wicket Warrick (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lidrsgkKf51qaw0qfo1_400.jpg)

[MaximMK]

Hey it would be a whole new society ill call myself whatever i like maybe ill choose Wicket Warrick who knows

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Hey it would be a whole new society ill call myself whatever i like maybe ill choose Wicket Warrick who knows
I take it you've never seen Return of the Jedi?

...

Forest moon of Endor?

...

Ewok tree-village?

[MaximMK]

Ive seen them :D maybe ill use the movie for planning construction. So many opportunities in a free society.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'm amused at the irony of being so proprietary over Marxism. I'm not a primitivist by any stretch, but it seems little more than churlishness to deny that certain currents of primitivism have Marxian influences.

[Leftsolidarity]

Either stay where I am or go to Oregon

Edit: Didn't realize that this thread was already 7 pages in and in a debate. Now I feel dumb.

[Ismail]

I'm amused at the irony of being so proprietary over Marxism. I'm not a primitivist by any stretch, but it seems little more than churlishness to deny that certain currents of primitivism have Marxian influences.No one is denying it, just that it doesn't really matter. If you're "influenced" by Marxist views on alienation, etc. which help you believe that humanity today is basically evil and that industrial civilization must be destroyed then that's not much different from those Trotskyists who turned into neo-conservatives and saw some bastardized form of continuity in their views on international affairs, or "Maoist-Third Worldists" who outright claim to employ "Marxist" analysis to demonstrate how the "first world" has no proletariat. Or the social-democratic parties up until the middle of the last century who pretended to be following Karl Marx's theories in some manner.

So who cares? Primitivism borrowed (evidently not too strongly considering its lasting association with anarchism) some elements of Marxist analysis. Fascism borrowed some organizational aspects from Bolshevism. Both did these things to help further a shitty cause which otherwise has nothing to do with either Marxism or Leninism.

[bcbm]

No one is denying it, just that it doesn't really matter.

nobody said it mattered, just that you smearing it as anarchism was wrong because it came from marxist thinkers like camatte.


which help you believe that humanity today is basically evil

uh nobody said that


So who cares? Primitivism borrowed (evidently not too strongly considering its lasting association with anarchism) some elements of Marxist analysis.

primitivism is today associated with anarchism primarily because of the elf/alf and seattle '99 wto riots which put john zerzan and a specific current of green anarchists in the spotlight. derrick jensen contributed a little bit to this but most everyone hates him now. today that current pretty much doesn't exist and the groups which still incorporate some primitivist ideas tend more towards camatte and that current.


Both did these things to help further a shitty cause which otherwise has nothing to do with either Marxism or Leninism.

you really have no idea what you are talking about

[Yuppie Grinder]

I would just like to say that the godfather of primitivism is Henry David Thoreau and not Camatte who for most of his life was a cool cat and legit Marxist.
Also Ismail has no idea what he's talking about.

[Ismail]

Okay then, if Camatte was the forefather of primitivism then he was a terrible Marxist. How's that?

I don't really care to know what I'm "talking about" in the case of who were the founding fathers of primitivism, just like I don't particularly care to know about various other random academic currents which have seemingly never had influence on the international working-class movement. I hear Žižek, Negri, Althusser, or any other truly irrelevant "Marxist" academics and go on to something else. I do, however, take an interest in the claim that primitivism is in any way Marxist, much in the same way I'd take interest in the so-called "Marxism" of Maoism, Soviet revisionism, Castroism, Juche, etc.

Grover Furr, insofar as he's actually participated in political activities (PLP mainly), and insofar as his various articles on Soviet history have been translated into other languages and read by various communists who, for all the "irrelevancy" of Leninism, do have on-the-ground presence in some countries, has probably contributed more to anything relating to Marxism than a good deal of "Marxist" academics today.

But of course when you're like Ravachol and compare the defense of Marxism to a religious exercise (in a way similar to how liberal Maoists like Mike Ely complain about "dogmatism") it's rather obvious why you'll be attracted to academic currents.

[bcbm]

I don't really care to know what I'm "talking about" in the case of who were the founding fathers of primitivism, just like I don't particularly care to know about various other random academic currents which have seemingly never had influence on the international working-class movement. I hear Žižek, Negri, Althusser, or any other truly irrelevant "Marxist" academics and go on to something else. I do, however, take an interest in the claim that primitivism is in any way Marxist, much in the same way I'd take interest in the so-called "Marxism" of Maoism, Soviet revisionism, Castroism, Juche, etc.if you dont know and dont care to then dont talk about it

[Ismail]

if you dont know and dont care to then dont talk about itYou forgot the part where Ravachol was trying to pass primitivism off as being Marxist.

[bcbm]

you forgot the part where you were trying to pass it off as anarchism and he said it was originally a marxist current which is, um, true.

[Ismail]

you forgot the part where you were trying to pass it off as anarchism and he said it was originally a marxist current which is, um, true.I don't see how it can be a Marxist current when it directly contradicts fundamental aspects of Marxism. Using this logic Juche is also a "Marxist" current because it is "influenced" by it on paper.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No one is denying it, just that it doesn't really matter. If you're "influenced" by Marxist views on alienation, etc. which help you believe that humanity today is basically evil and that industrial civilization must be destroyed

Which primitivists have stated that humanity is evil? The closest thing I've come across are those who say that modern industrial society is basically insane (I think they included death metal music among the list of "terrible things" in the modern world or something like that), but that's not the same thing as saying humans are inherently evil.

Also, while there are twats like Pentti Linkola who IIRC seems to think that the best way to bring about a new primitive society is to impose it through some kind of hyper-authoritarian world government or something like that, my understanding is that there are those who take a more, shall we say, philosophical position on the matter. Then you have those out there preparing for the Big Collapse, but I digress.


then that's not much different from those Trotskyists who turned into neo-conservatives and saw some bastardized form of continuity in their views on international affairs, or "Maoist-Third Worldists" who outright claim to employ "Marxist" analysis to demonstrate how the "first world" has no proletariat. Or the social-democratic parties up until the middle of the last century who pretended to be following Karl Marx's theories in some manner.

I think each of those things are worthy of their own explanation.


So who cares? Primitivism borrowed (evidently not too strongly considering its lasting association with anarchism) some elements of Marxist analysis. Fascism borrowed some organizational aspects from Bolshevism. Both did these things to help further a shitty cause which otherwise has nothing to do with either Marxism or Leninism.

If nothing else, I think primitivism serves the useful intellectual function of making one think about things which one may have never thought about or really questioned before. For example, is the current intertwining of humanity and our artifices as optimal as we may have been lead to believe?

[bcbm]

I don't see how it can be a Marxist current when it directly contradicts fundamental aspects of Marxism.

let me be more delicate in my phrasing, it was a current that came out of marxism specifically left communism and began a different trajectory after 1968. today it is not 'marxist' per se but does have a great deal of marxist influence because of this history.

[hatzel]

I don't see how it can be a Marxist current when it directly contradicts fundamental aspects of Marxism.

And I don't see how you can think it's remotely important either way. Would the simple act of it being revealed as authentically Marxist suddenly force you to become a primitivist or something? :rolleyes:

People gotta stop jumping to the defence of ghosts it's proper boringgg...

[l'Enfermé]

let me be more delicate in my phrasing, it was a current that came out of marxism specifically left communism and began a different trajectory after 1968. today it is not 'marxist' per se but does have a great deal of marxist influence because of this history.
Left-communism isn't Marxism though :cool:

[Ravachol]

Okay then, if Camatte was the forefather of primitivism then he was a terrible Marxist. How's that?


Bullshit, that's that.



I don't really care to know what I'm "talking about" in the case of who were the founding fathers of primitivism, just like I don't particularly care to know about various other random academic currents which have seemingly never had influence on the international working-class movement.


So you admit you're involved in a debate where you don't really care to actually figure out what positions you are debating?



I hear Žižek, Negri, Althusser, or any other truly irrelevant "Marxist" academics and go on to something else.


I really disagree with Negri's current ideas and I don't consider him a revolutionary anymore but the man was heavily involved in one of the biggest combative working-class movements in Western Europe during the late '60s and '70s. That's more than you and your koba-cosplay groupuscules can say.



Grover Furr, insofar as he's actually participated in political activities (PLP mainly), and insofar as his various articles on Soviet history have been translated into other languages and read by various communists who, for all the "irrelevancy" of Leninism, do have on-the-ground presence in some countries


The number of primitivists or primitivist-influenced folk in the US (and for that matter, in most of Western Europe) outnumbers Hoxhaism. Doesn't mean anything in general but don't make a fool out of yourself by claiming a 'ground presence' or whatever.



But of course when you're like Ravachol and compare the defense of Marxism to a religious exercise (in a way similar to how liberal Maoists like Mike Ely complain about "dogmatism") it's rather obvious why you'll be attracted to academic currents.

You know my position on the university as I've pointed it out to you in a previous post.

Besides, the communist left (from which primitivism sprang) didn't originate in the academy but in the struggles of the German and Italian proletariat in the early 20th century. Similarly, autonomism originated within the struggles of the Italian proletariat in the late 20th century. Virtually nobody who participated in the class struggle in the past 50 years or whatever has even heard of Hoxha and we know what most people think of Stalin so there you go.


I don't see how it can be a Marxist current when it directly contradicts fundamental aspects of Marxism.

If you were just willing to get your head out of your ass for a minute and actually read some of the pieces I took the time to assemble in this topic (as well as to actually reading what I and others have posted here) that would become clear. If you're not interested, just say so and I will ignore your subsequent posts because then the discussion is going nowhere.



Also, while there are twats like Pentti Linkola who IIRC seems to think that the best way to bring about a new primitive society


Linkola is not a primitivist though, he mixes something that he passes off as 'deep ecology' with malthusianism and various borderline fascist policies.



He considers education to be the "most precious aspect of society," and advocates for universities to be maintained regardless of the cost


I think this (together with his support for eugenics and population thinning) would earn him the laughter and ire of virtually every primitivist out there.



If nothing else, I think primitivism serves the useful intellectual function of making one think about things which one may have never thought about or really questioned before. For example, is the current intertwining of humanity and our artifices as optimal as we may have been lead to believe?


This.


Left-communism isn't Marxism though :cool:

Now you're just being plain dumb.

[Ismail]

I really disagree with Negri's current ideas and I don't consider him a revolutionary anymore but the man was heavily involved in one of the biggest combative working-class movements in Western Europe during the late '60s and '70s. That's more than you and your koba-cosplay groupuscules can say.I guess you forgot the PCI's wartime role and its postwar influence, but alright then.


The number of primitivists or primitivist-influenced folk in the US (and for that matter, in most of Western Europe) outnumbers Hoxhaism. Doesn't mean anything in general but don't make a fool out of yourself by claiming a 'ground presence' or whatever.I'd be willing to bet the MLPUSA was more notable than any primitivist organization. Portugal, West Germany, Italy and France have had notable pro-Albanian parties which were larger than the example I just gave.


Besides, the communist left (from which primitivism sprang) didn't originate in the academy but in the struggles of the German and Italian proletariat in the early 20th century.It also died not long after the Russian Revolution outside of academic circles.


Virtually nobody who participated in the class struggle in the past 50 years or whatever has even heard of HoxhaI guess if you pretend Latin America and Africa don't exist then sure. Pro-Albanian parties in these regions tended to be stronger than their pro-Soviet and Maoist rivals. It's always strange how people who would otherwise attack the "nationalism" of "Stalinism" can't seem to think outside the confines of Western Europe.


and we know what most people think of Stalin so there you go."There is only one way to kill capitalism – by taxes, taxes, and more taxes." - Karl Marx, as quoted by various American patriots who have duly exposed the evil intentions of his murderous ideology alongside its suspiciously close connection with liberals.

Except it's a fake quote (and even more ridiculous than the fake "statistics" quote attributed to Stalin), yet that wouldn't stop you from exposing and refuting it as bullshit, would it? Of course when your line on Stalin is practically the same as the bourgeois line on him it is indeed quite difficult to refute slanders concerning him and the Soviet Union. When a person actually goes from thinking Stalin was a horrible dictator to realizing otherwise then you just turn around and call him "ignorant" or whatever.

[l'Enfermé]

There were "combative working-class movements" in Western Europe during the 60s and the 70s that are worth mentioning(in which Negri was involved)? I don't know a single one worth mentioning since the Stalinists and the Anarchists betrayed the Spanish Revolution in the 30s.

[bcbm]

There were "combative working-class movements" in Western Europe during the 60s and the 70s that are worth mentioning(in which Negri was involved)?

uh italy?

[l'Enfermé]

uh italy?
What about Italy, comrade?

[Ravachol]

I guess you forgot the PCI's wartime role and its postwar influence, but alright then.


I most certainly have not forgotten the PCI's postwar influence, which was to be the stabilization of capitalism and to function as capital's left-wing. The PCI actively pursued a policy of class collaboration and 'development', with Togliatti proclaiming the class struggle was over after the war and the primary goal was the development of the national economy and reconciliation of the proletariat and other classes against that section of the bourgeoisie 'objectively tied to fascism'.



Today the problem facing Italian workers is not that of doing what was done in Russia.


There's a reason the CGIL bureaucrats got beaten with sticks by militant workers and students and that PCI bureaucrats who informed on militant workers to the factory bosses got kneecapped. The PCI is the shining example of Capital's left wing, dwarfing even the PCF in it's counter-revolutionary role.



I'd be willing to bet the MLPUSA was more notable than any primitivist organization. Portugal, West Germany, Italy and France have had notable pro-Albanian parties which were larger than the example I just gave.


Have had being the keyword here. The fact that an absolutely minor (academic, as you say) current like primitivism today outnumbers what you claim to be the belle-fleur of proletarian politics should say enough.

Just to illustrate: the only pro-albanian party to emerge in the Netherlands and the subsequent 'Netherlands-Albania Association' which continued that line (and which did the translation of this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=1088&pictureid=9068) document in your photo album) was set up and run almost solemnly by agents of the Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD), the Dutch national security service.



It also died not long after the Russian Revolution outside of academic circles.


What do you consider to be academic circles? Almost every single militant of the communist left I have met (which is not that much since it's a tiny milieu, though the influence of the milieu stretches well beyond it's proper militants) were workers who had been involved in many militant working class struggles for years. None of them had any form of academic education, let alone be associated to the university in a professional capacity.

Perhaps you should reconsider mimicing the moscow trials and throwing around what you consider to be swearwords as a strategy in favor of actually engaging the arguments you oppose.



I guess if you pretend Latin America and Africa don't exist then sure. Pro-Albanian parties in these regions tended to be stronger than their pro-Soviet and Maoist rivals.


Ah yes, and what joy they have brought us! :laugh:



Except it's a fake quote (and even more ridiculous than the fake "statistics" quote attributed to Stalin), yet that wouldn't stop you from exposing and refuting it as bullshit, would it? Of course when your line on Stalin is practically the same as the bourgeois line on him it is indeed quite difficult to refute slanders concerning him and the Soviet Union. When a person actually goes from thinking Stalin was a horrible dictator to realizing otherwise then you just turn around and call him "ignorant" or whatever.

It must be hard mistaking socialist realism for actual reality. My 'line' (god will you drop that dorkish word already) on Stalin is hardly the same as that of the bourgeoisie (who could care less about Stalin honestly). But I guess you're either with uncle koba or with the 'western-imperialist financiers bourgeoisie and their comprador-industrialist allies or whatever.


What about Italy, comrade?

Well there's this whole hot autumn thing and you know, the movement of '77 and all that: http://libcom.org/tags/italy-60s-70s

[l'Enfermé]

Why is the movement of 1977 "worth mentioning"? It was a movement destined to failure since it's inception. The 69-70 strikes("Hot Autumn") didn't result in the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy and proletarian conquest of state power, they didn't even come close(no chance they could have even come close to coming close!). Not worth mentioning either. I bet you're one of those naive leftists that thinks May 1968 in France was a revolutionary situation(in reality, the best it could have accomplished would have been a regime change, but the movement was so pathetic it wasn't even able to achieve that and remove that rat de Gaulle- the Gaullists actually gained 111 seats in the National Assembly in the June elections).

[Ravachol]

Why is the movement of 1977 "worth mentioning"? It was a movement destined to failure since it's inception. The 69-70 strikes("Hot Autumn") didn't result in the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy and proletarian conquest of state power, they didn't even come close(no chance they could have even come close to coming close!). Not worth mentioning either. I bet you're one of those naive leftists that thinks May 1968 in France was a revolutionary situation(in reality, the best it could have accomplished would have been a regime change, but the movement was so pathetic it wasn't even able to achieve that and remove that rat de Gaulle- the Gaullists actually gained 111 seats in the National Assembly in the June elections).

I was going to seriously reply to this but you simply don't know what you're talking about. Nobody was talking about revolutionary situations or the overthrow of class society but about massive episodes of class struggle. I'll leave you to fantasize about all those glorious captures of state power and the resulting abolition of class society that your precious vanguard parties have accomplished, oh wait....

No wonder you're restricted jeez.

[l'Enfermé]

I was going to seriously reply to this but you simply don't know what you're talking about. Nobody was talking about revolutionary situations or the overthrow of class society but about massive episodes of class struggle. I'll leave you to fantasize about all those glorious captures of state power and the resulting abolition of class society that your precious vanguard parties have accomplished, oh wait....
.
Did I say anyone was talking about revolutionary situations or the overthrow of class society(I am the first one in this thread that mentioned any of that). You mentioned those "massive episodes of class struggle"(if they were so "massive", why did they fail so miserably?) and Negri's "heavy involvement" in them as if those struggles are even worth mentioning(they aren't, unless you want to point at them and laugh at the ridiculous impotence of the working class and the easily-won triumph of the capitalists parasites and their lackeys). I have no idea what I'm talking about? Weren't you the one who said that primitivism is a Marxist current? I guess fascism is a socialist current, cause Mussolini used to be a socialist(one of Italy's leading socialists, even, a leader of the PSI's anti-reformist Maximalist faction and the editor of PSI's main organ).

I fantasize about the glorious captures of state power and the resulting abolition of class society that my precious vanguard parties have accomplished? What the fuck does that mean? The working class cannot act as class unless it constitutes itself into a revolutionary party, Marx said so much, and I'm sticking to that belief.



No wonder you're restricted jeez.
My position regarding the revolutionary potential of the "Hot Autumn" or the movement of 1977 in Italy have nothing to with my restriction.

[Ravachol]

Did I say anyone was talking about revolutionary situations or the overthrow of class society(I am the first one in this thread that mentioned any of that).



The 69-70 strikes("Hot Autumn") didn't result in the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy and proletarian conquest of state power, they didn't even come close(no chance they could have even come close to coming close!).



You mentioned those "massive episodes of class struggle"(if they were so "massive", why did they fail so miserably?)


Are you for real man? What is it, are you denying the struggle was massive? Are you pissed it doesn't fit your ideological box? What is it?

I guess the October revolution, the German revolution, the Spanish revolution, the Paris Commune and oh well the entire history of the communist movement weren't massive either because they all failed.



they aren't, unless you want to point at them and laugh at the ridiculous impotence of the working class and the easily-won triumph of the capitalists parasites and their lackeys


What are you talking about? Can you give me a short summary of the events of the hot autumn and what you consider it's shortcomings? I bet you can't.

Also, way to laugh at the countless broken proletarian lives and dead militants from your armchair of irrelevance man. But I guess it doesn't matter because they didn't have the 'correct line' or whatever. You're scum.


I have no idea what I'm talking about? Weren't you the one who said that primitivism is a Marxist current?


No, I was not. Please stop embarrassing yourself. Are you trolling?



The working class cannot act as class unless it constitutes itself into a revolutionary party, Marx said so much, and I'm sticking to that belief.


ok mr clergyman whatever you say....

*steps away from the wild-eyed crazyman*

[Ismail]

I most certainly have not forgotten the PCI's postwar influence, which was to be the stabilization of capitalism and to function as capital's left-wing. The PCI actively pursued a policy of class collaboration and 'development', with Togliatti proclaiming the class struggle was over after the war and the primary goal was the development of the national economy and reconciliation of the proletariat and other classes against that section of the bourgeoisie 'objectively tied to fascism'.The PCI got much fame for its role in the anti-fascist resistance. The US Government saw it as a big enough threat to spend money and influence so that it would lose the first postwar elections. Stalin privately discussed the possibility of arming the PCI for future conflict. Of course Togliatti later attacked Stalin and moved so far to the right that even Khrushchev saw the need at times to rein him in, but that does not diminish the initial role of the PCI anymore than the rise of revisionism in the CPSU diminishes its early role.


The fact that an absolutely minor (academic, as you say) current like primitivism today outnumbers what you claim to be the belle-fleur of proletarian politics should say enough.Not really, it just means the US Left is in a terrible state. When Žižek and Gramsci (not to compare them) become the only Marxists fashionable to cite then it's pretty obvious that something needs to be done.


Just to illustrate: the only pro-albanian party to emerge in the Netherlands and the subsequent 'Netherlands-Albania Association' which continued that line (and which did the translation of this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=1088&pictureid=9068) document in your photo album) was set up and run almost solemnly by agents of the Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD), the Dutch national security service.Except you're wrong here. The 7th Congress of the PLA was the last one where the Albanians publicly praised the Chinese (even though this was also the Congress where Mao's "Three Worlds Theory" was openly attacked without mentioning Mao or the Chinese by name.) Accordingly, it was the last one where avowedly pro-Chinese parties sent delegations.

The party you mentioned was, as far as I know, officially pro-Chinese to the very end, praising Tienanmen, meeting with Chinese government and party officials in the 80's, etc.

Plenty of pro-Chinese parties set up friendship associations with Albania. In fact Bill Bland, who was in a way more "Hoxha" than Hoxha for a while (he was denouncing the Chinese in the 60's) lost recognition from the Albanian government in favor of a rival, pro-Chinese friendship organization until, of course, the Sino-Albanian split.

There were pro-Albanian groups in the Netherlands. The party you mentioned wasn't one of them.


Perhaps you should reconsider mimicing the moscow trials and throwing around what you consider to be swearwords as a strategy in favor of actually engaging the arguments you oppose.Har-de-har. Of course the only mention of left-communism in the Trials was the charge brought forth against Vyshinsky that, back when Bukharin was identified as such in the Bolshevik Party during Brest-Litovsk, etc., he conspired the Left SRs to depose and murder Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov. Accordingly, this was back when left-communism actually existed as a notable current.


(who could care less about Stalin honestly).Not really. Robert Conquest is praised and gets the Medal of Freedom from Bush. "Genocide denial" is a crime in Ukraine when the subject in question is the Ukrainian famine. Pretty much every "popular" history book seems to state that Stalin and Hitler allied against the West. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" is taken as gospel because it attacked Stalin.

I can provide various other examples. The point, however, is that the departure from the work of Stalin is the departure from communism.

[l'Enfermé]

Are you for real man? What is it, are you denying the struggle was massive? Are you pissed it doesn't fit your ideological box? What is it?

Like other Marxists, I greatly admire the Paris Commune, the the French Revolution of 1848(as Marx wrote, the first "great" battle of proletarians against bourgeoisie parasites) and many other events, even though Marxism had nothing to do with them; the Paris Commune, for example, was dominated by Blanquists and a small minority of Proudhonians yet Marx and Engels said it was an example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. You'll just look like a fool if you imply that I dismiss movements only because they are not lead by Marxists. I'm not an Anarchist.


I guess the October revolution, the German revolution, the Spanish revolution, the Paris Commune and oh well the entire history of the communist movement weren't massive either because they all failed.
Massive movements can fail, but they don't fail so miserably like those in Italy and May 68 in France and others.


What are you talking about? Can you give me a short summary of the events of the hot autumn and what you consider it's shortcomings? I bet you can't.
You want me to summarize the events of a wave of strikes in northern Italy dominated by migrant southern Italians?


Also, way to laugh at the countless broken proletarian lives and dead militants from your armchair of irrelevance man. But I guess it doesn't matter because they didn't have the 'correct line' or whatever. You're scum. And you're acting like a child, but I don't expect anything better from a "hipster".



No, I was not. Please stop embarrassing yourself. Are you trolling?
You said, "primitivism is originally a Marxist current ". This means, primitivism was a Marxist current, but now it's not(how does that happen anyways, did primitivism stop being primitivism, thus it stopped being a Marxist current?). I think you're the one who's trolling, Mr. "hipster communist".



ok mr clergyman whatever you say....

*steps away from the wild-eyed crazyman* The fact that I'm a follower of Marx's and Engel's doctrines somehow makes me a clergyman? Do you know what a clergyman is?

[hatzel]

Like other Marxists, I greatly admire the Paris Commune, the the French Revolution of 1848(as Marx wrote, the first "great" battle of proletarians against bourgeoisie parasites) and many other events


Massive movements can fail, but they don't fail so miserably like those in Italy and May 68 in France and others.I'm gonna come right out and say it that you probably have some kinda weird historical romanticism thing going on right here. Like, if May '68 had happened - the exact same order of events, down to the minutest detail, if that were even possible - in 1868 rather than 1968 you'd be all 'yeeeeeah that was a glorious uprising of the oppressed, all my admiration to it!' but because it happened as recently as 1968 it hasn't yet managed to filter its way down into a sepia-toned photograph of a long-lost folkloric past. That's all I'm really seeing...because I can't really see how these 19th century uprisings are less worthy of being called embarrassing failures than their 20th century counterparts. But I'm interested of when exactly the 'cut-off point' is between glorious history and shameful present. 1925, maybe?

Also it might be worth pointing out that saying 'you'll just look like a fool if you imply that I dismiss movements only because they are not lead by Marxists' just after appealing to Marx himself to justify your admiration of '48 ('as Marx wrote, the first "great" battle of proletarians against bourgeoisie parasites') kinda...well, there's a certain conflict there. Perhaps if Marx had lived to see May '68, and given it his support, you'd now be speaking of your admiration for it, as it would have received 'official' Marxist blessing irrespective of the active role played (or otherwise) by Marxists themselves. I dunno. I dunno if the fact that the old school Marxoids in the PCF weren't exactly keen on it is actually more important for you in this case than bothering to assess the events yourself, on their own terms; let's rephrase the issue, then, as it isn't so much a question of whether or not you 'dismiss movements only because they are not lead by Marxists' but of whether you dismiss movements only because your Marxist leadership of choice actively opposes them...

[l'Enfermé]

I'm gonna come right out and say it that you probably have some kinda weird historical romanticism thing going on right here. Like, if May '68 had happened - the exact same order of events, down to the minutest detail, if that were even possible - in 1868 rather than 1968 you'd be all 'yeeeeeah that was a glorious uprising of the oppressed, all my admiration to it!' but because it happened as recently as 1968 it hasn't yet managed to filter its way down into a sepia-toned photograph of a long-lost folkloric past. That's all I'm really seeing...because I can't really see how these 19th century uprisings are less worthy of being called embarrassing failures than their 20th century counterparts. But I'm interested of when exactly the 'cut-off point' is between glorious history and shameful present. 1925, maybe?

Also it might be worth pointing out that saying 'you'll just look like a fool if you imply that I dismiss movements only because they are not lead by Marxists' just after appealing to Marx himself to justify your admiration of '48 ('as Marx wrote, the first "great" battle of proletarians against bourgeoisie parasites') kinda...well, there's a certain conflict there. Perhaps if Marx had lived to see May '68, and given it his support, you'd now be speaking of your admiration for it, as it would have received 'official' Marxist blessing irrespective of the active role played (or otherwise) by Marxists themselves. I dunno. I dunno if the fact that the old school Marxoids in the PCF weren't exactly keen on it is actually more important for you in this case than bothering to assess the events yourself, on their own terms; let's rephrase the issue, then, as it isn't so much a question of whether or not you 'dismiss movements only because they are not lead by Marxists' but of whether you dismiss movements only because your Marxist leadership of choice actively opposes them...

My "Marxist leadership of choice"? You're talking about the PCF, right? The Stalinist PCF that had little to do with revolutionary Marxism, right? That PCF? Death to those traitors! :cursing:(always wanted to use this smiley so don't laugh at me)

Anyways, disregarding that, if Marx had lived to see May '68(but without any naive optimism), he would have lent it his support, as would I if I was alive back then. You're misinterpreting my position, I think, probably because I'm not being very clear. I never said that I don't support the hot autumn or May '68, I do, they were more or less examples of the class struggle against the capitalists and their lackeys. That being so, I really don't agree with hopelessly optimistic comrades when they say that the events in France during the May of 1968 constituted a genuinely revolutionary situation, because they didn't. Like I said, the best that could have happened would have been a regime change. When comrades bring up these struggles, in France, Italy, and elsewhere, and paint them as these great and glorious events, I think, no, not all, all they do is show how impotent the international working class has grown and how it hasn't been able to pose the bourgeoisie an existential threat since the 1920s(and yeah I'd say the "cut-off point" was in 1923, or maybe in 1927 when the Stalinists hijacked the international proletarian movement and destroyed it from the inside, as exemplified by the massacre of the Chinese communists by Stalin's then-ally Chiang Kai-shek).

[Ismail]

The PCF of 1968 had long since attacked Stalin and embraced the Soviet revisionist line. As Hoxha noted in Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism:

In 1968 the students in Paris clashed with "the forces of law and order" The Trotskyites, Sartre, the theoretician of existentialism, Sirnone de Beauvoir, Cohn-Bendit and others seized on to these clashes to give them an anarchist colour.

And in fact they took place in great disorder. The French Communist Party did not participate. Why did it not participate? Was it that in principle it was opposed to anarchism? I think this is not the reason. The reason is that it did not want to unite with the student youth, which was attacking the De Gaulle government. In fact, it was this movement which forced De Gaulle to hold the referendum, and when he did not win in the way he wanted, he retired to Colombay-Les-Deux-Eglises, where he died.

The French Communist Party stopped the working class from going into action and taking over the leadership of the uprising. The party had the strength to ensure that the flames were spread throughout France, and if not to seize power, at least to shake the power of "princes", or the power of "barons", as they called it at that time. It did not do this, because it was for that road and for those methods which the petty-bourgeois revisionist Georges Marchais advocates.

[l'Enfermé]

The PCF of 1968 was Moscow's puppet, thus Stalinist. Khrushchev-ism/Brezhnev-ism to me is just another flavor of Stalinism. One can be a Stalinist and hate Stalin, just as one could have been a Nazi without worshiping Hitler.

And actually, the PCF did participate; but on de Gaulle's side. Regarding the whole ensuring the flame-spreading throughout France thing, the PCF probably could have done that if it was a revolutionary party. The PCF actually could have conquered power just after the liberation of France, if Stalin wasn't so busy trying to appease the Western Powers.

[Ravachol]

I'm not even going into all the blablabla bollocks by Ismail and l'Enfermé anymore but this stands to be corrected (it's a little offtopic and if mods deem it necessary it could be split into a seperate thread):



Except you're wrong here. The 7th Congress of the PLA was the last one where the Albanians publicly praised the Chinese (even though this was also the Congress where Mao's "Three Worlds Theory" was openly attacked without mentioning Mao or the Chinese by name.) Accordingly, it was the last one where avowedly pro-Chinese parties sent delegations.

The party you mentioned was, as far as I know, officially pro-Chinese to the very end, praising Tienanmen, meeting with Chinese government and party officials in the 80's, etc.


Yeah except that you're mistaken. I never mentioned any party by the way.

The Netherlands had the following parties which took the pro-chinese position after the Sino-Soviet split (only some of which were Maoist):

KPN/ML (~200 members)
KEN (ml) (~50 members)
Group Rotterdam (ml) (unknown amount of members, very small and no presence outside of Rotterdam)
Red Youth (fluctuated between 50 and 150 members)
BNML (Split from the Red Youth over their desire to launch an urban guerrilla, ~40 members)
MLPN (claimed around ~200 members, in reality 25 full-time BVD-agents and 15 duped 'real' members)

Of these parties, the only one to maintain really close ties to the Albanian regime was the MLPN and it's "Association Netherlands-Albania". In fact, it was the party's founder, Peter Boeve, who had constantly argued to learn the lessons from the 'albanian experience' throughout his involvement in the MLCN (which split into the KEN (ml) and the MLPN). The MLPN maintained close ties to both the Albanian regime and the Chinese regime and received substantial amounts of money from both. The MLPN regularly sent delegates active in the dutch trade unions to Albania to speak at the congres of trade unions (the only party to do so) and Peter Boeve met with Hoxha himself.

Boeve was also a full-time covert agent of the BVD, as were multiple of the speakers sent to the congresses. The money received from Albania and China was going to the BVD.

Eventually the MLPN accepted the three-worlds theory, not out of political convictions but because the BVD considered china to be a more potent threat to it's hegemony and it supplied the MLPN with more cash. The KEN (ml), KAO, KKB (ml) and GML (all splits from the earlier mentioned parties) also accepted the three worlds theory. The only party to take the albanian line was the minuscule ARC (ml) of no more than 25 members, which had always worked together in a unity front under the leadership of the BVD-run MLPN.

Most of this information is from the archives of the BVD (whose old archives have been opened up and which is now named AIVD): http://www.stichtingargus.nl/bvd/kwartaal.html

http://i45.tinypic.com/250oxvp.jpg

This is a photograph of Hoxha with (2nd from the right) Peter Boeve, founder and head of the MLPN, "Association Netherlands-Albania" and full-time BVD agent.



There were pro-Albanian groups in the Netherlands. The party you mentioned wasn't one of them.


So what pro-albanian party are you talking about? The only party to ever have actual, substantial contacts with the Albanian regime was the BVD-run MLPN. And the only party to actually take the Albanian line after the Sino-Albanian split was the ARC-ml, which was no more than 25 people who had always operated under the wings of the BVD.

[Ismail]

Yeah except that you're mistaken. I never mentioned any party by the way.I had assumed you were talking about the MLPN, and I was right.

* http://www.mltranslations.org/US/mlpn.htm
* http://www.mltranslations.org/US/mlpn2.htm

Most European Maoist groups, unable to keep up with an endless string of purges and policy about-turns, had lost faith by the mid-1980s, and the MLPN gradually began winding down its activities. But as late as 1989, after the Tiananmen student uprising, Boevé was invited to Beijing to praise the regime's crackdown.
Of these parties, the only one to maintain really close ties to the Albanian regime was the MLPN and it's "Association Netherlands-Albania". In fact, it was the party's founder, Peter Boeve, who had constantly argued to learn the lessons from the 'albanian experience' throughout his involvement in the MLCN (which split into the KEN (ml) and the MLPN).The MLPN was the "official" pro-Chinese party in the Netherlands, hence why it was able to enjoy the relations it did with both China and Albania.

To give an example, the KPD/ML was another party which enjoyed official ties with both China and Albania, and whose leaders also met with Hoxha, gave speeches in Albania, etc. The KPD/ML sided with Albania when the Sino-Albanian split occurred, the MLPN did not, yet both were avowedly pro-China and maintained lively contacts with the Albanians until the split.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/ea_eh_beratung_mit_paa_1974.jpg

(As an aside, I've spoken to a KPD/ML veteran who says that the Albanians never gave their party money, just Albanian materials translated into German.)

Calling the MLPN pro-Albanian is misleading. If one reads European Maoist materials on Albania in the 60's and early 70's they made various comparisons to China (e.g. how the Albanians applied the mass line, how they had their own cultural revolution, how they organized their economy, promoted ideology, etc.) To speak of the "Albanian experience" back then was basically to speak of a variant of Mao's doctrines, since every Maoist saw Albania as China's ideological outpost in Europe.


The only party to take the albanian line was the minuscule ARC (ml) of no more than 25 members, which had always worked together in a unity front under the leadership of the BVD-run MLPN.Yes. I don't see how this translates into the pro-Albanian party being "set up and run almost solemnly by agents of the BVD." A pro-Chinese party set up by the Dutch intelligence service enjoyed official relations with Albania, then an ally of China, and those relations ceased to exist when it adhered to the "Three Worlds Theory" and continued its pro-Chinese line.


So what pro-albanian party are you talking about? The only party to ever have actual, substantial contacts with the Albanian regime was the BVD-run MLPN. And the only party to actually take the Albanian line after the Sino-Albanian split was the ARC-ml, which was no more than 25 people who had always operated under the wings of the BVD.I was talking about the latter, which to my knowledge did have some contact with the PLA, albeit obviously on a lower level than more significant pro-Albanian parties.

[Ravachol]

Yes. I don't see how this translates into the pro-Albanian party being "set up and run almost solemnly by agents of the BVD." A pro-Chinese party set up by the Dutch intelligence service enjoyed official relations with Albania, then an ally of China, and those relations ceased to exist when it adhered to the "Three Worlds Theory" and continued its pro-Chinese line.


Perhaps you missed the point where the MLPN was the only party in the Netherlands to even have contacts with the PLA. When the BVD dropped their interest in Albanian contacts in favor of seeking Chinese patronage, that well dried up. Of their own accord, not because they 'chose a different political line' (it was a state security front for god's sake).

Perhaps you also missed where the only 'party' (of 25 people lol and all that in the '70s) to actually side with Albania, the ARC (ml), had operated under the wings of the MLPN in the years leading up to the sino-albanian split, after which the few individual pro-albanian 'members' (read, BVD-agents) of the MLPN merged with the ARC (ml).



I was talking about the latter, which to my knowledge did have some contact with the PLA, albeit obviously on a lower level than more significant pro-Albanian parties.

There is no evidence of any contact on the scale of the MLPN whatsoever, in fact there's no evidence of visitings and whatever at all. Neither in the archives of the International Institute of Social History (http://socialhistory.org/) nor in the archives of the BVD.

Besides, my original point was the historic irrelevance of the whole thing. A single group of 25 members (a large share of which were BVD agents) who operated under the wings of a BVD-front isn't really the proletarian vanguard.

[Ismail]

Perhaps you missed the point where the MLPN was the only party in the Netherlands to even have contacts with the PLA.Only because the PLA was at the time pro-Chinese.


Perhaps you also missed where the only 'party' (of 25 people lol and all that in the '70s) to actually side with Albania, the ARC (ml), had operated under the wings of the MLPN in the years leading up to the sino-albanian split, after which the few individual pro-albanian 'members' (read, BVD-agents) of the MLPN merged with the ARC (ml).So Maoists work together until the split which makes one section not Maoist anymore. Of course the one that became pro-Albanian was compromised already, but this is rather irrelevant since it itself was irrelevant.

I don't see the significance. For what it's worth the Chinese had various problems with fake pro-Chinese parties and groups which took China's money and promptly ran off or other shenanigans.


There is no evidence of this whatsoever, neither in the archives of the International Institute of Social History (http://socialhistory.org/) nor in the archives of the BVD.Then why even bring it up if the PLA didn't bother to maintain even nominal ties with the tiny pro-Albanian party?

For what it's worth the PLA apparently refused to establish ties with pro-Albanian parties in the USA due to fears of CIA infiltration.


Besides, my original point was the historic irrelevance of the whole thing. A single group of 25 members (a large share of which were BVD agents) who operated under the wings of a BVD-front isn't really the proletarian vanguard.Find me the post where I said that the Netherlands had a proletarian vanguard party and then you would have had a point. I mentioned various countries with notable pro-Albanian parties. The Netherlands wasn't one of them.

[Raúl Duke]

Well, not Florida...
live in the ruins of NYC.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Mind my ignorance, but isn't Primitivism one of the most conservative lifestyles out there? From what i've seen, it seems completely anti-intellectual and counterprogressive.

On topic, I'd go insane and devote my life to building a city constructed out of the bones of long-dead fish.

[Invader Zim]

If I recall right J. Arch Getty has said that it's not too far above 380,000 for the whole USSR in 1937-38. That's a lot, although below the millions promoted by the types who would publicize how communism = gulags and whatnot.

He, Rittersporn and Zemkov placed the documentable executions as being upward 680,000 in 37-38 (http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf). And camp deaths in those years exceeded 160,000.

[zoot_allures]

I think that if we don't make some big changes very quickly, the primitivists will win, although not a way that most of them would want. Societal collapse at some point over the next century is a significant possibility, in my judgment.

Anyway, I'd stay right where I am. I've got just as good a chance of surviving here as I have anywhere else (pretty much zero).

[leftistman]

I'd move somewhere tropical so I wouldn't have to worry about the winter. Probably a jungle in South America.