Favorite theorists on and off revleft.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Just curious.
Off revleft, in no particular order
1. Lenin
2. Gramsci
3. Luxemburg
4. Kollontai
5. M&E
6. Bordiga
On revleft
1. TrotskistMarx
2. Avanti

[hetz]

>Avanti
>theorist

[hatzel]

You know I would tell you, but then I'd probably be accused of shameless 'postmodernism' or - even worse! - metamodernism aka hipster-pride. So I'll keep my lips firmly sealed!

...but on RevLeft definitely tradeunionsupporter and graffic. Visionaries.

[Yuppie Grinder]

no tell me please
Tradeunionsupporters idea that angry muslim tomatoes are the true revolutionary class was quite enlightening.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Anarchocummunaltoad is the future of the movement (just sayin)

ps

Too new here to know much about anyone else except Avanti who is insane

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

^Why you always crying?

off redleft: Chomsky, Che, and wikipedia pages on various forms of leftism

[Comrade #138672]

Chomsky and Guevara? They seem like opposites to me.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Chomsky and Guevara? They seem like opposites to me.

I'm a syncretic at heart.

[$lim_$weezy]

Favorite theorists to read (not necessarily that I agree with): Adorno, Lukacs, Walter Benjamin I guess, also I really like Sweezy's writing
Favorite on revleft: no idea

[hatzel]

Chomsky and Guevara? They seem like opposites to me.

...an yet it's typical of lefty n00bs. Any vaguely left-leaning famous dude = legend...

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

...an yet it's typical of lefty n00bs. Any vaguely left-leaning famous dude = legend...

I like Chomsky for being one of the first people i read and listened to in relation to negative aspects of capitalism and his rebuttal of certain tendencies within leftism to abstain from any part in society due to it being "not revolutionary enough"

I like Che for his tactics (focismo) some of his ideas, and his being an all around symbol of LA revolution.

[Caj]

Off Revleft:
-Marx
-Engels
-Lenin
-Bordiga
-Trotsky
-Stirner
-Myasnikov
-Luxemburg
-Gorter
-Pannekoek

On Revleft:
-TrotskistMarx
-Omsk
-Avanti
-DNZ
-Sunfarstar
-Ismail
-TheRedAnarchist23

[AntifaArnhem]

Off Revleft:

- Bakunin
- Hegel
- Kropotkin
- Pannekoek
- Malatesta
- Emma Goldman
- Berkman

On Revleft:
- Ravachol

(Edit: this is a very incomple list!)

[Avanti]

i don't know any revleft theorists

off revleft, i choose bill hicks and hakim bey

[hatzel]

i don't know any revleft theorists

What, ain't you read my posts? They're kind of a big deal :cool:

[Avanti]

i'm pretty new.

[#FF0000]

avanti is my favorite theorist

[ed miliband]

Just curious.
Off revleft, in no particular order
1. Lenin
2. Gramsci
3. Luxemburg
4. Kollontai
5. M&E
6. Bordiga
On revleft
1. TrotskistMarx
2. Avanti

putting gramsci (and lenin) above the rest of them is whack.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Off revleft: Barack Obama

On revleft: Fat Cat Killer (RIP bud)

[GoddessCleoLover]

In no particular order; Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lenin, Trotsky, and Bukharin stand out as theorists. Trotsky and Bukharin were clearly bitter political rivals, but each were theoretically superior to Stalin.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Outside revleft:
Harpal Brar

Inside revleft:
Havee3333333

[GoddessCleoLover]

Harpal Brar is an accomplished theorist, but given that he admires Stalin while I prefer the theoretical approach of either Trotsky or Bukharin means that he would like to send me to Kolyma. Thanks but no thanks.

[Yuppie Grinder]

CPGB-ML and Harpal Brar exemplify everything wrong with the left in the west.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I'll take Avanti's Neuromancer communism over the kautskyite revolutionary article posters any day :tt1:.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I would concur given that the renegade Kautsky was complicit in crushing the German Revolution and murdering Rosa Luxemberg.:(

[hatzel]

...anybody else think it's kinda japes that Brar is pretty much the only person who's been mentioned who was actually alive at some point in the last 50 years, and yet he's getting it ripped out of him right here and now?

Fuck contemporary theory, maaaaan, bring back that old school shizzle, it's never been any better than that!

(Incidentally if I'd bothered to mention anybody, they would have been overwhelmingly living because I'm on the cusp of the future right here *relentlessly forward-thinking but not entirely serious*)

[Yuppie Grinder]

What are your favorite contemporary theorists hatzel? I'm very curious.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I'm not ripping Brar, but the man is an open admirer of Stalin. I go back to the old school because the new school is dominated wither by intellectuals who who lacked political influence (Lukacs, Althusser, Marcuse et al), political figures with whom I profoundly disagree ( Mao, Hoxha) or marginal cultish figures like Abimael Guzman and Bob Avakian.

[Ostrinski]

Kautsky and Lenin

DNZ, Q, MarxSchmarx

[Ravachol]

On Revleft:
- Ravachol


Thanks bro :cool:

Off Revleft (incomplete list in no particular order):

- Gilles Dauve
- Fredy Perlman
- Jacques Camatte
- Monsieur/Frere Dupont
- the Theorie Communiste, Blaumachen & Endnotes collectives
- Wolfi Landstreicher
- Peter Kropotkin
- Pierre Clastres
- Tiqqun
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Michel Foucault
- Giorgio Agamben
- Guy Debord
- Max Baginski
- Anton Pannekoek
- John Zerzan
- Max Stirner

On Revleft: kinda like engaging/discussing in itself so everybody and nobody I guess?

[hatzel]

I have no idea really :lol: Lately I've been reading a lot of Arturo Escobar, Mikhail Epstein, Bernard Stiegler, Enrique Dussel, Manuel de Landa, Giorgio Agamben, J.K. Gibson-Graham etc., but the jury's still out on a lot of it; maybe it's shit, maybe it's the shit. But within the explicitly radical milieu I guess I'm quite drawn to, say, the kinds of ideas thrown around in the journal Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. In fact I'm pretty keen on most of the contributors to that one, because I'm hopelessly theoretical and forget to actually do stufffff...

(Incidentally Rav's above list is the one that come closest to people I actually care about, of all the ones posted so far)

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

"Harpal Brar, the greatest man of action in our century and at the same time the most selfless."
- Romain Rolland

"Harpal Brar is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Brar has none. He is a madman, an immolator, wishful of burning, and slaughter, and sacrificing"
-Peter Kropotkin

"Not since Marx (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) has the proletarian struggle for emancipation given the world a thinker and leader of the working class and all toilers of Harpal Brar´s stature. He combines scientific genius, political wisdom, and perspicacity with great organizational ability, an iron will, courage, and daring. He has a boundless faith in the creative powers of the popular masses, is close to them, and enjoys their total confidence, love, and support. All of Brar’s activity embodies the organic unity between revolutionary theory and practice. As leader and man Harpal Brar possesses a selfless devotion to communist ideals and to the cause of the party and of the working class and a supreme conviction of the righteousness and justice of that cause. He subordinates every facet of his life to the struggle for the emancipation of the toilers from social and national oppression. He both loves his homeland(s) and is a consistent internationalist. Intransigent toward the class enemy, he has a touching concern for comrades. He is highly exacting toward himself and others and is morally pure, simple, and modest."
-The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Lenin,+Vladimir+Ilyich)

"This most powerful machinist of the revolution . . . is irrevocably controlled by one and the same idea, the goal. He is probably the most extreme utilitarian whom the laboratory of history has produced. But his utilitarianism is of the broadest historical scope. His personality does not grow flat or poor thereby, but on the contrary developes and enriches itself in extent, as his experience of life and sphere of activity grows. "
- Leon Trotsky

[l'Enfermé]

I would concur given that the renegade Kautsky was complicit in crushing the German Revolution and murdering Rosa Luxemberg.:(
Anti-Kautsky propagandists on RevLeft should learn German history, perhaps. At the time, Kautsky was a member of the USPD, not the SPD. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were killed by the SPD's freikorps because of their participation in the Spartakusaufstand of January 1919. The Spartakusaufstand was triggered by the dismissal of Berlin's Police Chief Emil Eichhorn, an USPD comrade(he joined the KPD at the end of 1919, or maybe during the uprising or right after it), by the SPD. The KPD entered the whole affair in support of the USPD. Kautsky was in no way complicit in crushing the German Revolution or murdering Luxemburg and Liebknecht, in January 1919 Kautsky and Luxemburg were on the same side.

[Avanti]

john zerzan

oh yes

i forgot king julien completely

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsWVv_t941k&feature=related

[Grenzer]

In case anyone was wondering what the Albanians thought of most of the people in this thread: they were revisionists.

My favorite theorist is the flaming sword of Marxism as wielded by the powerful neo-feudal lord, Enver Hoxha.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I would concur given that the renegade Kautsky was complicit in crushing the German Revolution and murdering Rosa Luxemberg.:(


I've never heard that before.:rolleyes:

[GoddessCleoLover]

Upon further reflection and research I would modify my statement about Karl Kautsky to say that he was a fence-sitter at the time of the German Revolution and for a man of his stature to fail to rally to the side of the revolution was a sin of omission even if Kautsky committed no particular sin of commission.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

In case anyone was wondering what the Albanians thought of most of the people in this thread: they were revisionists.
My favorite theorist is the flaming sword of Marxism as wielded by the powerful neo-feudal lord, Enver Hoxha.

Excellent choice, sir!:thumbup1:

Hoxha and Brar are the flickering glimmers of anti- revisionist light within the revisionist and renegade darkness of this thread.

[sixdollarchampagne]

... My favorite theorist is the flaming sword of Marxism as wielded by the powerful neo-feudal lord, Enver Hoxha.

Although, according to wikipedia, the period of Hoxha's leadership was characterized by "hermit-like isolation from the rest of Europe, forced labour camps, political murders," and, after more than forty years of leading the Party of Labor, Hoxha left Albania as "very poor and backward by European standards ... [with] the lowest standard of living in Europe," at least Hoxha did not impose an effing dynasty, like the Castros and Kims did. Who knew "socialism" actually meant dynastic rule, forever?

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Although, according to wikipedia, the period of Hoxha's leadership was characterized by "hermit-like isolation from the rest of Europe, forced labour camps, political murders," and, after more than forty years of leading the Party of Labor, Hoxha left Albania as "very poor and backward by European standards ... [with] the lowest standard of living in Europe," at least Hoxha did not impose an effing dynasty, like the Castros and Kims did. Who knew "socialism" actually meant dynastic rule, forever?

The Incans apparently

[Igor]

Although, according to wikipedia, the period of Hoxha's leadership was characterized by "hermit-like isolation from the rest of Europe, forced labour camps, political murders," and, after more than forty years of leading the Party of Labor, Hoxha left Albania as "very poor and backward by European standards ... [with] the lowest standard of living in Europe," at least Hoxha did not impose an effing dynasty, like the Castros and Kims did. Who knew "socialism" actually meant dynastic rule, forever?

dissing on hoxha using wikipedia

be prepared for the anti-revisionist justice league

[Comrade Hill]

This is in no particular order.

Off Revleft:
Marx
Engels
Lenin
Sam Williams (well, he's sort of a theorist)

On revleft:
Workers-Control-Over-Prod
Paul Cockshott

[o well this is ok I guess]

Although, according to wikipedia, the period of Hoxha's leadership was characterized by "hermit-like isolation from the rest of Europe, forced labour camps, political murders," and, after more than forty years of leading the Party of Labor, Hoxha left Albania as "very poor and backward by European standards ... [with] the lowest standard of living in Europe," at least Hoxha did not impose an effing dynasty, like the Castros and Kims did. Who knew "socialism" actually meant dynastic rule, forever? I for one blame revisionism or something

[GoddessCleoLover]

That something might be the attempt to construct socialism in one country. Some of us regard SIOC as revisionism.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I for one blame revisionism or something
It´s the only reasonable explanaition.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

It´s the only reasonable explanaition.

If only North Korea would apply proper Marxist-Leninism, then everything would be fine and dandy!

[cynicles]

On
Avanti

Off
Super Mario

[Ismail]

Although, according to wikipedia, the period of Hoxha's leadership was characterized by "hermit-like isolation from the rest of Europe, forced labour camps, political murders," and, after more than forty years of leading the Party of Labor, Hoxha left Albania as "very poor and backward by European standards ... [with] the lowest standard of living in Europe,"That's why no one trusts Wikipedia except dumb people.

It had "the lowest standard of living in Europe" in 1912, 1944, and 1991. And I think it still does to this day, or is otherwise competing with Moldova.

What 1944 Albania had that 1991 Albania didn't was 85% illiteracy (versus basically 0% in the 80's), a life expectancy of 38 (versus 71 by the early 80's), about 98% of its national income coming from agriculture (versus over 50% coming from industry by 1960), virtually no electricity (Albania became the world's first fully electrified country in 1971), no higher education (got its first University in 1957 and some higher institutions before that), tribal law that permitted a man shooting his wife if he disobeyed him (versus vastly superior gender equality by the 70's), no national railroad network, etc.

Also:

"With the fall of Communism schoolhouses were often see as symbols of the regime and therefore destroyed. The virulent revival of blood feuds, which a hapless central authority can do little to remedy, requires thousands of school-age children to stay at home. The economic disaster that is Albania has little funding left for education. The population of Tirana grew from approximately 300,000 in 1991 to almost one million in 2003, but not one new high school was built during that twelve-year period. The mass exodus of the best and the brightest — in the first ten years following the collapse of Communism possibly 20% of the population fled what they considered a hopeless situation — has resulted in an unprecedented brain-drain. Albanian education is in crisis with no quick fix in sight. Women's rights, another of Hoxha's achievements, have been severely set back with the explosion of human trafficking which has seen thousands of Albanian girls and women transported abroad for prostitution and thousands more kept home from school by their parents for fear of such forcible abduction... with patriotic intellectuals openly suggesting that the only way out of the morass may be for Albania to become a ward of the United Nations or an Italian condominium."
(Bernd J. Fischer (ed). Balkan Strongmen. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. 2007. pp. 266-267.)

[Igor]

It had "the lowest standard of living in Europe" in 1912, 1944, and 1991. And I think it still does to this day, or is otherwise competing with Moldova.)

Kinda offtopic yeah but it's actually third in the race now, the black horse Kosovo is lower than Albania and Moldova remains the lowest.

[Ismail]

Kinda offtopic yeah but it's actually third in the race now, the black horse Kosovo is lower than Albania and Moldova remains the lowest.You can basically consider Albania as having an honorary second place then since Kosovo is Albanian. :p

[o well this is ok I guess]

Yo in all seriousness Avanti is this generations Foucault

[black magick hustla]

dauve
theorie communiste/endnotes/riffraff/etc
cammatte
bordiga
the duponts
marx/engels
goldner
bukharin
movement communiste
perlman

basically's ravachol's reading list except without that infantile disorder called anarchism :)

[Ravachol]

dauve
theorie communiste/endnotes/riffraff/etc
cammatte
bordiga
the duponts
marx/engels
goldner
bukharin
movement communiste
perlman

basically's ravachol's reading list except without that infantile disorder called anarchism :)

ya'll jealous of my anarcho-swag

[Ostrinski]

dauve
theorie communiste/endnotes/riffraff/etc
cammatte
bordiga
the duponts
marx/engels
goldner
bukharin
movement communiste
perlman

basically's ravachol's reading list except without that infantile disorder called anarchism :)wat

[l'Enfermé]

Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov and Lenin. Then Trotsky, Preobrazhensky, Luxemburg, De Leon, Connolly, Lafargue, Gramsci, Dietzgin and Draper.

[hatzel]

Bukharin's a badman, boy, big love...

EDIT: as an artist

[Let's Get Free]

Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Luxemburg, Fanon, CLR James, Magon, Makhno.


On: Omsk, Avanti.

[thriller]

On: Q, MarxSchmarx, Devrim, Niche (lol),
Off: Sam Webster, Bob Avakian

[l'Enfermé]

dauve
theorie communiste/endnotes/riffraff/etc
cammatte
bordiga
the duponts
marx/engels
goldner
bukharin
movement communiste
perlman

basically's ravachol's reading list except without that infantile disorder called anarchism :)
Ultra-leftism is the infantile disorder, Anarchism is the "signboard of the lumpenproletariat"(says Rosa Luxemburg). :thumbup1:
edit: sorry I think it's "signboard of the counter-revolutionary lumpenporletariat", not just "signboard of the lumpenproletariat"

[Art Vandelay]

Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky.

Q, Ghost Bebel, DNZ, Rafiq, Ostrinski.

[Os Cangaceiros]

dauve
theorie communiste/endnotes/riffraff/etc
cammatte
bordiga
the duponts
marx/engels
goldner
bukharin
movement communiste
perlman

basically's ravachol's reading list except without that infantile disorder called anarchism :)

Fredy Perlman is really damn close to the anarchist tradition, even if he himself wouldn't call himself an "anarchist".

Speaking of which, I've never really gotten what some people find so appealing in his works.

[l'Enfermé]

Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky.

Q, Ghost Bebel, DNZ, Rafiq, Ostrinski.
We have the same top six.

I forgot to do the "on revleft" part. That would be DNZ and Q, DNZ for his Class Struggle Revisited and I think Q's thoughts on demarchy are fascinating. I'm also a fan of Rafiq's musings on philosophy and especially the way he presents them, almost in a Chekist manner.

[Yuppie Grinder]

What seperates Q's Demarchy from Proletarian Democracy?

[Yuppie Grinder]

We have the same top six.

I forgot to do the "on revleft" part. That would be DNZ and Q, DNZ for his Class Struggle Revisited and I think Q's thoughts on demarchy are fascinating. I'm also a fan of Rafiq's musings on philosophy and especially the way he presents them, almost in a Chekist manner.

Rafiq just dismisses any sort of philosophy that isn't Marxist or that he isn't familiar with as idealist and humanist without knowing anything about it. I have no idea how you can say that. Nobody who spends that much time trying to appear intellectually superior has anything interesting to say about philosophy. From what he writes about humanism it's easy to tell he's never read any humanist literature in his entire life.

[The Douche]

Fredy Perlman is really damn close to the anarchist tradition, even if he himself wouldn't call himself an "anarchist".

Speaking of which, I've never really gotten what some people find so appealing in his works.

What's not appealing? Anti-civ without going to far into primitivism, and first hand experience in 1968.

[Crux]

1. Hegel
2. None

[Os Cangaceiros]

What's not appealing? Anti-civ without going to far into primitivism, and first hand experience in 1968.

I just don't think that he was a very good writer.

[Ravachol]

I just don't think that he was a very good writer.

I think he's actually a quite clear writer even though his most often-cited work 'the reproduction of everyday life' can be a bit repetitive in its stylistic structure and 'Against his-story, against leviathan' might not be your thing if you dislike modernist poetry and elaborate prose. But don't you have the same beef with the situationists then?

Worker-Student Action Committees, The continuing appeal of nationalism and Letters of insurgents are all very readable though.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Hegel was a German nationalist, wasn't he?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

2. None

Not even me?:crying:

[Pretty Flaco]

charles darwin, albert einstein, stephen hawking

[o well this is ok I guess]

Hegel was a German nationalist, wasn't he? I remember reading in some introduction to the outline of the philosophy of right that it was all just to keep the prussian authorities off his back.

[Ocean Seal]

Newsbot
tradeunionsupporter
Trotskyist Marx
Bud Struggle

[Os Cangaceiros]

But don't you have the same beef with the situationists then?

Pretty much. I'm not that big on the SI, actually.

[Rugged Collectivist]

Off Revleft:
Marx
Engels

On Revleft:
Avanti
NoXion
bcbm

[hatzel]

Hegel was a German nationalist, wasn't he?

Some pretty convincing arguments have been made against such a claim, though he was certainly influential in its later development (remember that nationalism was still emergent in his time, it had yet to be articulated fully). Equally convincing arguments have been made, however, that his philosophy - much like German idealism in general - was structured around an inherent antisemitism, serving almost as its philosophical justification. In the context of Germany - where the nationalist project was always wrapped up in the negation of 'the Jew' - it's easy to see how one could draw lines connecting Hegelian thought and later German nationalist currents. But the Popperian (do I remember correctly?) claim that Hegel was effectively a proto-Nazi doesn't really hold water, in my view...

[sixdollarchampagne]

On revleft: Definitely Lucretia

Off revleft: Trotsky, Trotsky, Trotsky
James P. Cannon
George Novack (I heard him speak once, in the sixties)
Ernest Mandel (I heard his wife speak once, in 1968, on mai-juin in France)
Afeni Shakur (she came to our campus to speak once, and we went wild, in the sixties)
Dr. Martin Luther King (I heard him speak once, in DC, in the sixties)

[svenne]

On revleft: Blake's Baby, Ravachol.

Off revleft: Marx & Engels, early Negri, Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács.

[hetz]

In the context of Germany - where the nationalist project was always wrapped up in the negation of 'the Jew'
Interesting, could you elaborate on that?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

On Revleft: Avanti, sunfarstar, 9mm, GourmetPez, Ostrinski, Rafiq

[Q]

What seperates Q's Demarchy from Proletarian Democracy?

"Proletarian democracy" is a catch all phrase. It really could mean anything, like soviets or, indeed, demarchy. Demarchy is much more specific. If you want to learn more about it, I recommend this paper (http://www.zcommunications.org/FCKFiles/image/Machover_socdem5.pdf) and these two (http://vimeo.com/14852939) videos (http://vimeo.com/14854566), where professor Moshé Machover makes the case rather well. Also, this lecture (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lecture-democracy-video-t172673/index.html), although given by a non-communist, is a good introduction into the concept.

[Ostrinski]

Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Luxemburg, Fanon, CLR James, Magon, Makhno.


On: Omsk, Avanti.Isn't Fanon ML territory?

[Ismail]

Isn't Fanon ML territory?He wasn't a Marxist-Leninist (revisionist or otherwise), unless "ML territory" means "everything that sucks."

[The Douche]

Isn't Fanon ML territory?

"Territory", maybe, but he wasn't a ML, just an anti-imperialist. I enjoy Fanon as well.

[Yuppie Grinder]

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated." - Barack Obama
Fanon and Simone de Beauvoir are both cool.

[Ostrinski]

I have two of his books. He's pretty cool. I just figured it's mainly Leninists that are anti-imperialist and pro national liberation. Didn't know what anarchists could take away from him.

[The Douche]

I have two of his books. He's pretty cool. I just figured it's mainly Leninists that are anti-imperialist and pro national liberation. Didn't know what anarchists could take away from him.

Application of his understanding of settler psychology to capital at large. He talks a lot about how colonized people internalize the logic of colonialism, lots of ultra-lefts talk about how capital becomes internalized by the working class as an institution.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Application of his understanding of settler psychology to capital at large. He talks a lot about how colonized people internalize the logic of colonialism, lots of ultra-lefts talk about how capital becomes internalized by the working class as an institution.

That sounds very compatible with Gramscian cultural hegemony theory.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Seems compatible with Gramscian cultural hegemony theory as well as the theories of Herbert Marcuse.

[hatzel]

Interesting, could you elaborate on that?

I would do, but I fear I'd then come across as an ardent anti-german, which might not be the best move for me :lol:

Let's just say that it's no coincidence that Nietzsche's critiques of German nationalism and his critiques of antisemitism were often on one and the same page; he surely recognised that these two currents were intimately intertwined, the former built upon the latter. It's clear from the 19th century that 'the Jew' invariably served as the ultimate 'Other' against which the German national identity was constructed, and more often than not, the forwarding of 'the national interest' was explicitly construed as in opposition to (and at the expense of) 'the Jew.'

Much of this is reflected in the German philosophical tradition; as we were speaking initially of Hegel, it may be worth pointing out that the dialectical unfolding of history called for the swallowing up of 'the Jew' (serving as a philosophical placeholder - invariably as an antagonistic opposition - throughout the German Enlightenment) - by his own admission, 'the Jew' in Hegel has reached a dead-end, standing only as an obstacle to the future development of the (German) Protestant towards the Absolute. The same can be seen in Kant, Feuerbach, even in anti-nationalist philosophers like Schopenhauer: all developed a philosophical antisemitism, 'the Jew' embodying a certain threat to the future development of Europe, the fate of which is to be found in the outcome of this antagonism. This obviously parallels antisemitic discourse, and certainly reflected the theoretical development of German nationalism, which echoed the philosophical conception of 'the Jew' as some malevolent opposition to the German people.

(Incidentally we can here return to Nietzsche, who ironically played with this idea in Beyond good and evil, affirming the nationalist claim that the fate of Europe lay in the antagonism between the German and 'the Jew,' before flipping the issue on its head, claiming that it was in fact the antisemite who had to be overcome. Again the prevalence of this current of thought is revealed.)

[GoddessCleoLover]

Seems that 19th century German idealist philosophy was badly infected by anti-Semitism. The fruits of this poisonous tree were deadly indeed.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Nietzsche had some progressive views. His dismissal as a reactionary mystic is undeserved.

[hetz]

Much of this is reflected in the German philosophical tradition; as we were speaking initially of Hegel, it may be worth pointing out that the dialectical unfolding of history called for the swallowing up of 'the Jew' (serving as a philosophical placeholder - invariably as an antagonistic opposition - throughout the German Enlightenment) - by his own admission, 'the Jew' in Hegel has reached a dead-end, standing only as an obstacle to the future development of the (German) Protestant towards the Absolute. The same can be seen in Kant, Feuerbach, even in anti-nationalist philosophers like Schopenhauer: all developed a philosophical antisemitism, 'the Jew' embodying a certain threat to the future development of Europe, the fate of which is to be found in the outcome of this antagonism. This obviously parallels antisemitic discourse, and certainly reflected the theoretical development of German nationalism, which echoed the philosophical conception of 'the Jew' as some malevolent opposition to the German people.Didn't Marx say something similar in the Jewish Question?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Hegel originally wrote that the Jews had doomed themselves to squalor as a result of their egoistic attachment to material things and selfishness, as opposed to the enlightened German position of universal love, freedom and morality (this was a very common, secular philosophical objection to Judaism at that time). Later on though he changed up his critique, and said that the Jews were beholden to a retrograde belief system that was being left behind by the shifting tide of history (a more dialectical approach that his Hegelian disciples would also adopt).

Hegel was probably better than most of the German philosophers around this general time period, though, in regards to this topic. He criticized Judaism but he was in favor of civil rights for Jews. This would later be the template for most of his followers, although some would go overboard with the criticism and would venture into anti-semitism land, and this combined with the advocacy for more civil rights for Jews would confuse their Jewish opponents.

[Ismail]

Nietzsche had some progressive views. His dismissal as a reactionary mystic is undeserved.He was an anti-communist and the main body of his philosophy was reactionary and denounced by most every socialist, including Trotsky (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/trotsky/1900/12/nietzsche.htm).

See for instance: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/oct2000/niet-o20.shtml

And the Soviet view of his works from the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Nietzsche%2c+Friedrich

[Positivist]

Nietzsche had some progressive views. His dismissal as a reactionary mystic is undeserved.

Maybe not "progressive" but pretty accurate and fairly moving.

[Yuppie Grinder]

He was an anti-communist and the main body of his philosophy was reactionary and denounced by most every socialist, including Trotsky (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/trotsky/1900/12/nietzsche.htm).

See for instance: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/oct2000/niet-o20.shtml

And the Soviet view of his works from the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Nietzsche%2c+Friedrich

Nietzsche's critique of socialism was pretty weak. Besides that and his misogyny I think the dude was pretty brilliant. The intelligent, self-actualized, irreligious people I've met have been perspectivists, its just that most of them didn't know it.
If you're going to dismiss every thinker ever who wasn't a communist and only read things that validate your specific world view, enjoy your willful ignorance.

Also, nobody with any brains gives a fuck what the USSR academic establishment had to say about Nietzsche. The same people rejected genetics as a bourgeois lie.

[ed miliband]

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated." - Barack Obama
Fanon and Simone de Beauvoir are both cool.

is that a real quote?

[Ostrinski]

A cursory google search only comes up with results of conservative and conspiracy-theory sites, though it comes up in a lot of them. None of them list a source, though.

[ed miliband]

yep, that's basically all i found... i'd like it to be a real quote tho.

[Ostrinski]

Hmm. Apparently it comes from Dreams from My Father (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_from_My_Father) on page 100-101.

Honestly it wouldn't seem surprising if as a student he was involved in or interested in radical politics. He went to school during a time in the United States when radical politics were very popular among students so if he had an interest in Marxism, feminism, black power politics, or whatever then he would only have been a product of his environment. Of course, it's laughable that conservatives would try to use some stuff he said in college as some kind of indication of his current political views, or even more laughable, his policy decisions.

I'd hazard a guess that there exist Republican politicians who went to school in the 60's and early 70's that were radical leftists. Doesn't mean much, Stalin was a religious boy, Hitler was an aspiring artist, etc. etc.

[ed miliband]

i think i have a copy back home in london, but i won't be there for another week or so.

can't wait to see if that shit if legit.

[Yuppie Grinder]

is that a real quote?

Yea, hilarious isn't it?

[Ostrinski]

i think i have a copy back home in london, but i won't be there for another week or so.

can't wait to see if that shit if legit.the hell do you have a copy of that for

[ed miliband]

the hell do you have a copy of that for

got it as a gift. it's not on my bookshelf but in a box somewhere.

i have an aunt who lives in oklahoma and she thought it would be a good christmas present i guess.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Well Obama's story of how he rose from being the son of a successful conservative economist and carrier politician to the blood thirsty, war mongering imperialist he is now is quite inspiring.

[Ismail]

If you're going to dismiss every thinker ever who wasn't a communist and only read things that validate your specific world view, enjoy your willful ignorance.There are all sorts of people who communists recognize as progressive despite their obvious limitations. Besides Hegel there's individuals as varied as Thomas Müntzer, Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin (who Marx gives a shout-out to in Capital) and Abe Lincoln. To quote Lenin, "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." (Collected Works Vol. 31, 1974, p. 317.)

It isn't about "dismissing" anyone, it's noting that Nietzsche's philosophy and he himself were reactionary first and foremost, and this is apparent if one takes his works in their totality and objectively analyzes them. It is precisely through reading them that this is made apparent, and of the three sources I noted (Soviet academic who wrote article, Leon Trotsky, modern-day Trots) it's pretty obvious they studied his works and drew pretty much uniform conclusions. In fact it seems to be you who are dismissing them out of hand.


Also, nobody with any brains gives a fuck what the USSR academic establishment had to say about Nietzsche. The same people rejected genetics as a bourgeois lie.Actually the Stalin-era treatment of genetics was later denounced as a supposed example of the "cult of the individual" and of "dogmatism" in the sciences. After the 50's the Soviets had no problems with Einstein either. But that's the scientific field, not philosophy, and the Soviet critique of Nietzsche was obviously not confined simply to them as I pointed out.

How about actually looking at that encyclopedia article at least (it's certainly short) and telling me why it's wrong?

Also the Obama quote is real, but all it means is that academic Marxism sucks and that student "radicals" can easily turn into right-wingers, with Obama himself as evidence. It's only controversial because conservatives expect a President's background to be a war-hero or successful businessman or something.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It would've been fun to do blow and talk about Franz Fanon with Obama back in college.

Then I'd say, "wouldn't it be weird if you got older and became exactly the sort of asshole who we're decrying today?" No, that'd never happen!

[Grenzer]

Isn't Fanon ML territory?

No, he's actually not. The official Soviet view was that while he was an anti-colonial progressive, his actual politics were pretty strongly condemned. I would try to dig up some quotes, but unfortunately most of my literature is back at my apartment. It's explored in detail in Vladimir Khoros's Populism: Its Past, Present, and Future. It's in the public domain, like all Soviet texts, but it doesn't look like Leninist.biz has it. I'll have to scan my own copy one of these days.

[hatzel]

It is precisely through reading them that this is made apparent, and of the three sources I noted (Soviet academic who wrote article, Leon Trotsky, modern-day Trots) it's pretty obvious they studied his works and drew pretty much uniform conclusions.

Have you read them, though? Because you don't appear to have made such a claim, as far as I can tell. Don't just appeal to secondary texts claiming it's 'pretty obvious' they studied his collection works 'in their totality' before 'objectively analys' them, because if you haven't done the same, you're in no position to comment on their success in that regard. Perhaps they intentionally distorted his texts, maybe they only read a few sections from a book here or there and drew gross conclusions therefrom, or perhaps they did in fact know every word inside-out - how could we know without having a direct familiarity with his oeuvre ourselves? So please, tell us all exactly which of Nietzsche's texts you've read, so that we are all totally aware of what authority you bring to the table as a Nietzsche scholar...

(Also lulz at this [I]look, even the Trots agree!!! Most of us have options outside toeing the line of either some dusty Soviet encyclopaedia or Trotsky and his ilk...there's a whole world out there, we don't even need to pick sides in that crusty old battle! :scared:)

[Omsk]

Hatzel my friend, you need to learn that a personal opinion in a debate over politics is of no worth. All that matters is the political line, and since the line of good comrade Ismail is Marxism-Leninism, his own opinion ( We as Marxists should understand that abstract theoretical knowledge which an individual may build has little worth, and if one values it too much, he will soon go to the waters of bourgeois individualism.) is actually not even needed, because our line is clear about that bourgeois philosopher, and most (Not all, but most.) of the others that are not Marxists - We are not too interested in their theories and we can't gain much from them. Such theory is hostile and to be avoided. Such is the line regarding most kinds of bourgeois thought in the field of philosophy. Reading topics on this forum really makes me wonder do any of the people which write about various subjects here have any actual political expirience, or is it all internet spirit and petty-theory.

[hatzel]

Haaaaah :laugh:

[Omsk]

Yes, thats the idiotic response i expected from someone like you.

[human strike]

Hmm. Apparently it comes from Dreams from My Father (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_from_My_Father) on page 100-101.

Honestly it wouldn't seem surprising if as a student he was involved in or interested in radical politics. He went to school during a time in the United States when radical politics were very popular among students so if he had an interest in Marxism, feminism, black power politics, or whatever then he would only have been a product of his environment. Of course, it's laughable that conservatives would try to use some stuff he said in college as some kind of indication of his current political views, or even more laughable, his policy decisions.

I'd hazard a guess that there exist Republican politicians who went to school in the 60's and early 70's that were radical leftists. Doesn't mean much, Stalin was a religious boy, Hitler was an aspiring artist, etc. etc.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2pt199h.jpg

http://retro.nrc.nl/W2/Nieuws/2001/01/16/Vp/fischer.jpg

These photos were taken in 1968. The man in the black helmet is Joschka Fischer and the man he's attacking is obviously a policeman. 30 years later in 1998 he became Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany.

[hatzel]

Yes, thats the idiotic response i expected from someone like you.

>claims that actually reading books before commenting on them, having opinions which aren't simply regurgitated from the gospel that is some Russian encyclopaedia from the 70's (wouldn't that make it 'revisionist bullcrap,' by the way?) and/or actually thinking in any context is 'bourgeois.'
>calls other people idiots.

Shit, son, life must be so easy in your little world...

(Oh, and let me guess: you haven't read Nietzsche either, though you clearly feel qualified to comment on his work)

[GoddessCleoLover]

Were Nietzsche's works available to the public in the Stalin-era USSR or Mao-era China? I would guess they were not, but I could be wrong.

[Ismail]

Were Nietzsche's works available to the public in the Stalin-era USSR or Mao-era China? I would guess they were not, but I could be wrong.In the USSR most of them were banned up until Glasnost, IIRC. Academics could request access to banned works, read them and summarize (while criticizing) their contents in Soviet publications.

Nietzsche's works were banned as early as the 30's in areas controlled by the Chinese Soviet Republic, since his doctrine was considered proto-fascistic. Throughout the Mao period they remained banned.

Also while we're on the subject, "In Europe and throughout the world there are innumerable philosophers and writers who have made a myth of the superiority of men over women. For them man is strong, warlike, courageous, and hence wiser, therefore, predestined to dominate, to lead, whereas woman, for her part, is weak, defenceless and timid by nature, therefore, she must be dominated and led. Bourgeois theoreticians like Nietzsche and Freud likewise uphold the theory that the male is active while the female is passive. This reactionary, anti-scientific theory must lead, as it did, to nazism in politics and to sadism in sexology." - Enver Hoxha, Selected Works Vol. IV, 1982, pp. 267-268.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I suspected as much. There has to be a better way of dealing with bourgeois philosophers than banning their works. In this internet era wouldn't such bans be futile?

[Ismail]

I suspected as much. There has to be a better way of dealing with bourgeois philosophers than banning their works. In this internet era wouldn't such bans be futile?Well the issue wasn't "bourgeois philosophers" per se (after all you could happily cite Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and whatnot in context), just ones considered to have made a reactionary "contribution" to the field concerned.

In 2000 an Albanian guy asked Ramiz Alia why various authors had their works banned and he replied, "Because the minds of the people were not ready for these books. It's the same when a father wants to protect his child from evil." Obviously banning reactionary works is a two-edged sword, since in the end the task is, after all, to make the mass of the people conscious and knowledgeable enough to not be swayed by idealist, religious, capitalist, fascist, etc. arguments anymore.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Isn't all that a moot point in this day and age of the internet? Wouldn't it be extremely difficult to limit access to Nietzsche and other reactionary philosophers without crippling overall internet access?

[sixdollarchampagne]

And, if I remember correctly, Joschka Fischer, a Green Party career politician, was a big promoter of NATO's war on the Serbians, back in the day. Sometimes, the apple does fall far from the tree.

[Ismail]

Isn't all that a moot point in this day and age of the internet? Wouldn't it be extremely difficult to limit access to Nietzsche and other reactionary philosophers without crippling overall internet access?Obviously. I'd also imagine that in a population without a massive peasantry and with a workforce with far better potential in terms of access to education and whatnot that the issue of banned works would be a lot less significant.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I suspected as much. There has to be a better way of dealing with bourgeois philosophers than banning their works. In this internet era wouldn't such bans be futile?
The best "way" of dealing with bourgeois philosophers is to actually engage their ideas and expose their weaknesses. You can't pass judgment on them otherwise, and sticking only to secondhand accounts won't aid you in fully understanding them. On the other hand, it doesn't mean you have to wade into a thinker's work without any assistance. I would try Georg Lukacs' The Destruction of Reason, where he attacks the irrationalist philosophic tradition. Members of the Frankfurt School like Marcuse and Benjamin also have valuable works and criticism, as well.

We should absolutely be against the suppression of philosophy, of whatever "class interests" it represents. After all, we are seeking to surpass bourgeois society, not lock aspects of it in a closet and pretend it will disappear. Sticking to the "practical" aspect on Marxism accomplishes nothing unless its underlying concepts and theories are addressed.

(And yes, the internet makes banning rather pointless in many ways)

[GoddessCleoLover]

And the Serbs were led by a brutal criminal named Slobodan Milosevic and tens of thousands of Albanians massacred. Joschka Fischer is no longer a revolutionary, but his support for that military campaign is understandable given the despicable treatment of the Albanian Kosovars.

[Ostrinski]

Hatzel my friend, you need to learn that a personal opinion in a debate over politics is of no worth. All that matters is the political line, and since the line of good comrade Ismail is Marxism-Leninism, his own opinion ( We as Marxists should understand that abstract theoretical knowledge which an individual may build has little worth, and if one values it too much, he will soon go to the waters of bourgeois individualism.) is actually not even needed, because our line is clear about that bourgeois philosopher, and most (Not all, but most.) of the others that are not Marxists - We are not too interested in their theories and we can't gain much from them. Such theory is hostile and to be avoided. Such is the line regarding most kinds of bourgeois thought in the field of philosophy. Reading topics on this forum really makes me wonder do any of the people which write about various subjects here have any actual political expirience, or is it all internet spirit and petty-theory.Oh. My. God. I cannot believe I just read this. Dude you could seriously substitute Marxism with Christianity or Islam here and it would actually make much more sense. Anti intellectual bullshit.

Take your party line culture and shove it up your ass.

[Q]

So much for ML "theorists" on Revleft.

Their, quite frankly, pedantic ("the children aren't ready for this") and messianistic (the dear party is always right, by definition) reasoning of "poletarian theory" is quite worrisome.

But then again, what else is new.

[Grenzer]

Well that's one of the things I agree with Trotsky on. I have a lot of problems with his politics, but I think as a commenter on matters of philosophy(one caveat that I'll get to later), literature, and culture he was pretty decent. No doubt he'd refer to this attitude being displayed here as "Philistinism"(he fucking loved tossing that phrase around; usually deservedly).

I think I can understand what Omsk is getting at. He's essentially saying that theories are only useful to the point that they produce a viable political program. I'd agree with that statement to some extent, but it's something that needs to be examined within its own context. If the state of affairs is such that the state must dictate which views are "correct" because the masses aren't coming to the desired conclusion, then the political experiment has failed.

I can already anticipate someone mentioning "Well Lenin said that the Party shouldn't remain a neutral observer in such matters". Most people on here, rightly so, don't really give a shit about what he thought on the matter since an argument should stand on its own merit, but I'll address this for fun. There is no problem with political organizations making statements on cultural matters, but it is one thing to make a comment and offer a suggestion; it's another to make it a matter of official policy and shove it down peoples' throats. Culture is not something that can be artificially molded in a desired direction; it's something that can only develop organically. For the Lenin worshippers out there, this is also something that Lenin argued in his condemnation of Proletkult. There is really no significant difference between the underlying logic of Proletkult and Socialist Realism.

The inevitable result of attempting to mandate and force these things tends to result in something rather grotesque..

http://cogitasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/kimilsung_620.jpg

Where Trotsky really fucked up in his philosophical ventures was in his appraisal of Nietzsche. It was superficial, shallow, and.. quite frankly, pig headed. I haven't read the official Soviet analyses, but I see no reason to believe that they would be anything other than hollow. It seems like most Marxist critics of Nietzsche either fail to understand him outright, or do so only on a superficial level. This is not to say that there are not criticisms to be made; I would say that there are, but it needs to be done on the basis of a genuine reading an analysis of his work. It's clear that Trotsky, and most of those who echo him, had their opinion formed ahead of time and stumbled there way idiotically through his works butchering and mangling them in a desperate attempt to reach their predetermined destination. In light of the sobriety and insight of his commentaries on literature and science, it's really quite an embarrassment. What one has to say about Nietzsche usually says a lot more about the reader than it does what Nietzsche was actually saying.

No offense to Trotskyists or anything. It was actually one of Trotsky's very early works(around 1900 if I remember right). By the 1920's and 30's he'd gotten a lot better.

Nietzsche's utility in Marxian analysis is probably non-existant, but I'd recommend reading his work to anyone whose head isn't stuck up Rousseau's ass.

Read philosophy. It's good for you.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Were Nietzsche's works available to the public in the Stalin-era USSR or Mao-era China? I would guess they were not, but I could be wrong.

In the '60s the only book that was mass produced in China was the quotations of Mao Zedong. Some silly billy once suggest that Origins of Family, Property, and the State could get published but that was shot down because it might "distract from the study of Comrade Mao's writings."

[Ismail]

And the Serbs were led by a brutal criminal named Slobodan Milosevic and tens of thousands of Albanians massacred. Joschka Fischer is no longer a revolutionary, but his support for that military campaign is understandable given the despicable treatment of the Albanian Kosovars.No it isn't, considering that it was US imperialism which propped up Yugoslavia and which in the early portion of the 90's was willing to work with Milošević, who in economics was even further to the right of the Titoites.

The US intervention in Kosovo was a cynical ploy. The result, of course, has been quite favorable for US imperialism: Albanians in Albania proper and in Kosovo dedicate golden statues and street names to US Presidents (bourgeois historians already credit President Wilson with "saving" Albania at the Paris Peace Conference.) The situation was also pretty harmful to the Albanian left since it fractured over whether one should "critically support" NATO's invasion or not.

The view of Socialist Albania to the issue of Kosovo was clear: the Albanians there deserved cultural autonomy and their efforts to achieve it were just, but this was to be achieved by they themselves. Hoxha was against "internationalizing" the question before the UN or other bodies, since that would obviously mean that US, Soviet and other imperialisms would begin dictating what should and should not happen there.


There is really no significant difference between the underlying logic of Proletkult and Socialist Realism.This is wrong, especially since Proletkult sought to totally negate earlier culture. Socialist realism in fact has its origins in the early Russian revolutionaries like Chernyshevsky.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Ismail and Omsk, take your frothing-at-the-mouth religious fanaticism elsewhere. With all your "NO ACTUALLY THIS PERSON IS WRONG BECAUSE SOVIET OFFICIALS SAID SO" posts you've derailed my thread. If either of you had had actual arguments that were worth anything it'd be a different story.

[Omsk]

>claims that actually reading books before commenting on them, having opinions which aren't simply regurgitated from the gospel that is some Russian encyclopaedia from the 70's (wouldn't that make it 'revisionist bullcrap,' by the way?) and/or actually thinking in any context is 'bourgeois.'
>calls other people idiots.


Of ocurse not, i just noted you are infested with the bourgeois way of thinking, and liberalism, since you believe the opinion of a single individual is worth something.
The line of the party, of the organisation is always the important one.


Shit, son, life must be so easy in your little world...

What is with the patronizing? I live in the actual world, unlike you, and here, the proletarian class does not give a damn about some reactionary German philosopher, nor do the proletarians need to care about that. Since you don't know how underground political organizations function, i will give you an example - we follow the ML line when it comes down to bourgeois philosophy, we are against most of it, because we are for Marxism, and naturally we hold the position that we should not even waste time reading the works of such philosophers. Again, that is ultimatelly projected to a bigger scale, and in the actual world, we spend our resources and time to publish newspapers, books and works of Lenin, Marx and Engels. That is what is important, obscure borugeois thought is really not important. Because, you know, some of our comrades would rather get in trouble for spreading ML propaganda or works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, than the works of bourgeois philosophers. That is the party line, we don't care about Friedrich because we have far more important things to do and because studying his works can't help us in our struggle, and because his works are not important for the proletariat.


Take your party line culture and shove it up your ass

You are starting to annoy me. Take you infantile approach to everything, your naive and "unspoiled" style of writing and liberal individualism and shove it up you know where. What are you? Who are you? In what world are you living in? This is not a playground where we can pick "tendencies" and than wander off and build opinions of our own, you are not a communist, you are just an eclectic worm who has a long tongue online but does nothing in the actual struggle. You are not even a member of an organization. You reek of the petty bourgeois mentality and inteligentsia behaviour and way of thinking, you are the personification of everything that is wrong with the left of the modern times, you have no spine, you change lines, you lack the knowledge, you lack the nerves, you are arrogant. And above all, you are an opportunist. Enough.

(Oh, and let me guess: you haven't read Nietzsche either, though you clearly feel qualified to comment on his work)


Ismail and Omsk, take your frothing-at-the-mouth religious fanaticism elsewhere. With all your "NO ACTUALLY THIS PERSON IS WRONG BECAUSE SOVIET OFFICIALS SAID SO" posts you've derailed my thread. If either of you had had actual arguments that were worth anything it'd be a different story.


This is a discussion forum and we can defend the ML line if we wish. You don't have to answer if you don't like it.



The view of Socialist Albania to the issue of Kosovo was clear: the Albanians there deserved cultural autonomy and their efforts to achieve it were just, but this was to be achieved by they themselves. Hoxha was against "internationalizing" the question before the UN or other bodies, since that would obviously mean that US, Soviet and other imperialisms would begin dictating what should and should not happen there.



Things have changed, and now, only a unified Balkan proletarian revolution can defeat both the terrorist governments of the colonies and the foreign imperialists. However, the people of Kosovo have a right for self-determination, and that principle is almost central to our Marxist thought. They tried to fight of the chauvinist regime, but the answer to this was police terror and slaughter, and the final result was a victory of both Albanian and Serb nationalism, and the victory of US imperialism.

[Ostrinski]

Of ocurse not, i just noted you are infested with the bourgeois way of thinking, and liberalism, since you believe the opinion of a single individual is worth something.
The line of the party, of the organisation is always the important one.



What is with the patronizing? I live in the actual world, unlike you, and here, the proletarian class does not give a damn about some reactionary German philosopher, nor do the proletarians need to care about that. Since you don't know how underground political organizations function, i will give you an example - we follow the ML line when it comes down to bourgeois philosophy, we are against most of it, because we are for Marxism, and naturally we hold the position that we should not even waste time reading the works of such philosophers. Again, that is ultimatelly projected to a bigger scale, and in the actual world, we spend our resources and time to publish newspapers, books and works of Lenin, Marx and Engels. That is what is important, obscure borugeois thought is really not important. Because, you know, some of our comrades would rather get in trouble for spreading ML propaganda or works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, than the works of bourgeois philosophers. That is the party line, we don't care about Friedrich because we have far more important things to do and because studying his works can't help us in our struggle, and because his works are not important for the proletariat.



You are starting to annoy me. Take you infantile approach to everything, your naive and "unspoiled" style of writing and liberal individualism and shove it up you know where. What are you? Who are you? In what world are you living in? This is not a playground where we can pick "tendencies" and than wander off and build opinions of our own, you are not a communist, you are just an eclectic worm who has a long tongue online but does nothing in the actual struggle. You are not even a member of an organization. You reek of the petty bourgeois mentality and inteligentsia behaviour and way of thinking, you are the personification of everything that is wrong with the left of the modern times, you have no spine, you change lines, you lack the knowledge, you lack the nerves, you are arrogant. And above all, you are an opportunist. Enough.

(Oh, and let me guess: you haven't read Nietzsche either, though you clearly feel qualified to comment on his work)



This is a discussion forum and we can defend the ML line if we wish. You don't have to answer if you don't like it.



Things have changed, and now, only a unified Balkan proletarian revolution can defeat both the terrorist governments of the colonies and the foreign imperialists. However, the people of Kosovo have a right for self-determination, and that principle is almost central to our Marxist thought. They tried to fight of the chauvinist regime, but the answer to this was police terror and slaughter, and the final result was a victory of both Albanian and Serb nationalism, and the victory of US imperialism.lol y u mad tho

[Omsk]

Yes, just as i expected.

[Ostrinski]

U mad

[Q]

Yes, just as i expected.

Well, duh.

Your latest blog is called "Goodbye!". Why are you still here again?

[l'Enfermé]

Mhm, an awful lot of love for Nietzsche here. The same Nietzsche who declared himself an enemy of egalitarianism and socialism, the same Nietzsche who derided the masses as the "least and dumbest".

Aye, Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Mehring described as the "philosopher of the grande bourgeoisie".

[Yuppie Grinder]

Mhm, an awful lot of love for Nietzsche here. The same Nietzsche who declared himself an enemy of egalitarianism and socialism, the same Nietzsche who derided the masses as the "least and dumbest".

Aye, Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Mehring described as the "philosopher of the grande bourgeoisie".

Read Nietzsche before you dismiss him. It's clear that you haven't.

[l'Enfermé]

Read Nietzsche before you dismiss him. It's clear that you haven't.
I treasure my editions of the Russian translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra and Ecce Homo by Yuri Antonovskiy, a member of Narodnaya Volya(later he became a Kadet, however :(). I've read most of Human, All Too Human and Beyond Good and Evil and all the prose and poems in The Gay Science are neat and all, but seeing as how Nietzche, all in all, is a pretty unimpressive philosopher, I gave them away.

I used to be pretty fond of Nietzsche before my political development, so please, don't presume I'm uneducated.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Can we agree at least that banning Nietsche is a retrograde and Stalinoid way to deal with his writings?

[Ismail]

Ismail and Omsk, take your frothing-at-the-mouth religious fanaticism elsewhere. With all your "NO ACTUALLY THIS PERSON IS WRONG BECAUSE SOVIET OFFICIALS SAID SO" posts you've derailed my thread. If either of you had had actual arguments that were worth anything it'd be a different story.There's nothing "religious" about science.

I also like how supposedly not one self-described Marxist who has actually written on Nietzsche has ever read his writings, ever. From Soviet, Albanian and Chinese (and other) academics, to Trotsky, Mehring, and others, to various modern-day Trots and "Stalinists," they obviously all misunderstood his greatness (despite citing and summarizing his works repeatedly) and only a guy on the internet can set things straight.

How about Nietzsche was a reactionary and his philosophy has little in common with materialism? Why is that so hard to accept? No one is saying that everything he wrote was absolutely terrible, but the same could be said for Karl Popper and various other reactionary philosophers who attacked socialism and historical materialism.

And I still haven't seen any rebuttals to, say, the short Soviet encyclopedic entry. That suggests a religious attitude far more than anything me and Omsk have written, while "YOU HAVEN'T READ NIETZSCHE" reminds me of Christians who say "you haven't read the Bible," and who, even if you actually read it and (inevitably) continue to criticize it, reply "well you weren't reading it with the holy spirit in your heart" or whatever.

[sixdollarchampagne]

.... Joschka Fischer is no longer a revolutionary, but his support for that military campaign is understandable given the despicable treatment of the Albanian Kosovars.

Saying that Joschka Fischer "is no longer a revolutionary" really understates the reality. I remember "that military campaign," the NATO air war against Serbia, very well. I had cable TV then, and, night after night, one could watch news reports from Europe, that demonstrated that NATO bombing (in which the Germans got to attack Serbia, just as they had done during World War II) hit Serbian villages with zero military significance, which is the true face of "humanitarian intervention."

Edit: It was in "that military campaign" that NATO bombed, in addition to defenseless Serbian villages, the Chinese Embassy and the press center, both in Belgrade, as I remember (I think the PRC Embassy was located in a residential area), both with people inside when the NATO "humanitarian" bombers targeted the buildings. Again, the NATO imperialists display the real face of their "humanitarian" intervention.

It is amazing to me that anyone on revleft would be willing to defend imperialist (NATO) military action. I was happy to join with Serbs living in Boston, in a street demonstration to oppose NATO bombing of Serbia.

[hatzel]

i just noted you are infested with the bourgeois way of thinking, and liberalism, since you believe the opinion of a single individual is worth something

Okay yeah so how's about telling your good comrade Ismail to quit spamming the boards with Hoxha's opinion about everything, then? What a no-good bourgeois liberal that boy is...

The rest of your post was very interesting, though, so thank you! I never knew what real-life socialists actually did, so it was fascinating to learn about all the hard work your 'underground political organisations (http://www.myfacewhen.net/uploads/3835-so-hardcore.jpg)' do, distributing the works of Marx, Lenin et. al. But don't you feel you could do even more good work - and bring socialism yet another step closer! - if you joined the revolutionary vanguard (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/)? :)

[Ismail]

Okay yeah so how's about telling your good comrade Ismail to quit spamming the boards with Hoxha's opinion about everything, then?"The dialectical study of concrete situations and world development and the drawing of practical scientific conclusions to serve the cause of the revolution and socialism has always been the characteristic of the Marxist thinkers and revolutionary leaders. The work and struggle of Comrade Enver Hoxha against modern revisionism show that he has followed this brilliant Leninist tradition. Taken as a whole, this struggle represents a contribution of major value to the treasury of the scientific doctrine of the revolutionary proletariat, and it remains always a living fighting doctrine, a compass for the working people and the peoples of the world in their glorious battles for the revolutionary transformation of present-day human society.

Among the distinguishing features of the work of Comrade Enver Hoxha, beginning from his first articles in the Forties to his recent major works, are his arguments, conclusions and syntheses based on the everyday facts of real life, arguments that are accessible and understandable to everybody. On the other hand, the facts, events and phenomena that occur and develop in the world confirm the correctness of his stands, prove the objectiveness of his judgements and show the precision of his predictions.

All this makes Comrade Enver Hoxha's work a work of major value not only to understand the present, but also to see the future, to utilize the present in order to arrive at and ensure the revolutionary perspective."
(Sofokli Lazri, "The Struggle of the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha Against Modern Revisionism" in Scientific Conference on the Marxist-Leninist Thinking of the Party of Labour of Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1983. pp. 265-266.)

[Omsk]

Hoxha was an important figure of an organisation, the Albanian Communist Party. The line of the party was forged in struggle, by action, and he was influenced by the great classics. Ismail is defending our line, he is not presenting "Hoxhas' personal view on the world!"

[Goblin]

http://kariannebk.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/hane.jpg

[GoddessCleoLover]

So Goblin's favorite Revleft theorist is he whose name cannot be mentioned?;)

[The Machine]

I fuck with the revleft cynical leftcom club over pretty much everybody.

[sixdollarchampagne]

That's why no one trusts Wikipedia except dumb people.

I was asked to respond to Ismail's (latest) post praising Hoxha and Albania, and the best I can do is to reiterate that single-party rule, combined with fierce, bloody, deadly repression of masses of ordinary, innocent members of society, as under Stalin, Hoxha, Ulbricht, or whomever, will lead, almost inexorably, to capitalist restoration. People are not going to be kept down forever; they will respond in some way, and a good thing, too.

[Yuppie Grinder]

http://kariannebk.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/hane.jpg

I concur.

[L.A.P.]

"In Europe and throughout the world there are innumerable philosophers and writers who have made a myth of the superiority of men over women. For them man is strong, warlike, courageous, and hence wiser, therefore, predestined to dominate, to lead, whereas woman, for her part, is weak, defenceless and timid by nature, therefore, she must be dominated and led. Bourgeois theoreticians like Nietzsche and Freud likewise uphold the theory that the male is active while the female is passive. This reactionary, anti-scientific theory must lead, as it did, to nazism in politics and to sadism in sexology." - Enver Hoxha, Selected Works Vol. IV, 1982, pp. 267-268.

so basically Hoxha knows shit about Nietzsche and Freud....

seriously, fuck Hoxha. Nietzsche and Freud has more theoretical merit than some shitty journal log entries by fucking Enver Hoxha

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

so basically Hoxha knows shit about Nietzsche and Freud....

seriously, fuck Hoxha. Nietzsche and Freud has more theoretical merit than some shitty journal log entries by fucking Enver Hoxha

Now I'm no fan of Hoxa, but is cursing the best you can do? Come on, we can all do better than that.

[Ostrinski]

Hoxha was an important figure of an organisation, the Albanian Communist Party. The line of the party was forged in struggle, by action, and he was influenced by the great classics. Ismail is defending our line, he is not presenting "Hoxhas' personal view on the world!"Indeed. Some are more equal than others.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Indeed. Some are more equal than others.

That is what I love about ReLeft: you can never go through a thread without finding a quote from animal farm.It truly has a all around purpose; doesn't matter if you are doing laundry or debating philosophy, there is a application for it. :lol:

[TheGodlessUtopian]

In the '60s the only book that was mass produced in China was the quotations of Mao Zedong. Some silly billy once suggest that Origins of Family, Property, and the State could get published but that was shot down because it might "distract from the study of Comrade Mao's writings."

Important to know though that Mao himself didn't publicize the book. I think it was Deng Xioping who did that (though am not sure) for political reasons (building up personal capital, legitimatizing his claim to be Mao's successor, etc).

[Ismail]

seriously, fuck Hoxha. Nietzsche and Freud has more theoretical merit than some shitty journal log entries by fucking Enver HoxhaNeither were materialists. Even then the question is rather weird, it's like saying "Riemann and has ([I]sic.) more theoretical merit than " even though you can't compare them.

For what it's worth, both Jon Halliday and James S. O'Donnell have noted that Hoxha was the most intelligent East European leader and the most well-read. Bourgeois historian Peter R. Prifti wrote that, "Hoxha seems to be well informed about literature, the theater, and philosophy, particularly the philosophy of education... He might well be pictured as holding the sword of dictatorship of the proletariat in one hand and the Western 'lamp of learning' in the other." ([I]Socialist Albania since 1944, pp. 33-34.)

Hoxha's library had some 30,000 titles according to one person who investigated, including the works of Plato, works by Kant and Hegel, Hume, Descartes, etc. He also read the works of Confucius (to compare him with Mao), and all sorts of other books, e.g. when it came to religion Le Vatican et l'URSS, Marxisme et monde musulman, etc. Hoxha actively discussed historiographical matters with Albanian academics, wrote large summaries on Greek philosophy and the rise of Islam among other things, and so on.

[hatzel]

Tell us about the Freud books you've read :)

EDIT: of course I only ask because I've been lead to believe that reading even a word of Freud would contradict Marxist-Leninist principles, so I'd just like to verify your ideological purity...

[Ismail]

Tell us about the Freud books you've read :)

EDIT: of course I only ask because I've been lead to believe that reading even a word of Freud would contradict Marxist-Leninist principles, so I'd just like to verify your ideological purity...The post-1956 Soviet view of Freud was significantly more supportive of him than the pre-1956 view. The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia puts his views as follows: "Freud was among the first to investigate the psychological aspects of sexuality. He viewed sexual development as consisting of several qualitatively different stages, each being the potential source of unconscious conflicts that are manifested in such forms as neuroses or perversions. According to Freud’s general theory of psychology, proposed by him in the early 1900’s, the structure of the psyche may be compared to an energy system; underlying this system is the conflict between different psychic levels—primarily between consciousness and the elemental unconscious drives."

Compare this with Lenin:

The extension on Freudian hypotheses seems `educated,' even scientific, but it is ignorant, bungling. Freudian theory is the modern fashion. I mistrust the sexual theories of the articles, dissertations, pamphlets, etc., in short, of that particular kind of literature which flourishes luxuriantly in the dirty soil of bourgeois society. I mistrust those who are always contemplating the several questions, like the Indian saint his navel. It seems to me that these flourishing sexual theories which are mainly hypothetical, and often quite arbitrary hypotheses, arise from the personal need to justify personal abnormality or hypertrophy in sexual life before bourgeois morality, and to entreat its patience. This masked respect for bourgeois morality seems to me just as repulsive as poking about in sexual matters. However wild and revolutionary the behavior may be, it is still really quite bourgeois. It is, mainly, a hobby of the intellectuals and of the section nearest them. There is no place for it in the Party, in the class conscious, fighting proletariat.And no, I haven't read Freud's works, I'm not interested in psychology.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Lenin thought Freud was "repulsive" due to "poking about in sexual matters"? He opined that there was no place for it in the party or the fighting proletariat? Who made Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov the arbiter of what is allowed to be discussed? I admire the revolutionary aspect to Lenin as a theoretician, but this type of authoritarianism is repulsive.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Lenin thought Freud was "repulsive" due to "poking about in sexual matters"? He opined that there was no place for it in the party or the fighting proletariat? Who made Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov the arbiter of what is allowed to be discussed? I admire the revolutionary aspect to Lenin as a theoretician, but this type of authoritarianism is repulsive.

Actually under the Lenin laws against homosexuality were removed from the legal code (except for certain provinces that were perceived as being too "backward" for such a measure) It was Stalin that reversed these laws. Source: (Damn it I can't link, it was an IMT article)
Additionally Lenin sent Representatives to meet with various members of the gay rights movement, unfortunately I can't find a source for this at the moment.

But long story short, Lenin was not a philistine, he was very open to new sexual ideas and his dismissal of Freud should not be interpreted as a testament to his prudishness.

[Ismail]

Actually under the Lenin laws against homosexuality were removed from the legal code (except for certain provinces that were perceived as being too "backward" for such a measure) It was Stalin that reversed these laws.The reason laws against homosexuality were still enforced in "backward" areas was because it was strongly associated with pedophilia by the population at large, something the Soviet authorities in those areas were seeking to stamp out.

Somewhat similarly, in Albania male homosexuality was seen as promoting patriarchy, whereas female homosexuality was explicitly not a punishable offense in the legal code since, although it was considered "unnatural" (as was male-female "sodomy" which was also not a punishable offense), it had seemingly no class basis to it that the authorities could see.

Homosexuality was made illegal again under Stalin because it became associated with fascism. See: http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/lgbtseries1007.php

For what it's worth the GDR, the most "western" of the Eastern European states, decriminalized homosexuality in 1968 and by the 80's medical officials there were expressing concerns that homosexuals might feel discrimination against them in-re not allowing them blood donations. Plus apparently a state-run gay bar opened up in the late 80's. This is a significant step up from Albanian textbooks which described male-male "sodomy" as "one of the most repulsive remnants of the morality of feudal-bourgeois society."


Additionally Lenin sent Representatives to meet with various members of the gay rights movement, unfortunately I can't find a source for this at the moment.I've never heard that before.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The statement speaks for itself; "repulsive...poking about in sexual matters". The issue of prudishness is secondary IMO. More alarming is the notion that the Great Leader arrogates upon himself the right to decide the validity of matters outside the scope of statecraft. There seems to be a great deal of centralism and precious little democracy in the manner in which Lenin appoints himself the "decider".

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

The statement speaks for itself; "repulsive...poking about in sexual matters". The issue of prudishness is secondary IMO. More alarming is the notion that the Great Leader arrogates upon himself the right to decide the validity of matters outside the scope of statecraft. There seems to be a great deal of centralism and precious little democracy in the manner in which Lenin appoints himself the "decider".

Erm, no the statement doesn't speak for itself. All you are doing is taking a quote out of context and interpreting it to mean something that is contradictory to the facts that me and Ismail have presented.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Perhaps the best thing we can do here is to agree to disagree agreeably.

[Avanti]

strange

that no totalitarian dictatorship

has made bisexual polyamory

and drug usage

compulsive?

maybe there's a connection

between authoritarianism

and prudishness?

[GoddessCleoLover]

The Soviet and Chinese record on sexual matters in rather discouraging. The only good news on that front is that in Cuba Presidente Generalissimo Raul Castro's daughter supports LGBT rights. Nonetheless, I can't bring myself to embrace Presidente Generalissimo Raul Castro as a proletarian revolutionary given what he is doing with regard to privatization.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Holy shit that description of Freud is a profound misrepresentation.
Also, if you're not interested in psychology and have never read anything about it and would rather just ignore an entire social science because Hoxha says nobody should take what you think about it seriously.

[Ismail]

Also, if you're not interested in psychology and have never read anything about it and would rather just ignore an entire social science because Hoxha says nobody should take what you think about it seriously.This is assuming:
A. I was presenting my view of psychology;
B. Freud = psychology.

[Avanti]

The Soviet and Chinese record on sexual matters in rather discouraging. The only good news on that front is that in Cuba Presidente Generalissimo Raul Castro's daughter supports LGBT rights. Nonetheless, I can't bring myself to embrace Presidente Generalissimo Raul Castro as a proletarian revolutionary given what he is doing with regard to privatization.

even conservative west european leaders

support LGBT rights

that's liberal, not totalitarian

a real totalitarian

pro-LGBT tyrant

would make LGBT mandatory

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Sort of a Great Thrust Forward kinda thing, right? http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j99/NoXion604/smiley_eyebrows.gif

[GoddessCleoLover]

Perhaps we ought to avoid going to that extreme and let folks make their own choices.;)

[Avanti]

Perhaps we ought to avoid going to that extreme and let folks make their own choices.;)

of course

the question

is why all historical totalitarians

have been prudes

[GoddessCleoLover]

Mao seems not to have been overly prudish, but Jiang Qing imposed extremely prudish standards on Chinese arts and culture. By the time of Mao's death she was commonly referred to as a "white-boned demon" and paid a heavy price for her tyrannical conduct.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Read Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. The film, "Mystery of the Organism" is interesting as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.R.:_Mysteries_of_the_Organism

[GoddessCleoLover]

Wilhelm Reich was a quite controversial figure in his time. The Mass Psychology of Fascism has for the most part withstood the test of time. Not sure that I can say the same about things like orgone energy and cloudbusting machines, but maybe I am just too narrow-minded.;) On balance I believe that Reich had many serious and valuable insights and the fact that he died in an American Federal prison is a real tragedy.

[Yuppie Grinder]

This is assuming:
A. I was presenting my view of psychology;
B. Freud = psychology.

Your view on everything is the official correct anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist view. You don't have to tell me what it is for me to know.
Also, you don't know jack shit about Freud or Psychology so you're in no position to claim Freud wasn't a Psychologist.
You're a numbskull end of discussion.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Read Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. The film, "Mystery of the Organism" is interesting as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.R.:_Mysteries_of_the_Organism
I haven't seen the film, but I think its important to note that the edition of The Mass Psychology of Fascism that is currently available is only worth reading very, very, critically. The reason why is that after a series of events that lost him his career as a psychoanalyst and his political standing on the left, he eventually renounced Marxism altogether, and sought to omit his former views post-publication. If you choose to read that version, you'll have to dig around a lot in order to get a sense of his ideas.

So there are two versions of that book--the original in German published in 1933 and the butchered English release that he made unrecognizable. I'm still hoping a publisher will be able to translate and release the first edition someday.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Ironically, Reich initially lost his status as Freud's protege because he was a Marxist. First he renounced the Stalin regime, which IMO was proper and principled, and I suppose a poster with the handle MEGAMANTROTSKY would go along with that renunciation;). Later Reich abandoned his Marxist perspective in favor of orgone machines, cloudbusters and other strange and beautiful things. Frankly, there is evidence that Reich's mental condition deteriorated to the point where he suffered from delusions. Not to defend the USA Federal government, but had Reich been in his right mind he would have set up shop in Mexico rather than defy the Feds, given the dubious efficacy of his inventions he really had little chance of prevailing in his quixotic legal battle. A real tragedy, a man who began his career with so much potential ending the way de did. Just sad.

[Ismail]

Also, you don't know jack shit about Freud or Psychology so you're in no position to claim Freud wasn't a Psychologist.

You're a numbskull end of discussion.If I'm a numbskull then you're an illiterate, since I pointed out that Freud does not equal all of psychology, not that he wasn't a psychologist.

And again, your viewpoint is certainly not scientific. It's akin to believers in religions who say you must not only read all their works to "understand" them, but evidently must be in the right "conditions" to "understand" them anyway.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Lenin thought Freud was "repulsive" due to "poking about in sexual matters"? He opined that there was no place for it in the party or the fighting proletariat? Who made Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov the arbiter of what is allowed to be discussed? I admire the revolutionary aspect to Lenin as a theoretician, but this type of authoritarianism is repulsive.

He also said he hated the movie "Titanic" and the Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't that cute.

Freudians in Russia had ties to bolsheviks - including Trotsky - and they operated in the first years of the revolution and their students applied their methods in care facilities. They applied to have official ties to the governement. Later in the Stalin era, Freudianism went out of style and was dennounced as induvidualist ideology.

The Lenin quote:

The extension of Freudian hypotheses seems "educated", even scientific, but it is ignorant, bungling. Freudian theory is the modern fashion. I mistrust the sexual theories of the articles, dissertations, pamphlets, etc., in short, of that particular kind of literature which flourishes luxuriantly in the dirty soil of bourgeois society. I mistrust those who are always contemplating the several questions, like the Indian saint his navel. It seems to me that these flourishing sexual theories which are mainly hypothetical, and often quite arbitrary hypotheses, arise from the personal need to justify personal abnormality or hypertrophy in sexual life before bourgeois morality, and to entreat its patience. This masked respect for bourgeois morality seems to me just as repulsive as poking about in sexual matters. However wild and revolutionary the behaviour may be, it is still really quite bourgeois. It is, mainly, a hobby of the intellectuals and of the sections nearest them. There is no place for it in the Party, in the class-conscious, fighting proletariat

So basically at worst it was haterism. Lenin criticized the focus on sexual matters not because they were sexual matters in this quote, but because he thought it was a meaningless excercize in trying to make sexual behaviors rational in the context of bougois morality. You're gay because something happened to you in your development, rather than just liking intercourse and romantic relationships with people of the same sex.

There was no official comdemnation of Fredian practices or whatnot, in fact Revolutionary Russia, Vienna, and Berlin had the only Freudian schools.

If post-revolutionary Russia later used this quote to justify their restriction of it, then that would fit with the larger program of trying to control sexuality and promote conformity at that time.

[Ravachol]

Hatzel my friend, you need to learn that a personal opinion in a debate over politics is of no worth. All that matters is the political line, and since the line of good comrade Ismail is Marxism-Leninism, his own opinion ( We as Marxists should understand that abstract theoretical knowledge which an individual may build has little worth, and if one values it too much, he will soon go to the waters of bourgeois individualism.) is actually not even needed, because our line is clear about that bourgeois philosopher, and most (Not all, but most.) of the others that are not Marxists - We are not too interested in their theories and we can't gain much from them. Such theory is hostile and to be avoided. Such is the line regarding most kinds of bourgeois thought in the field of philosophy. Reading topics on this forum really makes me wonder do any of the people which write about various subjects here have any actual political expirience, or is it all internet spirit and petty-theory.

wait you weren't being sarcastic? :huh:
I thought you were doing a great impersonation tbh...

[Ismail]

Omsk is correct in what he writes. Look at the example of the Maoists, for instance. Hoxha recalled in his first and only meeting with Mao in 1956 that Mao went on about how Stalin made "mistakes." It was here that Hoxha could see Mao's right-wing, "non-dogmatic" views for the first time. The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was Mao's "non-dogmatism" in action: the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin were negated, the role of the working-class was negated, the Communist Party of China was liquidated in practice, and in the West the "New Communist Movement" looked towards Mao and Co. favorably since his own eclectic policies compared well with the student and intellectual-based "communist" groups which sprung up, with the likes of Sartre, etc.

Nowadays Maoism in this field continues to make itself felt. Groups like Kasama, MSH/LLCO and other "non-dogmatic" entities do nothing and cheer on fellow Maoist movements in the third world which, because of the policies they pursue, can never achieve a proletarian character. All the while in the countries they inhabit, these groups go on about "Stalinism" and "dogmatism" and whatnot, assimilating every ideology on earth into their doctrines.

[ind_com]

Omsk is correct in what he writes. Look at the example of the Maoists, for instance. Hoxha recalled in his first and only meeting with Mao in 1956 that Mao went on about how Stalin made "mistakes." It was here that Hoxha could see Mao's right-wing, "non-dogmatic" views for the first time.

And he never said a word against those right-wing views till China broke with Albania, in terms of trade.


The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was Mao's "non-dogmatism" in action: the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin were negated, the role of the working-class was negated, the Communist Party of China was liquidated in practice, and in the West the "New Communist Movement" looked towards Mao and Co. favorably since his own eclectic policies compared well with the student and intellectual-based "communist" groups which sprung up, with the likes of Sartre, etc.

Nowadays Maoism in this field continues to make itself felt. Groups like Kasama, MSH/LLCO and other "non-dogmatic" entities do nothing and cheer on fellow Maoist movements in the third world which, because of the policies they pursue, can never achieve a proletarian character.

What policies exactly? Why are'nt Hoxhaists doing anything in the third-world to achieve proletarian character themselves?


All the while in the countries they inhabit, these groups go on about "Stalinism" and "dogmatism" and whatnot, assimilating every ideology on earth into their doctrines.

What are Hoxhaist parties doing in the US? Also, let's hear what Hoxhaist parties are doing in Canada?

[Ravachol]

Omsk is correct in what he writes. Look at the example of the Maoists, for instance. Hoxha recalled in his first and only meeting with Mao in 1956 that Mao went on about how Stalin made "mistakes." It was here that Hoxha could see Mao's right-wing, "non-dogmatic" views for the first time. The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was Mao's "non-dogmatism" in action: the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin were negated, the role of the working-class was negated, the Communist Party of China was liquidated in practice, and in the West the "New Communist Movement" looked towards Mao and Co. favorably since his own eclectic policies compared well with the student and intellectual-based "communist" groups which sprung up, with the likes of Sartre, etc.

Nowadays Maoism in this field continues to make itself felt. Groups like Kasama, MSH/LLCO and other "non-dogmatic" entities do nothing and cheer on fellow Maoist movements in the third world which, because of the policies they pursue, can never achieve a proletarian character. All the while in the countries they inhabit, these groups go on about "Stalinism" and "dogmatism" and whatnot, assimilating every ideology on earth into their doctrines.

I'm sorry didn't quite get that, the dust that came out of your mouth got in my ears.

All of this is a little off-topic though, can a mod split this thread?

[ind_com]

I'm sorry didn't quite get that, the dust that came out of your mouth got in my ears.

All of this is a little off-topic though, can a mod split this thread?

Better to make a Hoxhaism versus Maoism thread for these posts. That way we can keep track of the same kind of stupid anti-Maoist posts that keep appearing here and there, mainly by the same person.

[Ismail]

And he never said a word against those right-wing views till China broke with Albania, in terms of trade.The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania sent a number of letters to its counterpart in the Communist Party of China criticizing its policies. A early 60's letter criticized China for its fixation on pressing its border dispute with the Soviets (which the Albanians noted gave ammo to the Soviet revisionists by giving the appearance of China as opposing the Soviets for nationalist reasons.) A letter was sent when the Chinese invited Nixon to visit Beijing. At the 7th Congress of the PLA in 1976 the "Three Worlds Theory" was openly attacked and the Albanians continued their polemics against it to the point that Hua Guofeng wrote an article talking about how it was actually a really totally awesome policy and, when none but the most subservient of the pro-Chinese groups was convinced by that, the Chinese broke off their economic agreements with Albania.


What policies exactly?"Protracted people's war," "New Democracy," etc.


Why are'nt Hoxhaists doing anything in the third-world to achieve proletarian character themselves?There are certainly pro-Albanian parties in the third world, from India to Benin, from Ecuador and Brazil to Colombia.


What are Hoxhaist parties doing in the US? Also, let's hear what Hoxhaist parties are doing in Canada?If you're going to go down that route, the USA never had an influential pro-Albanian party (and, at any rate, the Albanians refused to establish relations with any parties and groups that did pop up there), whereas the CPC-ML, which was pro-Albanian until the 90's, was (and is) generally more influential than the pro-Soviet CPC. Then Hardial Bains decided to do what ol' Maoist Bob Avakian did: transform the party into a cult of personality around himself.

Right now the most prominent Maoist... entity in the USA is an internet group that calls the American worker a capitalist who exploits the third world. There's also the RCPUSA but I doubt you'd be particularly enthused about them, and they certainly aren't that influential.

[Yuppie Grinder]

ITT: Ismail being a homophobia apologist. Homosexuality was associated with pedophilia in the US as well but since America didn't have a dear leader who upheld anti-revisionism their systematic dehumanization of a section of the proletarriat wasn't ok but Stalinist Russia's was.

[Ismail]

ITT: Ismail being a homophobia apologist. Homosexuality was associated with pedophilia in the US as well but since America didn't have a dear leader who upheld anti-revisionism their systematic dehumanization of a section of the proletarriat wasn't ok but Stalinist Russia's was.Khad could discuss this in more detail, but the fact is that homosexuality was associated with class in Central Asia. Obviously it was wrong to do this, but that's why homosexuality was still punished in that region in the 20's whereas in urban areas such as Moscow homosexual behavior was tolerated. You had tribal chieftains creating harems of young boys (and this was tied into misogyny as well.)

The US government didn't think in terms of class, the Soviets did. Standard US response was "oh hey those homos are mentally ill," standard Soviet response until the 60's was "homosexuality is a remnant of the doomed worlds of feudalism and capitalism." (after the 60's homosexuality was just treated as a "mental illness.")

[Yuppie Grinder]

The Stalinists dismissed everything as bourgeois if it meant they could oppress it, from genetics to abstract art. Not a valid argument.
Honestly since you idolize a rape apologist and make excuses for the systematic oppression of a section of the proletariat I don't see why you shouldn't be restricted.

[Ismail]

Honestly since you idolize a rape apologist and make excuses for the systematic oppression of a section of the proletariat I don't see why you shouldn't be restricted.Because "Stalinism" is not a restrictable ideology and hasn't been for years, and every attempt at changing this has resulted in failure.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I am well aware and find that laughable. It was at one time a restrictable ideology?

[Grenzer]

The Soviet condemnation of alternate sexualities is reactionary no matter how you try to look at it. There may be mitigating circumstances that make it more understandable as to why people, even supposedly progressive communists, had reactionary social opinions, but this does not not make it any more acceptable or less worthy of condemnation.

It kind of brings something to mind..



"Our social opinion quite rightly strongly condemned such degenerate 'importations' as long hair, extravagant dress, screaming jungle music, coarse language, shameless behaviour and so on. If the influences and manifestations of the bourgeois-revisionist way of life are not nipped in the bud, they open the way to the corruption and degeneration of people which are so dangerous to the cause of socialism."
(Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. IV. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1982. p. 836.)

[Ismail]

The context of the quote was in the early 70's when a section of the intelligentsia and youth wanted to follow the rest of Eastern Europe by embracing western pop culture, seeking in Albania's denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia a crack in the hole for their efforts. This produced some amusing quotes by Hoxha.

"Why should we turn our country into an inn with doors flung open to pigs and sows, to people with pants on or no pants at all, to the hirsute, long-haired hippies to supplant with their wild orgies the graceful dances of the Albanian people?"
(Enver Hoxha, quoted in Miranda Vickers & James Pettifer. Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity. New York, NY: New York University Press. 2000. p. 119.)

"No, comrades, we cannot and should not follow 'the European road'; on the contrary, it is Europe which should follow our road, because, from the political standpoint, it is far behind us, it is very far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought, and for which our Party fights today." (On the Further Revolutionization of the Party and the Whole Life of the Country, p. 261.)

[Yuppie Grinder]

lol that quote is hilarious
i bet nobody danced with hoxha at prom and because of that he fostered a life long hatred of young people's music

[Omsk]

Actually Hoxha was very popular with his peers, he is often mentioned as the "brightest" and "most hard-working" student. He later became a proffesor, after all.

[Ismail]

Actually Hoxha was very popular with his peers, he is often mentioned as the "brightest" and "most hard-working" student. He later became a proffesor, after all.Well in Albania the term "professor" was used for pretty much any educational position. He was an instructor of French at the Korça school which he had originally attended as a child. But yes, he was popular as a teacher. As a note, according to one former student, "during examinations Hoxha would stand upon his desk to make sure that his students did not cheat." (noted in A. Pipa, Albanian Stalinism, p. 130.)

[Yuppie Grinder]

I wouldn't be surprised if he had that written in everything written about him cuz he was actually a huge dweeb growing up.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Well in Albanian "professor" was used for pretty much any educational position. He was an instructor of French at the Korça school where he had originally attended as a child. But yes, he was popular as a teacher. As a note, according to one former student, "during examinations Hoxha would stand upon his desk to make sure that his students did not cheat." (noted in A. Pipa, Albanian Stalinism, p. 130.)

hahahhaha
you're not making a good argument for a hoxha not being a huge dingus

[Questionable]

Was Enver Hoxha In Fact A Dweeb?: The Most Burning Question Of Our Movement.

[Omsk]

What? He was a good and just man. He wanted his students to learn, not to fool around. He was, after all, in the “Rinia Korcare”.

[Yuppie Grinder]

IDGAF bruh cheat on every test mad blunted

[GoddessCleoLover]

I can readily visualize Enver Hoxha standing on his desk and keeping the cheaters from doing their thing. The quote about "screaming jungle music" causes me to envision the evolution of a strict schoolteacher into the taskmaster for the whole Albanian nation. Not looking to start a flame war, but I think that we all know that Enver Hoxha, were he alive and in power today, would not allow Albanians to participate in the Revleft forum and internet access would either be non-existent or tightly controlled.

[Zukunftsmusik]

jesus christ, who fucking cares about Hoxha. un-derail this thread please.

[Questionable]

I can readily visualize Enver Hoxha standing on his desk and keeping the cheaters from doing their thing. The quote about "screaming jungle music" causes me to envision the evolution of a strict schoolteacher into the taskmaster for the whole Albanian nation. Not looking to start a flame war, but I think that we all know that Enver Hoxha, were he alive and in power today, would not allow Albanians to participate in the Revleft forum and internet access would either be non-existent or tightly controlled.

Yeah, because we all know great individuals like Hoxha mold the nation after their own image.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Not looking to start a flame war, but I think that we all know that Enver Hoxha, were he alive and in power today, would not allow Albanians to participate in the Revleft forum and internet access would either be non-existent or tightly controlled.

who cares, individual opinions don't exist anyway so

EDIT: I mean, what would they discuss? The party line is the truth anyway.

[Omsk]

Just to make this clear, Hoxha was a great student, in fact: In the summer of 1930 he finished his studies at the high school of Korca with excellent marks; in the same year he won a scholarship to attend the faculty of natural sciences at Montepellier in France. He wanted to study philosophy or law. Here he attended the lessons and the conferences of the Association of Workers organized by the French Communist Party.

[Questionable]

Did hoxha even lift?

[Ismail]

Since Paz wondered what Albanian accounts of Hoxha's glorious genius were like, here's an excerpt from Ramiz Alia's 1988 work Our Enver: "Although he worked with books for many hours every day, he had the great ability that he never reasoned in a bookish manner. On the contrary, the more he read and studied, the more his logic of life was strengthened. Marx's adage 'Books are my slave' fits Enver to a T." - p. 202.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Yeah, because we all know great individuals like Hoxha mold the nation after their own image.

they try damn hard to that's for sure
it's impossible to succeed because not being huge nerds is inherit in the revolutionary proletariat

[Omsk]

Did hoxha even lift?


He was fit, and strong, he joined the partisans after all. He was also tall.

[Yuppie Grinder]

He was a pure Aryan. Fit, tall, patriotic, and disciplined.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Just to make this clear, Hoxha was a great student, in fact: In the summer of 1930 he finished his studies at the high school of Korca with excellent marks; in the same year he won a scholarship to attend the faculty of natural sciences at Montepellier in France. He wanted to study philosophy or law. Here he attended the lessons and the conferences of the Association of Workers organized by the French Communist Party.

Who cares? Actually my main problem with you and Ismail isn't that you have a shit ideology and think it's science, but that you keep going on and on and on and on about some old, dead, grumpy dude that no one cares about. I mean, how is your post even relevant to the discussion after it was derailed? No one - seriously, no one - gives a shit whether Hoxha was a good student or not or if he was a good professor or hated jungle music or whatever and it's nowhere near relevant to the thread.

[Zukunftsmusik]

He was fit, and strong, he joined the partisans after all. He was also tall.

I can't believe you even answered that.

Guys, go dig a ditch instead or something. Do something useful.

[Questionable]

He was fit, and strong, he joined the partisans after all. He was also tall.

I honestly didn't expect an answer to that question, but thanks.

[Ostrinski]

I literally cannot laughing at Hoxha calling long hair and "jungle music" revisionist.

That pretty much justifies every half hearted half assed joke made about anti revisionists and their strict doctrinaire ways.

[Grenzer]

Hoxha sounds like a grumpy, out of touch old man.

So long as capitalist social relations exist, so will bourgeois culture. It cannot be abolished by decree or by force of will. Bourgeois culture can only be surpassed by escaping the confines of the bourgeois social structure in which the proletariat as a class has been abolished. Either way you look at it, proletarian culture is impossible(because of the hegemony or the bourgeoisie in the stage of capitalism, and the proletariat's non-existance as a class in the stage of communism).

What is that nationalist rot about "supplanting" national culture? Let culture be "vulgarized", let things take on a international, cosmopolitan character as they will! Things adapt and change: what's worth being kept will be synthesized, what sucks will be lost. That's the way things have worked for thousands of years so I don't see the point in crystalizing culture into some stagnant, eternal principles. Seems kind of utopian and reactionary to me.

[Ismail]

What is that nationalist rot about "supplanting" national culture? Let culture be "vulgarized", let things take on a international, cosmopolitan character as they will! Things adapt and change: what's worth being kept will be synthesized, what sucks will be lost. That's the way things have worked for thousands of years so I don't see the point in crystalizing culture into some stagnant, eternal principles. Seems kind of utopian and reactionary to me.The concern was that national culture was being supplanted by lameness. The government had no problem getting rid of "national culture" which was reactionary; Gjergj Fishta, considered Albania's greatest writer pre-1944 and post-1991, had his works banned by the government due to their religious, anti-communist and all-around reactionary nature.

As Hoxha noted in 1965, "But there is an important question we should always bear in mind. that the emphasis laid an the values of the past of our people should not create even the slightest confusion in the minds of the people of our time of socialism. It is our duty to cleanse the treasures of our national culture of their bad aspects, and these treasures should serve the socialist order we are building. We should bring out very clearly those things which help and not those which hinder the development of our society today. The aim of the Party is to create new values. Our revolution demands new heroes appropriate to the time, the efforts, and the aims of our period. Not all the deeds and attitudes of the heroes of our people's past are in conformity with the requirements and ideals of the people of our epoch." (Selected Works Vol. III, pp. 842-843.)

Also it's not like all Albanian music in the 50's-80's was "national," e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrF-tmGKUOk&t=0m23s

[Yuppie Grinder]

"If I cant have revisionist jungle music, I don't want your revolution."
mL2Bgj-za5k
go dumb

[Ostrinski]

Man how are long hair and "jungle music" (such a racist term) lame? Beats the shit out of walking around singing party hymns.

[Ismail]

Man how are long hair and "jungle music" (such a racist term) lame? Beats the shit out of walking around singing party hymns.* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63vTsyHohLQ (mainstream music, Albanian style)
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycNDDqY0tw (national music)

Not exactly party hymns.

[Yuppie Grinder]

o rly because it says communist propaganda in the title
also i can't dance to it at all so fuck it

[Ismail]

o rly because it says communist propaganda in the title
also i can't dance to it at all so fuck itThe "national music" one praises Hoxha in a lyric or two but mostly it's about how new Albania is awesome.

FYI this was popular Soviet music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjwL3mFW5aA&feature=related (Dean Reed was an American singer who went to South America, saw poverty, became a "communist," and spent the rest of his life in the GDR; he was one of the most popular singers in the Eastern Bloc)

And 80's GDR music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6YQ3VUg9AE

[Zukunftsmusik]

It makes me feel guilty but I actually think that first video is somewhat catchy.

I also think Ismail's posting of youtube videos to defend Hoxha illustrates very well the intellectual level of this thread.

Oh, and here's the top comment on that second video:

The title of the song is " Albania Celebrate" ! How's that propaganda?
Yes, there is mention of Enver Hoxha.. so what ?
This is the best of nothern albania folklore and tradition. We should celebrate it even if it was created under Hoxha. We can call Hoxha many names, but we can't deny his love and hard work for the albania folklore.
One of few things he did right!

I think this sums it up perfectly.

[GoddessCleoLover]

While I am glad that Enver Hoxha valued traditional Albanian folkloric traditions the ban on "screaming jungle music" was the type of petty tyranny that all too often characterized 20th century post-revolutionary states.

[Ismail]

I think this sums it up perfectly.Do not fear, for all his work to oversee the popularization of folklore and other forms of traditional cultural expression (this was pretty much the only way Albanian culture expressed itself until the 50's), he's called a "traitor" by right-wingers in modern-day Albania over the Kosovo issue and for adhering to a "Slav ideology."

[GoddessCleoLover]

FYI this was popular Soviet music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjwL3mFW5aA&feature=related (Dean Reed was an American singer who went to South America, saw poverty, became a "communist," and spent the rest of his life in the GDR; he was one of the most popular singers in the Eastern Bloc)

And 80's GDR music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6YQ3VUg9AE

Was Dean Reed's music available in Albania during the Enver Hoxha years? Not Hoxha-baiting, I am genuinely curious to know.

[Ismail]

Was Dean Reed's music available in Albania during the Enver Hoxha years? Not Hoxha-baiting, I am genuinely curious to know.No. Jazz was also banned in the early 70's since most of its promoters were associated with the efforts to "open up" Albanian culture to the standard of other East European states.

You can read 'bout Reed here: http://www.deanreed.de/presse/colo1999winter.html

Another song by him (a cover of an election song for Allende's campaign; Allende actually credited Reed with helping him win the election since he was a huge celebrity in South America at the time and campaigned for him): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj7VlmS1Rz0

[hetz]

North Korean music is a million times better. Just sayin'.

[hatzel]

What's the correct communist stance on psytrance?

[Ravachol]

I'm glad revleft is a forum for productive, relevant discussion of revolutionary theory.

[Ismail]

I'm glad revleft is a forum for productive, relevant discussion of revolutionary theory.So am I.

The revolutionary theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as carried forward by Enver Hoxha.

[GoddessCleoLover]

No. Jazz was also banned in the early 70's since most of its promoters were associated with the efforts to "open up" Albanian culture to the standard of other East European states.

You can read 'bout Reed here: http://www.deanreed.de/presse/colo1999winter.html

Another song by him (a cover of an election song for Allende's campaign; Allende actually credited Reed with helping him win the election since he was a huge celebrity in South America at the time and campaigned for him): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj7VlmS1Rz0

Thanks for the link Ismail. I vaguely recall Dean Reed, but definitely recall Venceremos as performed by a great Chilean revolutionary who was murdered by the fascists, Victor Jara.

Aren't you troubled by the fact that Albania banned even politically leftist music?

[Zukunftsmusik]

So am I.

The revolutionary theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as carried forward by Enver Hoxha.

Which he carried forward by being strong, fit, tall and disciplined and by banning jungle music.

Hoxha is a joke.

[Ismail]

Thanks for the link Ismail. I vaguely recall Dean Reed, but definitely recall Venceremos as performed by a great Chilean revolutionary who was murdered by the fascists, Victor Jara.

Aren't you troubled by the fact that Albania banned even politically leftist music?Jara was one of Reed's personal friends and Reed even portrayed him in an East German film about his life. His murder by Pinochet's men apparently was the event which made Reed renounce pacifism.

Reed was an apologist for Soviet revisionism and much of his music was literally US pop chart songs covered by him so it's not surprising that he would be banned in Albania.

And now another Hoxha quote, this time in his diary in 1977 'bout China allying with reactionaries.

"The news agencies report that the chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, together with a group of other comrades of the Central Committee of the Party, has been arrested by the dictator Marcos. The Communist Party of the Philippines is a militant party but it is being completely sabotaged by the Chinese revisionists. Why should the murderer Marcos not do such a thing when Mao Tsetung himself had established close links with the executioners of the Communist Party of the Philippines? The dictator Marcos and his beautiful wife, with her dress cut so low that her tits almost hung out, were received two or three times in audience by Mao. They were praised and congratulated by him and sought close and sincere friendship with Mao Tsetung and China. And Mao gave them his hand." (Reflections on China Vol. II, p. 716.)

[Questionable]

The dictator Marcos and his beautiful wife, with her dress cut so low that her tits almost hung out, were received two or three times in audience by Mao. They were praised and congratulated by him and sought close and sincere friendship with Mao Tsetung and China. And Mao gave them his hand."

Hoxha had a very poetic way of saying things.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Ismail have you ever smoked weed
also what do you think of hip hop and motown

[hetz]

Wait, did he actually write "tits"?
:laugh:

[Ismail]

Wait, did he actually write "tits"?
:laugh:Yes he did.

Another thing in his diary, from 1971:

"Khrushchev did many base things, openly and under cover, but he publicized his meetings. The meeting of Chou En-lai with Kissinger had to take the course it did, because this is how it began, in great secrecy, but when it ended 'with success' and the world was given the 'glad tidings', the Chinese had no way to hide it from us. Irrespective of the great shame, which they never felt, because secret negotiations have been going on for a long time, irrespective that only when it became a fait accompli they told us of it, the information of Chou En-lai which was given to us shows their revisionist opportunist line, shows their lack of logic and argument, shows their desire for rapprochement with the Americans, and their lame attempts to conceal this desire. This information brings up weak arguments in order to forestall correct principled criticisms which will be made and, finally, all their arguments are based on an incorrect, very weak political analysis, supported with false reasoning to justify this shitty thing they did." (Reflections on China Vol. I, p. 564.)


Ismail have you ever smoked weed
also what do you think of hip hop and motown1. No.
2 and 3. Fine.

[hatzel]

also what do you think of hip hop and motown

Probably too 'jazzy,' if you know what I mean...

[Ravachol]

Ismail what were Hoxha's thoughts on freebasing cocaine?

[Ismail]

Ismail what were Hoxha's thoughts on freebasing cocaine?Hoxha died before the crack epidemic got underway, but he did write that, "Our young people have no need of drugs to escape from reality." :D

[Ravachol]

Hoxha died before the crack epidemic got underway, but he did write that, "Our young people have no need of drugs to escape from reality." :D

Yeah I suppose Hoxhaism sufficed.

[Ismail]

Yeah I suppose Hoxhaism sufficed.Muho Asllani, one of Hoxha's associates and a defender of him to this day, said in an interview back in January that, "Homosexuality, drugs, AIDS and other developments had never been the subject of discussion, as they were all unknown to us. Indeed, I was surprised when I learned that hashish was a kind of drug, because it was used by our grandmothers to get children to sleep."

[Ostrinski]

Apparently Hoxhaism also provided their potassium?

;) if you know what I mean.

[hatzel]

Hey people can we maybe start a 'what Hoxha thought about stuff' thread in chit-chat and ask all these questions there, so that this thread can get back to the important discussion of...ah...whatever was happening on page 6, I forget...?

[JoeySteel]

And 80's GDR music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6YQ3VUg9AE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu9-SQ5W3sM Gotta admit Oktoberklub was pretty awesome though

[Yuppie Grinder]

Ismail you should try weed and revisionist jungle music it'll probably cure you of your stalinism._

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Hey people can we maybe start a 'what Hoxha thought about stuff' thread in chit-chat and ask all these questions there, so that this thread can get back to the important discussion of...ah...whatever was happening on page 6, I forget...?
Well, we briefly veered into psychoanalysis and Freudo-Marxism...then Lenin's position on Freud was clarified...sexual life and what was considered bourgeois... (maybe not necessarily in that order) and then I kept seeing Enver Hoxha everywhere from post #182. I don't know much about him, but it seems his proponents are now fetishizing him in this thread in an attempt to permanently derail it.

[hatzel]

I don't know much about him, but it seems his proponents are now fetishizing him

That's literally everything you really need to know about Hoxha, actually...

[ind_com]

The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania sent a number of letters to its counterpart in the Communist Party of China criticizing its policies. A early 60's letter criticized China for its fixation on pressing its border dispute with the Soviets (which the Albanians noted gave ammo to the Soviet revisionists by giving the appearance of China as opposing the Soviets for nationalist reasons.) A letter was sent when the Chinese invited Nixon to visit Beijing. At the 7th Congress of the PLA in 1976 the "Three Worlds Theory" was openly attacked and the Albanians continued their polemics against it to the point that Hua Guofeng wrote an article talking about how it was actually a really totally awesome policy and, when none but the most subservient of the pro-Chinese groups was convinced by that, the Chinese broke off their economic agreements with Albania.

And then came Hoxha's grand work of dogmato-revisionism. Along with him cozying up to the USSR and Europe.


"Protracted people's war," "New Democracy," etc.

As opposed to Hoxhaist parties only participating in bourgeois electoral politics and never daring to take arms against capitalism anywhere today.


There are certainly pro-Albanian parties in the third world, from India to Benin, from Ecuador and Brazil to Colombia.

Definitely. But they do nothing significant.


If you're going to go down that route, the USA never had an influential pro-Albanian party (and, at any rate, the Albanians refused to establish relations with any parties and groups that did pop up there), whereas the CPC-ML, which was pro-Albanian until the 90's, was (and is) generally more influential than the pro-Soviet CPC. Then Hardial Bains decided to do what ol' Maoist Bob Avakian did: transform the party into a cult of personality around himself.

And since that one party was gone, there has been no other Hoxhaist parties. In Canada Maoists are doing pretty well.


Right now the most prominent Maoist... entity in the USA is an internet group that calls the American worker a capitalist who exploits the third world. There's also the RCPUSA but I doubt you'd be particularly enthused about them, and they certainly aren't that influential.

Not true. Maoists following the PPW line outnumber Maoist Third-Worldists in the USA.

[Ismail]

And then came Hoxha's grand work of dogmato-revisionism. Along with him cozying up to the USSR and Europe.He did neither. To quote Hoxha at the 8th Congress of the PLA in 1981, "With the United States of America and the Soviet Union, which are the most ferocious enemies of the freedom and independence of the peoples and of peace and security in the world, our country does not maintain and will not maintain any relations. As in the past, we shall always continue our resolute struggle for the exposure of their aggressive and hegemonic policy and activity." (Selected Works Vol. VI, p. 420.)

Every year after 1968 or so the Soviets offered to restore diplomatic relations with Albania. This was refused every time up until 1990. Albania's foreign policy line clearly demonstrated that it followed its own path.

As for "cozying up" with Europe, I don't know what you mean by that. Albania was the only country which refused to sign and in fact denounced the Helsinki Accords, refused to engage in bilateral conferences on "European security," and certainly didn't accept foreign investment and other means to undermine Albania's socialist construction, since such means were explicitly prohibited in the 1976 Constitution.

Albania improved its trade relations with a number of Western and Eastern European states. I don't think anyone will find this to have been an incorrect policy. Under Ramiz Alia a right-wing policy began to be pursued; in 1988 Albania changed its position on participating in "European security" conferences and Alia declared that East Germany was actually "socialist" all along and that the Albanians were mistaken about it.


Not true. Maoists following the PPW line outnumber Maoist Third-Worldists in the USA.You're giving me a choice between persons who say they need to wage a "protracted people's war" in the USA and Canada and those who say that the American, Canadian, and all the Western European's countries' proletarians are actually capitalists.