Where are the modern Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, etc?

[RedMaterialist]

Have revolutionary socialists finally been made invisible? It's like Marx had been given a position at the University of Berlin and then never heard from again.

Take Howard Zinn for example. He probably never uttered a single revolutionary word in his life.

I was reading Gramsci last night; he said that Trotsky's theory of the Permanent Revolution had been disproved. Maybe it has turned into the permanent underground revolution; or even worse, the permanent liberal bourgeoise state.

[Let's Get Free]

It's been said that Chairman Bob Avakian is the modern day American Lenin.

[The Idler]

Noam Chomsky, David Graeber etc.

[Hermes]

I think, for the most part, there's a feeling that since Marx/Engels/Lenin/etc have already laid out all of the theory, the only thing left to do is to distribute it and watch class consciousness rise. People don't see any need of an analysis of their society (or someone else's, I suppose) because it's practically already been done, and would just be repetitive.

(this is probably wrong, though)

[l'Enfermé]

Noam Chomsky, David Graeber etc.
Yeah, don't kid yourself.

OP: Revolutionary socialists are not invisible, we're merely nearly-extinct.

[Q]

I'm right here, thanks for asking.

But yeah, movement-wise we're back to a period before the Gotha unification. That is to say, we've been thrown back ~150 years to a period where one cannot really speak of a working class movement as a class-for-itself.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Camila Vallejo perhaps?

[prolcon]

Camila Vallejo perhaps?

Seconded. I'd be happy to call her Premier Vallejo any day.



But yeah, movement-wise we're back to a period before the Gotha unification. That is to say, we've been thrown back ~150 years to a period where one cannot really speak of a working class movement as a class-for-itself.

I agree with the above. After the failure of the great socialist revolutions of the last century to put an end to bourgeois political hegemony, leftists around the world have allowed questions of theory to impede their endeavors.

[ellipsis]

Zizek and Cornell west are the first names to pop into my head.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Marx....David Harvey
Engels... Callinocos

Dietzgen... Slavoj Zizek

Eduard Bernstein... Chris Hedges

Lenin...Boots Riley

Trotsky..Peter Taafe

Duhring...Micheal Albert

[Leftsolidarity]

It's been said that Chairman Bob Avakian is the modern day American Lenin.

I came to post this and I'm happy to see that it was the first reply.

There are people who ideologically influence the movement today.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

There are no new messiahs because there weren't any bloody messiahs in the first place. While influential, figures like Lenin and Trotsky played a much smaller role in a very large and diverse worker's movement. The bloody personality cults started afterwords (Lenin wasn't even in Russia during the revolution, for pete's sake!).

Anyone with their two-cents about Communism is a 'new lenin'. Thinking that a heroic badboy will come along and whip out all the answers is ludicrous. There are many leftist writers who, while having abhorrent politics on one end, are very well versed in their history, economics, etc. Take a look at them - information can never be completely original, so keep a critical and open mind when approaching subjects; being either a philistine or a sponge will get you nowhere and leave you very disappointed. This is from personal experience.


Fuck it. I'm tired and raving again.

[Sea]

It's been said that Chairman Bob Avakian is the modern day American Lenin.Tendency bashing?

Tendency bashing.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Tendency bashing?

Tendency bashing.
Bob Avakian's a nutjob though! He's not even a Communist! He's the stellar dictator of Maoism's new Boulder Synthesis!

[Let's Get Free]

Bob Avakian's a nutjob though! He's not even a Communist! He's the stellar dictator of Maoism's new Boulder Synthesis!

Bob Avakian is the glorious leader of the oppressed masses. It's hard to overstate the importance of Marxism-Avakianism to revolutionary theory.

[GoddessCleoLover]

IMO Bob Avakian started out as an honest revolutionary back in the late 60s, although even then he had an unhealthy fascination with the Black Panther Party. The Panthers did some great things, but there were serious problems both theoretical as well as in practice (infighting, false accusations). By the time of the founding of the RCPUSA back in '75 it was apparent to folks who were then politically active that the RCPUSA was promoting Avakian as a Great Leader/American Lenin. In the wake of the split with the RWHq and the pseudo-insurrectionary actions surrounding May Day 1980 it became clear that the RCPUSA had detached itself from reality. Since then it has totally devolved into a cult of BA's personality.:(

[Jimmie Higgins]

Short answer: revolutionary figures don't make revolutionary times, revolutionary times produce revolutionary figures.

Lenin or Marx or any number of other figures did what they were able to do, in part, because they were radicals in certain points of development of capitalism and class struggle. Looking at, participating in, and learning from the movements and upheavals of their day helped them draw whatever insights they did.

But we have lived in a very long period of hidden class struggle, low class consciousness, and a generation-long ruling class attack on workers. And frankly in terms of radical theory, this has produced a lot of pessimistic and fairly useless theory (post-whatevers).


Have revolutionary socialists finally been made invisible? It's like Marx had been given a position at the University of Berlin and then never heard from again.With the decline of the new-left and the rise of neoliberalism there was a backlash against radical ideas and so universities became where the new-leftovers could go and still research US imperialism or capitalism in the absence of social movements.


Take Howard Zinn for example. He probably never uttered a single revolutionary word in his life. Apples and Oranges; he and Chomsky and so on were part of larger waves or radicalization - Zinn in NYC among the radicals of the early 40s, Chomsky by the anti-war movement, etc. They are what they are and are notable for being historians, writers, not for being revolutionaries. When were there notable revolutionaries in the US? During the era of the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, etc - these are figures who became know not because they happen to have a radical analysis of such and such and can be "the radical voice" in a larger non-radical field (historians, academics) but they gained a high profile for being revolutionaries.

[Ostrinski]

We don't any heroes.

[Yuppie Grinder]

The most modern theory I've read is the stuff on the ICC website and Nihilist Communism. I'm about to cop the coming insurrection and whatever tiqqun stuff I can find. Before that the oldest shit I'm into reading is Cammatte and Angela Davis.

[Leftsolidarity]

Sam Marcy

(waiting for the cries against "Marcyism")

[RedMaterialist]

Short answer: revolutionary figures don't make revolutionary times, revolutionary times produce revolutionary figures.



You seem to be saying that we do not live in revolutionary times.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

we're merely nearly-extinct.

I can honestly say I do not know any revolutionary socialists, but I do know anarchists.

It is like all socialists in Portugal are either stalinists, party fanatics, or social-democrats.


You seem to be saying that we do not live in revolutionary times.

I am a revolutionary figure, as are you, and as is everyone in this website. It is the revolutionaries who matter, not their leaders.

[Let's Get Free]

Yeah, I don't think there needs to be a great Lenin or a great Trotsky or a great Mao or a great whoever to lead the ignorant masses toward socialism.

"A social revolution . . . does not occur at the head of a master with a ready-made theory, or at the dictate of a prophet. A truly organic revolution is a product of universal life, and although it has its messengers and executors it is really not the work of any one person."

The revolution must be conducted from below and not from above. Once the revolutionary crisis is over social reconstruction should be the task of the popular masses themselves.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I wholeheartedly endorse Gladiator's post.