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skitty
25th January 2013, 01:08
I just heard Angela speak and I adore her. Very warm, with bigger-than-life presence. I bought her latest: "The Meaning of Freedom"; and am about halfway through. It's a collection of prior talks and covers a lot of topics that she re-visited.
http://truth-out.org/video/item/14072-angela-davis-now-that-obama-has-a-second-term-no-more-subordination-to-presidential-agendas

Her main focus at the moment seems to be the prison-industrial complex and prison abolition:
http://criticalresistance.org/

Ostrinski
25th January 2013, 01:19
Yeah Angela has written some good stuff. Women, Race, and Class and Women, Culture, and Politics were good introductory texts to feminism and feminism from a socialist perspective for me.

RedHal
25th January 2013, 23:38
she's drunk on Obamalaid

GiantMonkeyMan
26th January 2013, 00:08
Yeah, Davis is cool. Though the only thing I've read of hers is 'Are Prisons Obsolete?' which I thought was a brilliant book.

skitty
26th January 2013, 00:15
she's drunk on Obamalaid

A few days ago she wasn't shy about critisizing Obama.

Ostrinski
26th January 2013, 00:18
She's become extremely more moderate in recent decades. She's not the staunch communist she used to be, being a Communist Party politician and getting her phd at Humboldt and all.

skitty
26th January 2013, 00:37
She's become extremely more moderate in recent decades. She's not the staunch communist she used to be, being a Communist Party politician and getting her phd at Humboldt and all.

If we could look decades into the future I wonder how many of these Revlefters'll still be fire-breathers:rolleyes:? And "Dr." Davis does take some getting used to....

bad ideas actualised by alcohol
26th January 2013, 00:45
If we could look decades into the future I wonder how many of these Revlefters'll still be fire-breathers:rolleyes:? And "Dr." Davis does take some getting used to....

Doesn't mean your politics have to become worse.

skitty
26th January 2013, 01:11
Doesn't mean your politics have to become worse.
Agreed, absolutely. In her case I know she left CPUSA; but I can't fault her for that. And she still spends time on the street getting involved in different things-she was headed somewhere this weekend.

RedHal
26th January 2013, 01:43
Agreed, absolutely. In her case I know she left CPUSA; but I can't fault her for that. And she still spends time on the street getting involved in different things-she was headed somewhere this weekend.

Perhaps another Obama rally? She fully endorsed Obama, and not because of "lesser evilism". Her current politics are shit! How could a former radical such as herself, spew nonsense like: "Barack Obama is a man who identifies with the Black radical tradion" lol wut?
http://blackagendareport.com/content/angela-davis-lost-her-mind-over-obama

It's obvious she didn't leave the CPUSA because of their rightward turn towards the Democrats.

And it's not unusual for liberals to criticize Obama, even Michael Moore criticizes Obama regularly but fully endorses him.

skitty
26th January 2013, 01:55
Perhaps another Obama rally? She fully endorsed Obama, and not because of "lesser evilism". Her current politics are shit! How could a former radical such as herself, spew nonsense like: "Barack Obama is a man who identifies with the Black radical tradion" lol wut?
http://blackagendareport.com/content/angela-davis-lost-her-mind-over-obama

It's obvious she didn't leave the CPUSA because of their rightward turn towards the Democrats.

And it's not unusual for liberals to criticize Obama, even Michael Moore criticizes Obama regularly but fully endorses him.


OOPS! And I forgot to say that I had lost track of her from about 1970-to-this week!

Ostrinski
26th January 2013, 02:05
If we could look decades into the future I wonder how many of these Revlefters'll still be fire-breathers:rolleyes:? And "Dr." Davis does take some getting used to....Hey, no need to get confrontational. Just because one gets older does not mean they will necessarily sell out (though that is certainly a possibility for many of us).

skitty
26th January 2013, 02:10
Hey, no need to get confrontational. Just because one gets older does not mean they will necessarily sell out (though that is certainly a possibility for many of us).
That was my way of agreeing with you:).

Prometeo liberado
26th January 2013, 03:14
Anyone who can play second fiddle to Gus Hall without laughing is a person to be skeptical of. Then again many of her speeches and writings are very inspiring. Hmm, she must be human.

Edit: Did she ever have politics of action that equaled her politics of speeches and writtings?

Overture
26th January 2013, 06:56
Angela Davis is a petit-bourgeois liberal who so-called Leftists uphold as some sort of celebrity. She has a commitment to single issue politics (prison abolition and lgbt) and reformism. She's also a founding member of CCDAS which is a "democratic socialist" organization that takes annual trips to Vietnam, if that tells you anything.

Art Vandelay
26th January 2013, 15:57
Anyone who can play second fiddle to Gus Hall without laughing is a person to be skeptical of. Then again many of her speeches and writings are very inspiring. Hmm, she must be human.

Edit: Did she ever have politics of action that equaled her politics of speeches and writtings?

She worked closely with the black panthers in the 60-70's.

Her musings on the use of violence have always fascinated me.

brigadista
26th January 2013, 17:10
have some respect !!

she was Americas most wanted for a long time and had to go underground - she has credentials-

she knows about being a prisoner and is active on that issue -

I had the privilege to meet her in 2009 ..

Women Race and Class is as relevant today as when she wrote it

Ismail
27th January 2013, 00:14
She's become extremely more moderate in recent decades. She's not the staunch communist she used to be, being a Communist Party politician and getting her phd at Humboldt and all.She was never a "staunch communist," she was a firm supporter of the CPUSA and praised the social-imperialist USSR, the "consumer socialist" GDR, etc. Then after 1989 she became a member of the "Committees of Correspondence," which was a liberal split from the CPUSA when it wasn't fashionable to uphold Soviet revisionism anymore.

She was "socialist" in the same sense as Bill Ayers and other 60's "radicals." This does not mean she cannot write interesting works, but her "communism" was superficial.

Ostrinski
27th January 2013, 00:23
She was never a "staunch communist," she was a firm supporter of the CPUSA and praised the social-imperialist USSR, the "consumer socialist" GDR, etc. Then after 1989 she became a member of the "Committees of Correspondence," which was a liberal split from the CPUSA when it wasn't fashionable to uphold Soviet revisionism anymore.

She was "socialist" in the same sense as Bill Ayers and other 60's "radicals." This does not mean she cannot write interesting works, but her "communism" was superficial.Yeah my mistake. She was only as staunch a communist as one could have been past the 1920's and especially past the dissolution of the Comintern within the official Communist Parties.

Ostrinski
27th January 2013, 00:24
have some respect !!

she was Americas most wanted for a long time and had to go underground - she has credentials-

she knows about being a prisoner and is active on that issue -

I had the privilege to meet her in 2009 ..

Women Race and Class is as relevant today as when she wrote itWho's being disrespectful?

Ismail
27th January 2013, 00:26
Yeah my mistake. She was only as staunch a communist as one could have been past the 1920's and especially past the dissolution of the Comintern within the official Communist Parties.There were "hardliners" in the CPUSA who were not too happy about Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" and aspects of so-called "communist construction" in the USSR afterwards, so no, she was never as "staunch as she could have been" or whatever. She was basically a liberal riding on the coattails of the USSR's "struggle for peaceful coexistence," the "many roads to socialism," the "struggle against the cult of the individual" and other anti-Marxist measures which Khrushchev, Brezhnev and their successors initiated to build bridges between the revisionist parties and Western millionaires, social-democrats and liberals.

Ostrinski
27th January 2013, 00:31
There were "hardliners" in the CPUSA who were not too happy about Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" and aspects of so-called "communist construction" in the USSR afterwards, so no, she was never as "staunch as she could have been" or whatever. She was basically a liberal riding on the coattails of the USSR's "struggle for peaceful coexistence," the "many roads to socialism," the "struggle against the cult of the individual" and other anti-Marxist measures which Khrushchev, Brezhnev and their successors initiated to build bridges between the revisionist parties and Western millionaires, social-democrats and liberals.Meh. It's all about perspective, then, I suppose. She's just as much a communist to me as any other Stalinist whether hardline or not, with all due respect.

Ismail
27th January 2013, 00:35
Meh. It's all about perspective, then, I suppose. She's just as much a communist to me as any other Stalinist whether hardline or not, with all due respect.Such is the logic of people who see the line of Lenin and Stalin as continuous with that of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Tito, the Kims, Castro, and other revisionists.

Rafiq
27th January 2013, 13:20
Such is the logic of people who see the line of Lenin and Stalin as continuous with that of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Tito, the Kims, Castro, and other revisionists.

Whatever line that existed from Lenin to Stalin was one of desperate tragedy.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol
27th January 2013, 13:21
She worked closely with the black panthers in the 60-70's.

Her musings on the use of violence have always fascinated me.

Is this stuff on violence available online?

Prometeo liberado
27th January 2013, 15:45
Whatever line that existed from Lenin to Stalin was one of desperate tragedy.

What took so long? I haven't been privy to a Rafiq/Ismail exchange for far to long. Go at it fellas.

Popcorn anyone?

Rafiq
27th January 2013, 17:52
What took so long? I haven't been privy to a Rafiq/Ismail exchange for far to long. Go at it fellas.

Popcorn anyone?

I've been offline for a while. Crazy shit going on here that I need to sort out. I'll be back soon, though. Soon..

Ismail
27th January 2013, 19:06
Whatever line that existed from Lenin to Stalin was one of desperate tragedy.Stalin was but a pupil of Lenin, in Stalin's own words. He carried forward Lenin's theories against the distortions of Trotsky, Bukharin, and others. Of course the Soviet revisionists, Trotskyists, and others wanted to separate Lenin and Stalin just as the Eurocommunists and "humanists" wanted to separate Marx and Engels and contrast the "young" Marx with the "older" Marx, etc.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol
27th January 2013, 19:11
Stalin was but a pupil of Lenin, in Stalin's own words. He carried forward Lenin's theories against the distortions of Trotsky, Bukharin, and others. Of course the Soviet revisionists, Trotskyists, and others wanted to separate Lenin and Stalin just as the Eurocommunists and "humanists" wanted to separate Marx and Engels and contrast the "young" Marx with the "older" Marx, etc.

God forbid people ever changing, right?

Ismail
27th January 2013, 19:16
God forbid people ever changing, right?The attempts to sever Stalin from Lenin, or Engels from Marx, can be compared to the attempts by Kautsky to turn Marx into a liberal (i.e. sever his work from Lenin) in order to unite Marx and his work with the social-patriotism and opportunism of the SPD leadership. Likewise the efforts of the Soviet revisionists to "return to Leninism" after Stalin's death, the Eurocommunists pushing for the image of the "humanist" Marx fixated mainly on alienation, etc. had the effect of allowing the promotion of all sorts of opportunist and anti-Marxist views and actions.

It is also rather amusing that a self-described "orthodox Marxist" is trying to insinuate "dogmatism."

Art Vandelay
28th January 2013, 20:25
The attempts to sever Stalin from Lenin, or Engels from Marx, can be compared to the attempts by Kautsky to turn Marx into a liberal (i.e. sever his work from Lenin) in order to unite Marx and his work with the social-patriotism and opportunism of the SPD leadership. Likewise the efforts of the Soviet revisionists to "return to Leninism" after Stalin's death, the Eurocommunists pushing for the image of the "humanist" Marx fixated mainly on alienation, etc. had the effect of allowing the promotion of all sorts of opportunist and anti-Marxist views and actions.

It is also rather amusing that a self-described "orthodox Marxist" is trying to insinuate "dogmatism."

What's humorous is you mistaking the 'orthodox' in 'orthodox Marxism' for some form of dogmatism or inflexibility in views, rather then an adherence to the Marxist paradigm.

Edit: 'Leninism' was a term invented after the death of Lenin and only exists in the minds of those who don't understand the man's views. He was an orthodox Marxist until his death, following in the line of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov and Kautsky, among others.

brigadista
28th January 2013, 20:55
thought this thread was about Angela Davis....:rolleyes:

Ismail
28th January 2013, 21:00
Edit: 'Leninism' was a term invented after the death of Lenin and only exists in the minds of those who don't understand the man's views. He was an orthodox Marxist until his death, following in the line of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov and Kautsky, among others.The same Kautsky who called for the defense of the German "fatherland" in WWI, advocated armed intervention against Soviet Russia, and ended his days as an anti-communist? The same Plekhanov who was aloof from the October Revolution? It was precisely the Second International and its parties which held high the banner of "orthodox Marxism" against the "Asiatic," "Slavic," "anti-Marxist" etc. tenets of Bolshevism, and sought to justify the defense of capitalism and the crushing of the world's first proletarian state on such a basis.

Why did it take over 80 years after Lenin died for some guy (Lars Lih) and some internet guys (DNZ, you, etc.) to find out that everyone else was wrong all along and that Lenin was actually "continuing" a line wherein two of its persons would rather not have seen the October Revolution?

Art Vandelay
28th January 2013, 21:10
The same Kautsky who called for the defense of the German "fatherland" in WWI, advocated armed intervention against Soviet Russia, and ended his days as an anti-communist? The same Plekhanov who was aloof from the October Revolution? It was precisely the Second International and its parties which held high the banner of "orthodox Marxism" against the "Asiatic," "Slavic," "anti-Marxist" etc. tenets of Bolshevism, and sought to justify the defense of capitalism and the crushing of the world's first proletarian state on such a basis.

Why do you feel this is a point in your favor, when 'orthodox Marxists' concede that these people renegaded on their past Marxist convictions?


Why did it take over 80 years after Lenin died for some guy (Lars Lih) and some internet guys (DNZ, you, etc.) to find out that everyone else was wrong all along and that Lenin was actually "continuing" a line wherein two of its persons would rather not have seen the October Revolution?

Because the Communist movement hasn't had its shit together for a very very long time. It fell prey to a reactionary historical epoch, mistranslations and interpretations, sectarianism, political murders, etc. Its really not hard to understand why, as we are just now re-entering into a revolutionary period in history and for the first time in a while there exists a real possibility of a communist movement being built, Marxists would be re-evaluating the past and attempting to see where things went wrong.

Ismail
28th January 2013, 21:23
Why do you feel this is a point in your favor, when 'orthodox Marxists' concede that these people renegaded on their past Marxist convictions?For reasons similar to those of Dubček ("socialism with a human face") becoming an avowed social-democrat and upholding Sweden late in life, and Gorbachev denouncing "Stalinism" and carrying forward the banner of "Marxist humanism" and a "(true) return to Leninism" only to... wind up in the same position as Dubček.

Because believe it or not, both Kautsky and Plekhanov held opportunist and liberal views even in the former's "good" period which Lenin later pointed out. These views quite naturally led to them taking erroneous (in the case of Kautsky counter-revolutionary) lines.


Because the Communist movement hasn't had its shit together for a very very long time. It fell prey to a reactionary historical epoch, mistranslations and interpretations, sectarianism, political murders, etc. Its really not hard to understand why, as we are just now re-entering into a revolutionary period in history and for the first time in a while there exists a real possibility of a communist movement being built, Marxists would be re-evaluating the past and attempting to see where things went wrong.Sounds like the same sort of stuff I could read on Kasama or some other ridiculous "STRUGGLE AGAINST DOGMATISM" blog.

Rafiq
29th January 2013, 01:10
Why did it take 50,000 years for some guy (Marx) to formulate an objective and scientific understanding of human social relations? Why did it take so long to form a real analysis of someone like Aristotle, etc? Why did it take so long to completely understand the transition to class society when the transition had already ocurred thousands of years prior? According to Ismail, the magnitude of somethings validity is determined by how popular or well known it is. This does nothing but demonstrate his Idealist conception of objective truth.

So much nonsense has been spewed by him here but I couldn't help confronting that. I'll be back... Soon....

For now:

lol @ Orthodox Marxism being renegede Kautskyanism

lol @ Orthodox Marxists (strict materialists) being humanists or eurocommunist trash

lol @ stalinists, trots etc. Claiming Lenin. The Lenin that broke with kautsky carrying forward the red banner as he did does not acknowledge his bastards (trotsky, stalin, etc.).

Wait when did I mention dogmatism?

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

skitty
29th January 2013, 01:41
thought this thread was about Angela Davis....:rolleyes:
I've made some progress in her book; and she joined CPUSA at a time when she thought world events were very promising. Things changed; and now I believe she is with the Green Party. She still refers to Marx and the end of capitalism. With so many wrongs to be addressed, she is asking all of us to get off our butts and do something: vote, help Occupy, or Idle No More, or GLBT's, or prisoners, or whoever. Remember the Panther breakfast program? Block a pipeline-even Sierra Club is going with civil disobedience, apparently. She is still leading by example; and anyone sitting around wondering if she is "Red"-enough for their fantasy revolution is just pissing away their time. Bottom line? She has given more, sacrificed more and accomplished more than most people I know. Thanks Angela:tt1:!

brigadista
29th January 2013, 02:12
I've made some progress in her book; and she joined CPUSA at a time when she thought world events were very promising. Things changed; and now I believe she is with the Green Party. She still refers to Marx and the end of capitalism. With so many wrongs to be addressed, she is asking all of us to get off our butts and do something: vote, help Occupy, or Idle No More, or GLBT's, or prisoners, or whoever. Remember the Panther breakfast program? Block a pipeline-even Sierra Club is going with civil disobedience, apparently. She is still leading by example; and anyone sitting around wondering if she is "Red"-enough for their fantasy revolution is just pissing away their time. Bottom line? She has given more, sacrificed more and accomplished more than most people I know. Thanks Angela:tt1:!

are you reading her autobiography? you may find this interesting skitty
if you havent already see it -interview from california prison in 1970- at 3.40 she states she was a member of the communist party


8sLIDscuc-M

skitty
29th January 2013, 02:20
are you reading her autobiography? you may find this interesting skitty
if you havent already see it -interview from california prison in 1970-


8sLIDscuc-M

Thanks very much. I'm reading The Meaning of Freedom. I think it's her latest. My only complaint is poor, or no proofreading.

brigadista
29th January 2013, 02:22
i can recommend her autobiography

skitty
29th January 2013, 02:41
i can recommend her autobiography
Thanks, I will. Next on my list is Black Reconstruction in America by DuBois. Last week she said everyone should read it. Your video gave me goosebumps: I could see today's Angela there in the way she speaks! Remarkably thoughtful and intelligent. When you think of all the things that had to fall right into place to get her from Birmingham to today...Wish I could've been there with you in '69!

Rafiq
30th January 2013, 01:28
Stalin was but a pupil of Lenin, in Stalin's own words. He carried forward Lenin's theories against the distortions of Trotsky, Bukharin, and others. Of course the Soviet revisionists, Trotskyists, and others wanted to separate Lenin and Stalin just as the Eurocommunists and "humanists" wanted to separate Marx and Engels and contrast the "young" Marx with the "older" Marx, etc.

There is a grain of truth here, once more. The line from Lenin to Stalin was not one of defilement or ruthless imposition, it was a clear and logical progression from what remained of Lenin. In truth, the existing conditions, the existing state(s) of the productive forces in the Soviet Union did not amount to the executive organs of the Soviet state, on the contrary, the Soviet state did it's best to adequately respond to the existing changes in both super structural changes, and changes in social relations. In other words, in the process of sustaining itself, the Soviet state essentially destroyed the proletarian dictatorship as the two could not simultaneously coexist while the international proletarian revolution had previously failed. I go as far as saying that had Lenin lived a few more years, the difference between him and Stalin would not be so significant. I go as far as saying that it was Trotsky who broke from this logical progression (or regression, that is), and that Stalin was what one would call a "rightful successor" of the Soviet state. But the problem doesn't reside within the disagreements both mutations of the october revolution (Trotskyists and Stalinists) regarding who rightfully carried forward the legacy Lenin left behind. As Marxists, we must realize that the legacy left behind from Lenin was one that formed itself in great tragedy, that Lenin's march toward the will of capital was in itself a betrayal of the Lenin who smashed through the bourgeois constraints set forward by the psuedo-revolutionaries of the Russian empire, who symbolically represented the proletarian revolution that crushed through the confines of what would simply become a normal bourgeois revolution. The point we as Marxists should attempt to make is that the character of mere men, the choices of men do not precede material conditions and that drastic changes in the state are a result of changes in the base. The question Leninists have not even considered asking is a simple one: What if the condition of the Soviet state before Stalin was one divorced, and on a course to being torn away from the proletarian revolution that birthed it. The degeneration of the october revolution preceded Stalin. Now that is not to say Trotsky attempted to restore the proletarian dictatorship against the existing course of events, he could not, due to the conditions existent within Russia. Trotsky represented the Bourgeois-liberal opposition of the Bolshevik party, who couldn't have made decisions that would have saved the revolution from it's impending doom. Regarding Lenin's theoretical legacy: Neither Trotsky nor Stalin could ever bear the honor of claiming that.

Regarding Marx: Any idiot can see there is a overwhelmingly apparent difference between old Marx and young Marx, perhaps the transition was not as boisterous and abrupt as vulgarizers would have it, but the difference, the Marx of Capital was almost a different man than the Marx of the manifesto. Of course the fools they are, the bourgeois-liberals they prove themselves as, would consider the abandonment of humanism, and other remnants of idealism by Marx as a mistake. None the less, they bastardize what makes Marxism distinct as a theoretical tendency, as a scientific paradigm. But don't think for a second that before your 'revisionism' "Marxism humanism" wasn't a significant ideological tendency within the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, the Marxism (if you can call it that) of the Soviet Union was distinctively humanist in nature. I would divulge into that, but perhaps this begs of another thread.


The attempts to sever Stalin from Lenin, or Engels from Marx, can be compared to the attempts by Kautsky to turn Marx into a liberal (i.e. sever his work from Lenin) in order to unite Marx and his work with the social-patriotism and opportunism of the SPD leadership. Likewise the efforts of the Soviet revisionists to "return to Leninism" after Stalin's death, the Eurocommunists pushing for the image of the "humanist" Marx fixated mainly on alienation, etc. had the effect of allowing the promotion of all sorts of opportunist and anti-Marxist views and actions.

Hold on. The fact that the nonsense spouted here hasn't been made apparent to you is nothing short of disappointing, however, perhaps my disappointment of you is the greatest disappointment of all, considering the sad fact that I should know better, judging from some of your previous posts. The point of the alleged "Kautsky revivalists" is not to apologize or justify Kautsky's betrayal, we simply assert the necessity of a basic recognition: There is a reason he is called a renege. Kautsky betrayed his former self, making an obvious break from the Kautsky before (around) 1910 (road to power, etc.). We demand a revival of what was abandoned following the death of the october revolution, we demand a revival of what made the bolshevik party possible. I do have a certain affinity with Lenin's unconscious sympathy with the "reckless anarchists". In this way, the story of Lenin and the second international is a classic story of an apprentice who betrayed the elders in order to save the subject, i.e. Like what you would find in a cheesy kung fu movie.

The second blunder resides with the fact that you claim it's "the same sort of thinking". What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are we now unable to divorce Marx from the young hegelians, are we now even unable to divorce khruschev from stalin? Explain how this logic of yours works. You claim the mere suggestion that there do exist radical breaks in currents, is enough to identify oneself with humanists is the most bizarre thing I've heard this month (that IS an accomplishment). The irony lies with the fact that anti revisionism has it's basis in this logic according to it's adherents, namely, that there had existed a radical break from "pure" Stalinism to revisionism, though, more like the humanists who spit upon the legacy of the older Marx, you resent this radical break. In this sense, according to your own logic, you have more in common with these eurocommunists, these humanists because they recognize a radical break and identify with the former, "pure" and "pre-defiled" state of affairs (Marx's humanism when he was young, in your case Stalinism as it had existed so long as Stalin lived). It's a stupid logic all together, but it's hilarious how you create these entanglements for yourself.


It is also rather amusing that a self-described "orthodox Marxist" is trying to insinuate "dogmatism."


As far as who takes the cake for being the most amusing unintentionally goes, well, I can say that you've got a hell of a dessert tonight.


The same Kautsky who called for the defense of the German "fatherland" in WWI, advocated armed intervention against Soviet Russia, and ended his days as an anti-communist? The same Plekhanov who was aloof from the October Revolution? It was precisely the Second International and its parties which held high the banner of "orthodox Marxism" against the "Asiatic," "Slavic," "anti-Marxist" etc. tenets of Bolshevism, and sought to justify the defense of capitalism and the crushing of the world's first proletarian state on such a basis.

Kautsky made a clear and obvious break with Orthodox Marxism along with Bernstein and his "evolutionary socialism". Really you're making an extremely pathetic straw man here, really, you're to this point talking out of your ass. The Bolshevik party was the exact replication of the German model in Russian conditions, albeit proved successful. It was the abandonment of this strategy by the so-called 'Orthodox Marxist' reneges that led to the defeat of the German proletariat. The point is that the Bolsheviks carried on the legacy of Orthodox Marxism, and the demise of Orthodox Marxism is precisely on par with the failure of the German proletariat as an international revolution was necessitated by the October revolution.


Why did it take over 80 years after Lenin died for some guy (Lars Lih) and some internet guys (DNZ, you, etc.) to find out that everyone else was wrong all along and that Lenin was actually "continuing" a line wherein two of its persons would rather not have seen the October Revolution?


Again, this demonstrates nothing but your idealist conception of objective truth. Namely, that objective truth is defined by the magnitude of which it is recognized. It may take something 5,000 years to truly understand, hell, a real and objective, scientific understanding of human social movement took humanity how long? You're doing nothing but making an ass out of yourself, Ismail, and I say that as a concerned member of this board. Name me some Marxists in the field of revolutionary strategy who even made an attempt to understand the origins of the Bolshevik party and it's relation to the german model before Lars Lih, etc. ? Name one. There has not been one, no one has bothered, the Marxists had dismissed and pre-supposed Kautsky's betrayal as a logical continuation of the Road to power Kautsky without even making an extensive analysis in regards. I'm sorry ismail, I'm sorry that objective truth isn't defined by how quick it takes humans to mentally actualize it, that events can occur without us even knowing it. Today, in a world of 7 billion, almost all of which participating in the capitalist mode of production have not even the slightest idea of what they are participating in, they do, but they do not know. Capitalism had existed for hundreds of years yet up until Marx or even someone like Adam smith no one was able to understand the capitalist mode of production or even make an attempt to. Do you have any idea of what this means? Do you have any idea of how stupid you sound? Bad enough an event had already previously occurred, but for an event to be currently existing as we speak with only a handful of people being able to make an objective analysis speaks volumes about the bullshit you've spouted out.


For reasons similar to those of Dubček ("socialism with a human face") becoming an avowed social-democrat and upholding Sweden late in life, and Gorbachev denouncing "Stalinism" and carrying forward the banner of "Marxist humanism" and a "(true) return to Leninism" only to... wind up in the same position as Dubček.

Again, this is nothing but a straw-man.


Because believe it or not, both Kautsky and Plekhanov held opportunist and liberal views even in the former's "good" period which Lenin later pointed out. These views quite naturally led to them taking erroneous (in the case of Kautsky counter-revolutionary) lines.


Nonsense, Lenin recognized that Luxembourg was right that Kautsky's renege was before the first world war, yet, not before 1909 when he wrote The Road to Power. There was most obviously a flip flop. As for Plekhanov, Lenin made an excellent criticism of his skewed and backward materialism in materialism and empiricio criticism. Of course you being an Idealist, you couldn't tell for shit as to why someone like Plekhanov isn't to be taken that seriously unless Kautsky told you so.


Sounds like the same sort of stuff I could read on Kasama or some other ridiculous "STRUGGLE AGAINST DOGMATISM" blog.

I know you're constrained by your own ideological framework (including your ideological antagonisms), by which you are forced to attribute an alien, outside phenomena like Orthodox Marxism bizarre characteristics ranging from Maoist garbage to (LOL?) Eurocommunist humanism. Enough Ismail, enough.