If you could be an intern for any leftist throughout history?

[RedKobra]

...Who would it be? Who's brain would you loved to have picked at length? Who would you love to have observed in action, both in debate but also, if they were ever lucky enough to put their ideas into practice?

It doesn't have to be your favourite revolutionary personality, just the person with the most to pass on.

I'd have to say for sheer revolutionary white heat it would have to be Lenin. Watching him at the RSDLP meetings bang heads with Martov, soaking up his indignation as he read Gorter's response to '...Infantile Disorder', hearing his thoughts on the Machiavellian Stalin...I could go on. Although I'd undoubtedly disagree with the old master on some points, it seems to me as far as theory & praxis goes, few have had as much of an impact as Vlad.

I chose not to go with Marx for one very good reason, if he talked anything like he wrote then I'd have understood less than a tenth of what he said. My visage would have been not dissimilar to this --->:confused:

[Diirez]

I'm stuck between Trotsky and Luxembourg.
I would probably say Trotsky. I read the biographies on him. He lived quite an interesting life. Not to mention his firery speeches and military skills and watching him and stalin fight for power after Lenin died. That would be cool.

[Art Vandelay]

Definitely Lenin.

[motion denied]

Mussolini. I'd like to see his journey closely.

[G4b3n]

Bakunin, as he was the most badass of all the famous revolutionaries. I am not saying it is a fact, but I am saying that if you disagree you are a damn liar.

I would also hope to be able to get a view of Bakunin and Marx's arguments over Praxis, both in the formal setting and the drunken personal setting.

[consuming negativity]

Che Guevara. expert guerrilla tactics, someone who actually "got it" and who put their ideas into practice and made a life out of it. not to mention I could see just how much of the negativity about him is true.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Big Bill Haywood. No question.

The man was a total badass, as his quote in my sig will attest. He was also supposed to be alot of fun in a bar. Plus, he hung out with a lot of neat people (including Helen Keller, Jack London...and yes, Lenin).

[Mr. Piccolo]

I'd like to meet with Father Camilo Torres Restrepo to see how a Catholic priest eventually decided to become a member of the Colombian guerilla group ELN. I would like to see how he combined his Christian beliefs with revolutionary fervor.

[Atsumari]

Sun Yat Sen
The fall of the Qing Dynasty and the bringing in of a new era for China was one of the most intense periods in history. Witnessing a violent fall of a monarchy and the rise of a republic, creation of a Chinese identity, warlordism, and the ideological battles that followed is certainly something to be part of in history.
There was really never a dull period in Chinese history until the restoration of the traditional Chinese bureaucracy.
http://maps.omniatlas.com/eastasia/19111206/

[Hrafn]

I'd like an internship at Los Solidarios.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Engels
He could afford to pay me

[STALINwasntSTALLIN]

Either Stalin or Hoxha.

[RedKobra]

Either Stalin or Hoxha.

lol, I dunno about Stalin. I've heard working with him could be very bad for your health. ;)

[BIXX]

Engels
He could afford to pay me
Then you could invest that money in stocks you know are going to succeed cause you're from the future. By the time you're born, you could be a pretty rich person.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

To be honest, I'm pretty sure Lenin would have a nervous breakdown when trying to deal with me, and Trotsky would make my sarcastic outbursts seem mundane.

I can imagine drinking myself to death with Jim Cannon though.

[Collective Reasons]

Charles Fourier, just for the sheer mad lulz.

[RedWorker]

Karl Marx.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Kautsky when he was a revolutionary Marxist would suffice. That way, I would be able to gauge a first-person perspective.

[RedKobra]

Bakunin, as he was the most badass of all the famous revolutionaries. I am not saying it is a fact, but I am saying that if you disagree you are a damn liar.

I would also hope to be able to get a view of Bakunin and Marx's arguments over Praxis, both in the formal setting and the drunken personal setting.

Bakunin's intern would spend most of their time scrubbing piss, shit, vomit, blood and food stains out of his tatty old clothes. That and profusely apologising to which ever revolutionary movement he'd tried to take over and lead to certain death.

[John Nada]

Võ Nguyên Giáp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giap). Defeating Japan, France, the US and China is no small feat.

[Ismail]

Either Stalin or Hoxha.One thing I found slightly amusing for some reason is that Hoxha gave a shout-out to his secretary in one of his memoirs: "We made approaches [during the Italian occupation] also to other intellectuals, such as the doctors Xhevdet Asllani, Fejzi Hoxha, Enver Zazani, and Hasan Jero, the architect Luarasi, engineers like Andon Lufi, Llazar Treska, Rrapi (I don't know what became of him later), the economist Pasko Milo, Naum Stralla and a number of others. Many of them united with the people and the Party in the fight against the occupiers from the first days. One of them was my comrade in the war and the work, Haxhi Kroi, who is the nephew of Avni Rustemi, and who faithfully followed the patriotic course of that great teacher of the people and fought and now works as my secretary with exemplary competence and devotion as one of the senior members of the Party." (Laying the Foundations of the New Albania, 1984, p. 69.)

To understand the significance of the "nephew of Avni Rustemi" remark, he was a leader of the Albanian student youth in the early 20s and when Lenin died he gave a speech in the legislature mourning his death and praising his contribution to Albanian independence (since the Bolsheviks publicized the secret 1915 Treaty of London upon coming to power.) In June that same year he was assassinated by reactionaries, an event which served as the catalyst for a bourgeois-democratic revolution, which was overthrown in December by the forces of Ahmet Zogu who gradually turned Albania into an Italian puppet state.

[thecynicalpotat2]

I'd say Abbie Hoffman, he'd be fun to work around I'm sure; except he probably wouldn't have had an intern, so I'll say Kropotkin or Huey Newton.

[Viktor89]

Tito maybe?