Chomsky's critique of Lenin [Archive]

Dave B

9th October 2015, 19:50

Lenin first advocated state capitalism a solution in September 1917 and continued with advocating and instituting that policy; with an article on it in the Manchester Guardian at the end of 1922.

Violent state repression of other political groups didn’t begin with the Kronstadt; that was just the point at which they finally turned their attention on the orthodox anarchists ie Berkman who up to that point had supported the Bolsheviks and their state capitalist agenda and were the last political group to oppose them.

Violent state oppression began at the beginning of January 1918 when a demonstration in support of the constituent assembly was fired upon with machine guns etc.

Killing about 100 (or just 21 according to the Bolsheviks own account of the ‘incident’); there was also an article on it by Gorky who was or had been a longstanding Bolshevik supporter.

We did a historical analysis on that incident on this forum not all that long ago; it was denied by the Leninists but I think conceded after a series of independent quotations and reports etc.

There appear to be ‘reliable’ reports that it was a large mainly ‘SR’ demonstration of circa 60,000 plus and many hundreds wounded.

And was compared to the Tsarist bloody Sunday incident of January 1905 or whatever.

The SR’s had split shortly after that with the left SR’s supporting the Bolsheviks and the right SR’s going into outright political and later armed opposition to the Bolsheviks coup and dissolution of the constituent assembly.

The Bolsheviks/Lenin had supported the convocation of constituent assembly throughout 1917. And Trotsky speaking as a Bolshevik in October had justified the coup as the only way to guarantee its convocation.

As the SR’s are variously portrayed as Whites by our lying Lenninist ‘historians’.

The SR’s, both formerly ‘left and right’, up until 1917 had been successfully engaged in assassination of Tsarist ‘whites’ and politically where their implacable enemies with their programme of expropriation of the landed aristocracy and redistribution to the peasantry etc.

This idea that they had suddenly completely reversed their position in 1918 is laughable.

The right SR’s became anti Bolshevik after say January 1918; after that for the Bolsheviks it was you are either with us or against us and anyone against us is a white.

In July 1918 ‘most of’ the left SR’s who had been supporting the Bolsheviks started to get pissed off with them and attempted their own coup which failed and was followed by some more bloodletting and repression.

The SR’s in general are portrayed by the our lying Lenninist ‘historians’ war mongering nationalist patriots who wanted to continue the war against Germany etc etc.

Whereas in fact their main position was an objection to the Bolshevik Brest treaty with the Germans of surrendering revolutionary territory to imperialist capitalist Germans etc.

A position that was shared across all the leftist political spectrum including from within the Bolsheviks themselves.

It was made worse by the belief at the time, that has since been proved as true, that the Bolsheviks were receiving finance from the German Government.

The SR’s had assassinated the German ambassador as the principal conduit of funds to the Bolsheviks in Russia in early 1918 just before the left SR’s attempted coup in July.

The Menshevik official position was and remained opposed to all armed resistance to the Bolshevik dictatorship. Some ‘Mensheviks’ through their lot in with SR’s from late 1918 who were engaged in armed anti Bolshevik activity.

There were expelled although the democratic organisation of the Menshevik party was difficult as the Mensheviks themselves were under the iron heel of the Bolshevik state from the beginning of 1918.

The Mensheviks actually joined on mass the Red army to fight the white in 1919.

The first political show trial in the full sense occurred under Lenin of SR’s

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/20c.htm

Below is a political cv of those who were executed as “Whites”.

Who are these twelve, sentenced to death by the Moscotf
tribunal for counter-revolutionary activity? Here are their
names, dear to the whole of Revolutionary Russia.

1. Abraham Gotz; entered the Revolutionary Movement
in 1900; beginning with the year 1904 one of the> most ac-
tive members of the fighting brigade of the Socialist Revolu^
tionists, the organization so terrifying to the Czarist Govern-
ment. Under his direct participation were organized attempts)
at assassination upon Minister of the Interior Durnovo, the
suppressor of the Moscow rebellion in 1905, General Min and
Colonel Riman, Minister of Justice Akimoff, the Mayor of
Moscow Schuwaloff and the head of the Czarist Secret Ser-
vice and Assistant Director of the Department of Police, Rach^
kovsky; his record is imprisonment in the fortress of St. Pe-
ter and Paul, in ejtpectation of execution, trial by court martial,i
eight years of hard labor and exile to Siberia, where the Re-
volution of 1917 found him.

2. Eugene Timofeyeff; entered the revolutionary move-
ment in 1900; sentenced by a Czarist court in 1905 to five
years of hard labor and resentenced, shortly before the com

18 - i

elusion of his term, to 10 years; liberated from prisibn by
the Revolution.

3. Gendelman, entered the revolutionary movement in
1898; in 1901 sent into the army as a private for participation
in student disturbances; spent about 3 years in Czarist prisons.

4. Donskoy; entered the revolutionary movement in
1897; sent into the army as a private for participation in stu-
dent disturbances; exiled thrice; spent 6 years in Czarist
prisons.

5. Eugenia Ratner; joined the Party of Socialists-Revo-
lutionists in 1903; arrested ei^ht times under the Czarist
regime; spent more than 6 years in Czarist prisons.

6. Gerstein; self-educated workman; in the revolutio-
nary movement since 1898; previus record: four and half
years' imprisonment and five years exile.

7. Nicolai Ivanoff; entered the revolutionary movement in
1906; member of the fighting brigade of the Party of Socia-
lists-Revolutionists; participated in the preparation for and
the assassination of the Chief of the Prison Administration
Maximoff, sentenced to death by the party for cruel treatment
of political prisoners; also participated in the plot to blow up
tiie Imperial Council in 1907; spent ten years at hard labor;
was arrested by Kolchak but escaped death by flight.

8. Lichatch; entered revolutionary movement in 1903;
spent two years in jail and six years in Siberian exile under
the Czar.

9. Sergei Morozoff; member of the Party of Socialists-
Revolutionists since 1905; sentenced twice to hard labor;
spent seven years athard labor in various prisons.

» 10. Nicolai Artemieff ; entered the revolutionary movement
in 1903; in exile four times, spending part of it in the Tiir-
chansk district of the Polar region.

11. Helen Ivanova; entered the Party of Socialists-Revo-
lutionists in 1905; member of the fighting brigade of the
Party of Socialists-Revolutionists; cooperated in the assas-
sination of the Prison-Chief Goodim and the Police Chief of the
Ochtinsk section Rodziersky, who was guilty of severe tor-
tures of workmen in cells under his supervision; she also
organized the assassination of the chief of the Petrograd pri-

- 19

son „Kresty", and participated in the assassination of the Chief
of the Prison Administration Maximovsky; condemned to
death in 1908, the sentence being commuted to hard labor
for life; regained her liberty with the revolution.

http://archive.org/stream/cu31924028354102/cu31924028354102_djvu.txt

WideAwake

9th October 2015, 20:11

You know many people think that all right-wingers, all humans who are in favor of capitalism are evil, and all humans who are in favor of socialism are good. But in reality, most humans both right-wingers and left-wingers have about the same behaviour. I think that the reason of why most socialist parties, most communist parties, most leninist parties are un-democratic and behave like totalitarianist states when they rise to power is that humans are still too narcissists, too group-narcissists, too selfish and not altruists enough. We need a new radical left in this world, but it is very very hard to create a great radical left, because most socialist parties are full of rotten apples. There was even a case where members of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) raped a woman in India. And many members of The Socialist Party of USA are too stuck-up. If radical leftists behave like that when they have no economic and political power, if they rise to power they would be much worse.

Bakunin said that it is concentrated power that makes people evil. I am a Leninist but at the same time i support the ideas of anarchism. Because anarchists are right in that all governments (left-wing and right-wing) are corrupt and oppressors

Lenin first advocated state capitalism a solution in September 1917 and continued with advocating and instituting that policy; with an article on it in the Manchester Guardian at the end of 1922.

Violent state repression of other political groups didn’t begin with the Kronstadt; that was just the point at which they finally turned their attention on the orthodox anarchists ie Berkman who up to that point had supported the Bolsheviks and their state capitalist agenda and were the last political group to oppose them.

Violent state oppression began at the beginning of January 1918 when a demonstration in support of the constituent assembly was fired upon with machine guns etc.

Killing about 100 (or just 21 according to the Bolsheviks own account of the ‘incident’); there was also an article on it by Gorky who was or had been a longstanding Bolshevik supporter.

We did a historical analysis on that incident on this forum not all that long ago; it was denied by the Leninists but I think conceded after a series of independent quotations and reports etc.

There appear to be ‘reliable’ reports that it was a large mainly ‘SR’ demonstration of circa 60,000 plus and many hundreds wounded.

And was compared to the Tsarist bloody Sunday incident of January 1905 or whatever.

The SR’s had split shortly after that with the left SR’s supporting the Bolsheviks and the right SR’s going into outright political and later armed opposition to the Bolsheviks coup and dissolution of the constituent assembly.

The Bolsheviks/Lenin had supported the convocation of constituent assembly throughout 1917. And Trotsky speaking as a Bolshevik in October had justified the coup as the only way to guarantee its convocation.

As the SR’s are variously portrayed as Whites by our lying Lenninist ‘historians’.

The SR’s, both formerly ‘left and right’, up until 1917 had been successfully engaged in assassination of Tsarist ‘whites’ and politically where their implacable enemies with their programme of expropriation of the landed aristocracy and redistribution to the peasantry etc.

This idea that they had suddenly completely reversed their position in 1918 is laughable.

The right SR’s became anti Bolshevik after say January 1918; after that for the Bolsheviks it was you are either with us or against us and anyone against us is a white.

In July 1918 ‘most of’ the left SR’s who had been supporting the Bolsheviks started to get pissed off with them and attempted their own coup which failed and was followed by some more bloodletting and repression.

The SR’s in general are portrayed by the our lying Lenninist ‘historians’ war mongering nationalist patriots who wanted to continue the war against Germany etc etc.

Whereas in fact their main position was an objection to the Bolshevik Brest treaty with the Germans of surrendering revolutionary territory to imperialist capitalist Germans etc.

A position that was shared across all the leftist political spectrum including from within the Bolsheviks themselves.

It was made worse by the belief at the time, that has since been proved as true, that the Bolsheviks were receiving finance from the German Government.

The SR’s had assassinated the German ambassador as the principal conduit of funds to the Bolsheviks in Russia in early 1918 just before the left SR’s attempted coup in July.

The Menshevik official position was and remained opposed to all armed resistance to the Bolshevik dictatorship. Some ‘Mensheviks’ through their lot in with SR’s from late 1918 who were engaged in armed anti Bolshevik activity.

There were expelled although the democratic organisation of the Menshevik party was difficult as the Mensheviks themselves were under the iron heel of the Bolshevik state from the beginning of 1918.

The Mensheviks actually joined on mass the Red army to fight the white in 1919.

The first political show trial in the full sense occurred under Lenin of SR’s

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/20c.htm

Below is a political cv of those who were executed as “Whites”.

Who are these twelve, sentenced to death by the Moscotf
tribunal for counter-revolutionary activity? Here are their
names, dear to the whole of Revolutionary Russia.

1. Abraham Gotz; entered the Revolutionary Movement
in 1900; beginning with the year 1904 one of the> most ac-
tive members of the fighting brigade of the Socialist Revolu^
tionists, the organization so terrifying to the Czarist Govern-
ment. Under his direct participation were organized attempts)
at assassination upon Minister of the Interior Durnovo, the
suppressor of the Moscow rebellion in 1905, General Min and
Colonel Riman, Minister of Justice Akimoff, the Mayor of
Moscow Schuwaloff and the head of the Czarist Secret Ser-
vice and Assistant Director of the Department of Police, Rach^
kovsky; his record is imprisonment in the fortress of St. Pe-
ter and Paul, in ejtpectation of execution, trial by court martial,i
eight years of hard labor and exile to Siberia, where the Re-
volution of 1917 found him.

2. Eugene Timofeyeff; entered the revolutionary move-
ment in 1900; sentenced by a Czarist court in 1905 to five
years of hard labor and resentenced, shortly before the com

18 - i

elusion of his term, to 10 years; liberated from prisibn by
the Revolution.

3. Gendelman, entered the revolutionary movement in
1898; in 1901 sent into the army as a private for participation
in student disturbances; spent about 3 years in Czarist prisons.

4. Donskoy; entered the revolutionary movement in
1897; sent into the army as a private for participation in stu-
dent disturbances; exiled thrice; spent 6 years in Czarist
prisons.

5. Eugenia Ratner; joined the Party of Socialists-Revo-
lutionists in 1903; arrested ei^ht times under the Czarist
regime; spent more than 6 years in Czarist prisons.

6. Gerstein; self-educated workman; in the revolutio-
nary movement since 1898; previus record: four and half
years' imprisonment and five years exile.

7. Nicolai Ivanoff; entered the revolutionary movement in
1906; member of the fighting brigade of the Party of Socia-
lists-Revolutionists; participated in the preparation for and
the assassination of the Chief of the Prison Administration
Maximoff, sentenced to death by the party for cruel treatment
of political prisoners; also participated in the plot to blow up
tiie Imperial Council in 1907; spent ten years at hard labor;
was arrested by Kolchak but escaped death by flight.

8. Lichatch; entered revolutionary movement in 1903;
spent two years in jail and six years in Siberian exile under
the Czar.

9. Sergei Morozoff; member of the Party of Socialists-
Revolutionists since 1905; sentenced twice to hard labor;
spent seven years athard labor in various prisons.

» 10. Nicolai Artemieff ; entered the revolutionary movement
in 1903; in exile four times, spending part of it in the Tiir-
chansk district of the Polar region.

11. Helen Ivanova; entered the Party of Socialists-Revo-
lutionists in 1905; member of the fighting brigade of the
Party of Socialists-Revolutionists; cooperated in the assas-
sination of the Prison-Chief Goodim and the Police Chief of the
Ochtinsk section Rodziersky, who was guilty of severe tor-
tures of workmen in cells under his supervision; she also
organized the assassination of the chief of the Petrograd pri-

- 19

son „Kresty", and participated in the assassination of the Chief
of the Prison Administration Maximovsky; condemned to
death in 1908, the sentence being commuted to hard labor
for life; regained her liberty with the revolution.

http://archive.org/stream/cu31924028354102/cu31924028354102_djvu.txt

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

9th October 2015, 20:14

The White movement was not the same thing as the Russian Empire. In fact most White generals were extremely careful to not appear monarchist because seeming like a supporter of Romanov restoration was a political death sentence. The Whites were also to the "left" of groups like the Kadets (such as the esteemed countess Panina). Only when it was clear that the Whites were losing did Diterikhs proclaim a restored monarchy. Otherwise White governments were full of Esers and Mensheviks. The Union for the Salvation of Russia, the KomUch, the Ufa Directorate, the Siberian Regional Government, the Centrocaspian Dictatorship, and the government of the Georgian DR all had Menshevik members.

The split between Left and Right SRs predates the October Revolution. The same split produced the SR-Maximists and Popular Socialists. Likewise it is false to say that most of the PLSR opposed the Bolsheviks. The majority of the PLSR Central Committee did. The majority of members denounced the CC, split from them and most of them ended up in the Bolsheviks.

And of course all communists are for surrendering territory to extricate the revolutionary authorities from an imperialist war. We're not patriots.

Lenin noted that state capitalism would be an improvement in Russia. He was correct, of course, given the grotesque backwardness of the Russian economy. There could be no question of building socialism as socialism can't be built in one country.

If anyone wants a serious criticism of Bolsheviks from a syndicalist/"workers' control" perspective, I would recommend M. Brinton, "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control". Of course Brinton isn't really popular on RL as he would have died before giving political cover to Kolchak and Wrangel.

The Idler

9th October 2015, 21:39

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

9th October 2015, 22:15

Pretty disappointed in some of the answers here. The original question was 'how people respond to Chomsky's critique of Lenin.' The very first answer was 'the first question that needs to be asked is, what is their own political position'
This is classic ad hominem argument, without addressing the points actually made, and so is the attack on the critique made by Mensheviks.

This is completely confused. Understanding where criticism is coming from, politically, is essential. It is parliamentary cretinism to believe disputes of this sort are a matter of dispassionate debate about the facts. I can accept every fact Chomsky brings up and still disagree with his conclusion because our perspectives on what socialism is are completely different and incompatible. The same goes for people like Brinton who, unlike Chomsky, know what they're talking about.

As for critique by the Mensheviks, that's interesting to us about as much as critique by Action Francais or the fascists.

Socialism is the socialisation of production yes, but in the hands of who? In the hands of the working-class because it is the working-class who emancipate themselves.

No, that makes no sense. Socialisation means that the means of production are under the control of the entire human society. If the working class exists, wage labour exists and socialism does not. Likewise we reject the notion that all strata of the proletariat participate equally in the revolution. That is the "party of the entire class" nonsense of the Second International and in the epoch of imperialism it's a recipe for disaster.

This doesn't necessarily imply the essence is factory control by those workers but it does imply working-class will be able to withdraw their labour and not be shot for striking, yet this is what the Bolsheviks did. If you want a name for the ideology, then shooting striking workers is closer to fascism.

"The working class" did not strike, certain elements did. The rest of the working class took exception to those elements undermining them. Likewise when VIKZheDor thought they could simply run the railways into the ground the other workers objected. The revolution does not bow to sectional and corporate interests.

blake 3:17

9th October 2015, 23:12

During the first years of the Russian Revolution there was a pretty wild upsurge in democracy, but there was also a very very strong upsurge in new forms of managerial techniques.

Lenin was both a critic and an adopter of Taylorism -- where production is broken into small tasks and human labour is as machine like as possible with no room for improvisation.

Trotsky aslso supported the militarization of labour: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm

It is important to understand that this was in the midst of civil war and being attacked by what (? somebody help me here?) 15 or so other countries, so things were more than a little tense.

At the same time, many of the top down schemes didn't really work all that well and were antithetical to a workers democracy.

Interesting piece on Taylorism in the early USSR with a few quotes from Lenin nearer the end: http://thecharnelhouse.org/2011/12/07/the-ultra-taylorist-soviet-utopianism-of-aleksei-gastev-including-gastevs-landmark-book-how-to-work%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BE-%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C/

Dave B

10th October 2015, 00:32

My reproach against anarchists like Chomksy is the way they portray the ‘anarchists’ as the first principled opponents to Bolshevism; which is bollocks.

Lenin JULY 31, 1919

When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won, in the course of decades, the position of vanguard of the entire factory and industrial proletariat.

http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SWSC19.html

A month later

V. I. Lenin, Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst, 28 August, 1919

Very many anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet power, ……..[ a dictatorship of one party] ….and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies of Marxism only through misunderstanding,

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm

The first principled opponents to Bolshevism were the orthodox Marxists like the Mensheviks.

The Mensheviks are portrayed by the lying Leninist historians as some kind of Obama or Blairite liberals.

As a matter of fact they were on the far left of the second international and eg were one of the few parties that were fully signed up to the Zimmerwald internationalist movement etc.

The other was the crypto Marxist SR’s, they accepted a lot of Marxist material, and were blood and guts terrorists and had more in common with the politics of ‘shinning path’ Maoism and Baeder Mienhof for what it matters.

On the civil war and imperialist intervention of 15 counties etc that is another load of bollocks.

I think the total number of casualties on the side of international capitalist intervention was less than 3,000.

And most of them were accidents, illness and hypothermia etc.

American, Canadian and British casualties were barely into double digit numbers.

Official records from the Btitish Hanzard and foreign office stuff etc makes it clear that the British government just weren’t interested in the idea, and thought the whites were a bunch of ISIS shits and bailed out of the whole thing pretty early, then.

The French were a lot more interested as they were owed loads of money by the Tsarist regime in government bonds and gave it up as a lost job a bit later.

The Czech Legion were patriotic nationalists operating as a law unto themselves and were only interested in liberating their nation from their own version of the Tsar the emperor of the Austrian Hungarian Empire.

They had after being sent to the front to fight the Russians surrendered at the first opportunity and agreed to switch sides and fight against the ‘Austrians’.

After Brest Trotsky stopped them attacking the Germans from Russian territory so the mad bastards, the Czech Legion, decided to travel east to Canada and America, get a boat to Europe and France and rejoin the fight there.

These arch White-ist Czech Legion did seem to be a bit politically mixed but it would seem to be more nationalist republican leftists in orientation than your standard reactionary.

A really interesting take on all this kind of stuff comes from the Lockhart memoirs who was a British spook who was there at the time.

He was actually pragmatically pro Bolshevik in the sense that he thought that British interventionism and attempting to suck the Russkies back into the war by backing the whites was a dingbat idea.

The British Foreign office at one point thought he had gone Bolshevik native.

It is a great boys own three volume read.

Hit The North

10th October 2015, 01:10

Dave B, why is supporting the bourgeois government of Kerensky rather than the power of the workers and soldiers soviets a "principled stand"? What principle is being invoked here?
,....

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

10th October 2015, 13:52

Dave B, why is supporting the bourgeois government of Kerensky rather than the power of the workers and soldiers soviets a "principled stand"? What principle is being invoked here?
,....

The principle of sacred bourgeois democracy, which for SPGBots is the alpha, the omega, and all the letters in between of politics. Only, by the time we're talking about the bourgeois government of Kerensky no longer existed. The government being supported here is the government of Volsky, of Tchaikovsky and Kolchak, all butchers of workers and socialists. It is beyond the bounds of good taste but there you have it, these people are entrenched and they can woo stupid libertarians to their side by crying about mean old Bolsheviks. I wonder what's next, are we going to hear odes to Noske, to Scheidemann and Ebert? After all, they saved Germany from Bolshevism. Maybe Dave B will yet discover that the Freikorps were not as bad as people think.

The Idler

11th October 2015, 20:22

The strawmen are flying now, from Action Francais and 'parliamentary cretinism' to Kerensky, Tchaikovsky, Kolchak, 'Noske, to Scheidemann and Ebert' and even the Freikorps!
What were the Bolsheviks actually standing for if they were shooting striking workers? If you are not in favour of crossing a picket line of a 'section' or 'element' of the working-class, you should not be in favour of shooting striking workers even if just a 'section' or 'element' of them.
The Bolsheviks slogan was 'Peace, Land and Bread', whatever they actually stood for, it certainly was not socialism.

Comrade V

11th October 2015, 20:43

The strawmen are flying now, from Action Francais and 'parliamentary cretinism' to Kerensky, Tchaikovsky, Kolchak, 'Noske, to Scheidemann and Ebert' and even the Freikorps!
What were the Bolsheviks actually standing for if they were shooting striking workers? If you are not in favour of crossing a picket line of a 'section' or 'element' of the working-class, you should not be in favour of shooting striking workers even if just a 'section' or 'element' of them.
The Bolsheviks slogan was 'Peace, Land and Bread', whatever they actually stood for, it certainly was not socialism.

They were standing for themselves, violently reacting to those who spoke out against them, as oppressors have done throughout history.

Anyone who believes they have a right to murder another human being who is not attacking them based on political ideology alone is no friend to the people.

Rafiq

11th October 2015, 23:22

The strawmen are flying now, from Action Francais and 'parliamentary cretinism' to Kerensky, Tchaikovsky, Kolchak, 'Noske, to Scheidemann and Ebert' and even the Freikorps!
What were the Bolsheviks actually standing for if they were shooting striking workers? If you are not in favour of crossing a picket line of a 'section' or 'element' of the working-class, you should not be in favour of shooting striking workers even if just a 'section' or 'element' of them.

For all the "strawmen", it is precisely this kind of attack on the Bolsheviks that incurred their - at least polemical - wrath. When Marxists attacked the social democrats, opportunists and liberals as having no notion of Marxism, it is precisely for this reason - what you fail to understand is that there are no eternal truths, there is no fixed, rigid formal ethical system that Communists adhere to. The implications of shooting striking workers in the context of the Russian civil war and the implications of shooting them as the bourgoeisie are entirely different. That this odes not conform to bourgoeis ethics only tells us that the Bolsheviks, in fact, are not and were not soldiers of the bourgoiesie.

Let us put aside such grave exaggerations, however. In most of the cases wherein workers, out of pure egoism, decided to strike they were not usually met with bullets. They were initially threatened with being removed from their positions, and thus deprived of rations at a time where the survival of millions was precarious and the thread that separated subsistence from hunger was a very thin one. This is how those exceptional instances of strikes were usually dealt with.

Finally, what you also fail to understand is that the idea that "the bolsheviks" were shooting striking workers is also nonsensical. Workers were not shot by dictatorial whim - as it was with the terror as a whole, these were hardly as centralized as people like to think.

The fact of the matter is that through and through, the overwhelming majority of the Russian proletariat were with the Bolsheviks. Where does this logic of eternal truths end, however? A conflict between the holistic interests of the proletariat, and those of particular sections will always exist, because the proletariat is only a political category insofar as they are the proletariat as a whole seeking to abolish themselves. The short-term interests of this or that factory (many of which, by the way, already had long standing political allegiances or were the product of Menshevik/SR agitation) will only be synonymous with the long-term interests of the proletariat as a whole insofar as the majority of the proletariat is willfully capable of self-sacrifice and utmost dedication to the cause. Freedom is not free.

In the case of the October revolution through the civil war, this was true - which is why most of the proletariat had been physically annihilated in the aftermath of the civil war, many of those deaths came not only from famine but form their heroic sacrifices.

The Bolsheviks slogan was 'Peace, Land and Bread', whatever they actually stood for, it certainly was not socialism.

Perhaps not the abstraction that many are keen on calling socialism, which perhaps explains you wording. The Bolsheviks did not "stand" for socialism. They were socialists, and their actions were an exemplary force of the process of socialism. Within that context, there was no socialism outside the Bolshevik party - socialism is nothing more than the movement, it is a process. Outside of this there are cheap abstractions and nothing more.

Rafiq

11th October 2015, 23:29

They were standing for themselves, violently reacting to those who spoke out against them, as oppressors have done throughout history.

Who were "themselves"? Were the minor privileges enjoyed by the party functionaries actually worth all of that? All of which were entirely precarious, taking into account the fact that if you were a party functionary or were in a high-ranking position, you were infinitely in more danger than an ordinary person?

Even anti-Communists visiting in the 1920's would note the tirelessness and the selflessness of the Bolshevik functionaries and leaders. What exactly were they fighting for, in your mind? "For themselves"? Why? It is a rather juvenile idea.

This kind of logic might be acceptable for an American action flick, but as for real life - very few states have ever actually existed "for themselves", if any at all.

Anyone who believes they have a right to murder another human being who is not attacking them based on political ideology alone is no friend to the people.

Don't be silly.

If the Bolsheviks murdered people because of what they thought in their heads, that would have been a most wasteful expenditure of energy and resources. They did not, however, do this. They executed people who subsequently were of a "different ideology" who were actively undermining the revolution. If the Bolsheviks merely killed people for having a "different political ideology" then you would have a hard time explaining the innumerable anti-Communists who survived all the way into the 30's and beyond. Some have names, and others are nameless for that reason.

The idea of Bolsheviks whimsically murdering people because of their ideas alone is the most ridiculous fantasy of liberals.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

11th October 2015, 23:55

The strawmen are flying now, from Action Francais and 'parliamentary cretinism' to Kerensky, Tchaikovsky, Kolchak, 'Noske, to Scheidemann and Ebert' and even the Freikorps!

Whenever someone calls out our SPGBots for their grossly anti-worker politics, the only thing they can do is cry "strawman, strawman". But the facts are facts. Your chum Dave, when he isn't trying to prove that gay people aren't oppressed in Europe (something that he is allowed to do openly, whereas merely insinuating something similar earned Vanguard_1917, an actual socialist, a ban), openly supports the Mensheviks and Esers. These gentlemen formed the core of the White movement and staffed White governments from the Anadyr to Arkhangelsk. Tchaikovsky and Volsky have already been mentioned. Can we mention more? Sure. Maysky and Preobrazhensky, the German puppet Zhordania and so many others.

Noske, Ebert and Scheidemann were the German Volskys and Mayskys. All of them professed to be socialist, as the SPGB does, and all of them mobilised elements of the old order to butcher the workers and socialists. If Davey had one shred of consistency he would be singing the praises of the Freikorps as he sings the praises of the Czech Legion now. But consistency would - hopefully! - get him banned. But if the BA is willing to allow people who praise, not just the Czech Legion, but the Freikorps, to remain here, then this site needs to change its fucking name.

And of course, I never said anything about parliamentary cretinism in this thread. I said that expecting workers and minorities to debate fascists is parliamentary cretinism, in another thread, with reference to another user. But everyone scratches where it itches, right? Parliamentary cretinism is too kind a term to use when referring to the SPGB, which honest-to-God believes it will institute socialism through parliamentary means. That this sort of brazen Bernsteinism is allowed to stand while e.g. a supporter of the Nenni socialists or the Allende socialists would be rightfully restricted, is testament to how confused this site is.

What were the Bolsheviks actually standing for if they were shooting striking workers? If you are not in favour of crossing a picket line of a 'section' or 'element' of the working-class, you should not be in favour of shooting striking workers even if just a 'section' or 'element' of them.

We do not fetishise the strike. There are reactionary strikes, for example those led by nativist elements. The interest of one section of the working class can never take precedence over the interest of the working class as a whole. If the victory of the revolution in Germany and consequently worldwide required the defeat of the proletariat in Russia, it would be reactionary to oppose that defeat (as Lenin himself pointed out in "Strange and Monstrous"). Likewise if a strike, during the period of the civil war, threatens the defense of the revolutionary authorities, then it is not only permissible but correct and necessary to break it by any means.

The Bolsheviks slogan was 'Peace, Land and Bread', whatever they actually stood for, it certainly was not socialism.

It was certainly not the socialism of the Labour and Socialist International, the "International" of Martov, Scheidemann and such creatures. It used to be that the SPGB distanced itself from that marsh, and perhaps it still does, but the Internet adherents of that sclerotic sect are not doing it favours. "Peace, land and bread" was one slogan. That apparently you think an entire programme can be encapsulated in one slogan just shows how shallow your notion of socialism is.

Anyone who believes they have a right to murder another human being who is not attacking them based on political ideology alone is no friend to the people.

Well thank fuck, because we are no friends of the people. We have always opposed that sort of democratoid idiocy. The point is not to "serve the people" as the Maoist heirs of the Mensheviks claim, but to overthrow the old world. If that requires murdering another human being (I think those are the only beings that can be murdered as of yet), so be it.

Comrade V

12th October 2015, 03:10

Who were "themselves"? Were the minor privileges enjoyed by the party functionaries actually worth all of that? All of which were entirely precarious, taking into account the fact that if you were a party functionary or were in a high-ranking position, you were infinitely in more danger than an ordinary person?

Even anti-Communists visiting in the 1920's would note the tirelessness and the selflessness of the Bolshevik functionaries and leaders. What exactly were they fighting for, in your mind? "For themselves"? Why? It is a rather juvenile idea.

This kind of logic might be acceptable for an American action flick, but as for real life - very few states have ever actually existed "for themselves", if any at all.

Don't be silly.

If the Bolsheviks murdered people because of what they thought in their heads, that would have been a most wasteful expenditure of energy and resources. They did not, however, do this. They executed people who subsequently were of a "different ideology" who were actively undermining the revolution. If the Bolsheviks merely killed people for having a "different political ideology" then you would have a hard time explaining the innumerable anti-Communists who survived all the way into the 30's and beyond. Some have names, and others are nameless for that reason.

The idea of Bolsheviks whimsically murdering people because of their ideas alone is the most ridiculous fantasy of liberals.

I'm sure they believed in what they were doing, as most tend to do. I'm not saying that they were necessarily intentional assholes, but later down the line the party elite was an atrocious example of oligarchical tendencies.

So my statement should've been clarified to something along the lines of that's were it leads.(Inebriation is a hell of a thing)

The idea that I can survive so long as I don't say anything and walk along, keeping my head down like a good little dog, doesn't appeal to me in the least. You can defend the party all day long, but to pretend they didn't murder people for their ideologies is an exercise in denial. Lenin was more mild about it than his successors but it still happened.

Being an Anarchist I doubt we'll come to terms on the Vanguard Party way of doing things.

Comrade V

12th October 2015, 03:15

Well thank fuck, because we are no friends of the people. We have always opposed that sort of democratoid idiocy. The point is not to "serve the people" as the Maoist heirs of the Mensheviks claim, but to overthrow the old world. If that requires murdering another human being (I think those are the only beings that can be murdered as of yet), so be it.

Well we can't all be murderous assholes, aye?

The Idler

12th October 2015, 10:32

Just checked and 'Peace, Land and Bread' is still not 'socialism' or a movement or process towards it. This was the slogan which the Bolsheviks, and not their critics, came up with and support for the Bolsheviks was overwhelmingly based on.

They claimed to be socialists but you say they were not working for socialism.
In fact people that the Bolsheviks previously vouched for as revolutionary socialists and been prepared to work with in the RSDLP they were now exiling, imprisoning and murdering once they were in power albeit in a 'decentralised' fashion. And you are claiming there was no socialism outside the Bolsheviks.
They weren't usually shooting 'elements' or 'sections' of striking workers, they were merely starving them. Even the Conservative party in Britain has a better record than that. If you think butchering socialists and workers is a bad thing (and I'm beginning to wonder if you do) the SPGB's record compared to Bolsheviks or Tories is pretty clean.

No wonder this broader movement didn't catch on Germany at the time. They didn't want a Red Terror even a 'decentralised' one. I probably shouldn't be surprised the Bolsheviks defenders most keen on ad hominems here are advocating exiling or banning any critics of Bolshevism from revleft.

Hatshepsut

12th October 2015, 13:59

Antiochus

12th October 2015, 16:00

Anarchists may have sided with the Bolsheviks, but that was pre-1918, before the Black Guards, before anarchist and Ukrainian nationalist Maria Nikiforova, etc. The current movement, knowing this history, will never knowingly side with Bolsheviks again, unless required to do so on a temporary basis for tactical reasons. A similar statement can be made regarding social democrats.

Of all the factions, ideological variations, and sources of criticism brought up on this thread, only the Bolsheviks have confronted the actual seizure of state power with all the difficulties entailed. Not to say anarchists and social democrats never fought or died—many did, however it remains that only the Bolsheviks ever placed hands on the levers of power. The other movements either quickly failed or cashed their efforts in for incremental reforms of existing state systems. It’s easy for those out of power to condemn those in power because the latter are forced to do a lot of ugly shit given the rough nature of this game, which is played for keeps.

That is what contrasts Chomsky with the revolutionaries. Chomsky’s bread & butter lay entirely in American capitalism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later in part with Nicholas Negroponte at its Media Lab, and he knew it. Language and Mind, one of Chomsky’s tomes, required reading for linguistics students, was sold to captive audiences at ridiculously inflated prices by a profit-seeking textbook industry and Chomsky collected about 10% of the proceeds. Thus his goings-forth in support of campus demonstrations, the critiques of America’s neocolonial war machine, and the moral high horse treading upon revolutionary method all become mounted upon contradictions. We can use Chomsky’s research, admittedly a high-quality product, but his goals, if indeed he had any, can hardly be our own.

I don't generally agree with Chomsky, but I'll respond to this. Even if Chomsky were making "bank" off textbooks, so what? Engels ran a factory in Manchester making millions of pounds in the 19th century, he then married a factory girl and after she died, her sister. Marx impregnated his maid while she worked at his house. This isn't ethics 101.

What I find funny, is that Xhar Xhar was 'horrified' when some troll made me suggest that in the preliminary stage of socialism, those who refuse to work whatsoever should be shot. Yet here he is, shilling for the Bolsheviks, who shot factory workers for a lot less (striking for equal rations). Can you imagine what they would have done if the workers were like, "well fuck it, we aren't working"? No off course, because only in a forum can inconsistent abstractions with about as much semblance in reality as Middle Earth can pass off as "enlightening comments".

Spectre of Spartacism

12th October 2015, 16:21

What I find funny, is that Xhar Xhar was 'horrified' when some troll made me suggest that in the preliminary stage of socialism, those who refuse to work whatsoever should be shot. Yet here he is, shilling for the Bolsheviks, who shot factory workers for a lot less (striking for equal rations). Can you imagine what they would have done if the workers were like, "well fuck it, we aren't working"? No off course, because only in a forum can inconsistent abstractions with about as much semblance in reality as Middle Earth can pass off as "enlightening comments".

Xhar Xhar is talking about the transition period of revolutionary civil war and class struggle. You were talking about socialism proper. These are two very different beasts, and I would suggest the idea of a death penalty under socialism for not working is horrific and has nothing to do with what Marxists envision socialism to be.

Antiochus

12th October 2015, 18:05

Xhar Xhar is talking about the transition period of revolutionary civil war and class struggle. You were talking about socialism proper. These are two very different beasts, and I would suggest the idea of a death penalty under socialism for not working is horrific and has nothing to do with what Marxists envision socialism to be.

Did you even bother to look at the thread I was talking about or did you just post completely uninformed?

They aren't "different beasts". Off course, making the meaningless differentiation allows one to support one and then reject the other on the facade of "pragmatism" and rejection of 'eternal truths'. The fact is, the abolition of labour in the aftermath of the global revolution and civil war, is a fucking joke. You know that, I know that, everyone with half a brain should know that. Xhar Xhar and others like to soothe themselves by imagining some sort of Hannah Montana episode where everyone just throws their hands up in the air and says "Well golly! Lets just get along".

As far as the death penalty, LOL! The Bolsheviks abolished the death penalty in 1918 I believe, are you actually telling me they followed through with it? And before you post something about "the rope and axe" or whatever, know that they executed lots and lots of "common" criminals as well; not to mention other leftists (anarchists/other marxists), the vast majority of whom were never a danger in so far as counter-revolution, although they were a threat to the Bolshevik monopoly of power.

The point is not to "serve the people" as the Maoist heirs of the Mensheviks claim, but to overthrow the old world. If that requires murdering another human being (I think those are the only beings that can be murdered as of yet), so be it.

I mean, call me crazy, that doesn't sound like he is just saying "murdering" during the revolutionary period, but whenever it is deemed necessary, I suppose by Trotsky or whoever he envisions will drive the cart.

The thing that strikes me about the infantile nature of Trotskyists is that, they are Bolsheviks off course, so they supported the extermination of all left-wing anti-Bolshevik opposition, but when they themselves became 'minorities' within the party in the USSR, they were themselves exterminated and labelled as fascist scum and facilitators by an even more socially secluded sect within the party.

It’s easy for those out of power to condemn those in power because the latter are forced to do a lot of ugly shit given the rough nature of this game, which is played for keeps.

Sounds like it was written by Churchill or Reagan. But really, while there is some truth to this, this could only hold true for leftists so long as the interests of the workers are ALWAYS of paramount importance. If not, what fucking criteria do you dare judge ANY political action; be it from a liberal to a conservative to a fascist?

Spectre of Spartacism

12th October 2015, 18:25

Did you even bother to look at the thread I was talking about or did you just post completely uninformed?

They aren't "different beasts". Off course, making the meaningless differentiation allows one to support one and then reject the other on the facade of "pragmatism" and rejection of 'eternal truths'. The fact is, the abolition of labour in the aftermath of the global revolution and civil war, is a fucking joke. You know that, I know that, everyone with half a brain should know that. Xhar Xhar and others like to soothe themselves by imagining some sort of Hannah Montana episode where everyone just throws their hands up in the air and says "Well golly! Lets just get along".

I didn't read a different thread. I read the thread I was posting in and responded to a post in it. In this post you said, "What I find funny, is that Xhar Xhar was 'horrified' when some troll made me suggest that in the preliminary stage of socialism, those who refuse to work whatsoever should be shot." You then pointed to the Bolsheviks' behavior in the 1910s and 1920s to try to suggest that Xhar-Xhar was contradicting himself. I made the point that you are describing events that occurred in the transition to socialism. Xhar-Xhar was expressing horror at what you were saying would or should occur once socialism had been achieved.

To Marxists, these are two different types of society. They are not the same thing. Because they are different things, it makes no sense to impose the ideas a person has about a socialist society onto a society where socialism hasn't been achieved yet. There will be similarities and differences, certainly. They aren't the same, though.

As far as the death penalty, LOL! The Bolsheviks abolished the death penalty in 1918 I believe, are you actually telling me they followed through with it? And before you post something about "the rope and axe" or whatever, know that they executed lots and lots of "common" criminals as well; not to mention other leftists (anarchists/other marxists), the vast majority of whom were never a danger in so far as counter-revolution, although they were a threat to the Bolshevik monopoly of power.I'm not telling you anything about what the Bolsheviks did or didn't do, only that what they did or didn't do took place in a society that had not achieved socialism. This is why it makes no sense to bring up a point a person was making about a socialist society. I don't think this is either difficult to understand or controversial.

The thing that strikes me about the infantile nature of Trotskyists is that, they are Bolsheviks off course, so they supported the extermination of all left-wing anti-Bolshevik opposition, but when they themselves became 'minorities' within the party in the USSR, they were themselves exterminated and labelled as fascist scum and facilitators by an even more socially secluded sect within the party.Please stick to political content and not get into tendency baiting. I can say, unequivocally, as a Trotskyist, that my goal is not to "exterminate" anybody. What you're saying here sounds like a right-wing Cold Warrior talking point about Stalinism at the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Marxists understand that violence becomes necessary at specific conjunctures in the class struggle, and is based on a political assessment regarding what specific people are doing, not on tendency identities.

Rafiq

12th October 2015, 23:12

Just checked and 'Peace, Land and Bread' is still not 'socialism' or a movement or process towards it. This was the slogan which the Bolsheviks, and not their critics, came up with and support for the Bolsheviks was overwhelmingly based on.

I touched on this before. What you don't understand is that "peace, land and bread" is never just "peace, land and bread". When bourgeois historians point out that the Bolsheviks "duped" the masses who naively thought they were "just" fighting for peace land and bread, they miss the point.

The slogan encapsulated a political, ideological position that meant infinitely more than "peace, land and bread". The slogan of the French revolution was "liberty, equality and fraternity". Slogans are never sufficient unto themselves. There comes a time when the political standards are in favor of the revolutionaries wherein small, vague words can encapsulate tacitly acknowledged political positions, ideological forces, and so on. It would be meaningless for hte slogan to be "Socialism and workers blah blah blah". This was already an axiom for virtually anyone who was a contender to power in that context. Even Kerensky, I believe, identified as a socialist.

During that time, for example, virtually all contending parties for power were self-proclaimed socialists. Such is the nature of politics. You can really tell that something works ideologically when it does not say "I am ideology". Look at ANY slogan. Do you think "black lives matter" simply means black lives matter? it doesn't. There is so much more.

It is true that this was an ideological slogan. But the slogan was aimed at the peasantry, which is what you keenly fail to acknowledge. The workers were not won over by "Peace, Land and Bread". The workers were already the substantial base of the Bolshevik party, the overwhelming majority (save for those bound by political tradition, etc.) were for the Bolsheviks. Workers are not won over by ideological slogans, because they are class-conscious and understand the situation scientifically. It is different with the agrarian petty bourgeoisie.

In fact people that the Bolsheviks previously vouched for as revolutionary socialists and been prepared to work with in the RSDLP they were now exiling, imprisoning and murdering once they were in power albeit in a 'decentralised' fashion.

But who were those people? And I only emphasize the decentralized aspect of the terror because it disallows you simply to blame the Bolshevik party leaders. This was something workers - and even peasants - were participating in en masse on a grassroots level. Who were they prepared to work with? The Left socialist revolutionaries? Many simply ended up joining the Bolsheviks.

And you are claiming there was no socialism outside the Bolsheviks.
They weren't usually shooting 'elements' or 'sections' of striking workers, they were merely starving them. Even the Conservative party in Britain has a better record than that. If you think butchering socialists and workers is a bad thing (and I'm beginning to wonder if you do) the SPGB's record compared to Bolsheviks or Tories is pretty clean.

Perhaps if we qualify parties based on stupid moral abstractions, yes, you're right. Mind you, what alternative was there in the situation? Sacrifice the revolution because a small, specific section of the workers (and let us be clear - as Lenin acknowledged- often times those who went into the factories as new workers during the civil war were those who wanted to avoid service in the Red army, and many did not even come from proletarian backgrounds) who demanded what was impossible - equal rations with Red army soldiers (who, subsequently, were necessary to defend the workers against the white counter-revolution) all in the name of some stupid ethical abstraction?

My point is simple: a rationing system was in place, with forced requisition of grain from the peasants to feed the cities. This was necessary for workers not to starve. If some workers are actively undermining the efforts of the proletarian dictatorship, why should they be given rations in such a situation? There is nothing uniquely "Bolshevik" about this conundrum. Anyone else would have been pressed with the same dilemma.

But again, a shown, the whole logic is reactionary and formalist. It amounts to de-contextualized abstractions and nothing more. "If you think butchering socialists and workers is a bad thing" - what does that even mean? That under no circumstances, none at all, people who happen to be workers or call themselves socialists are immune from death? Even if the safety of the revolution is in danger? You cannot have a revolution without a revolution. There is a responsibility to power which must be owned.

No wonder this broader movement didn't catch on Germany at the time. They didn't want a Red Terror even a 'decentralised' one.

The German workers were not "The Idler". Only liberals are scared of terror - working people are full of nothing but vengeance and a desire for justice. What you fail to account for is that it did "catch on" in Germany. It failed. It had nothing to do with being scared of red terror. It had everything to do with the resilience of the German state machine and the compromise of the movement by the social democratic renegades.

Rafiq

12th October 2015, 23:19

As far as the death penalty, LOL! The Bolsheviks abolished the death penalty in 1918 I believe, are you actually telling me they followed through with it? And before you post something about "the rope and axe" or whatever, know that they executed lots and lots of "common" criminals as well; not to mention other leftists (anarchists/other marxists), the vast majority of whom were never a danger in so far as counter-revolution, although they were a threat to the Bolshevik monopoly of power.

But it wasn't cynical. Bolsheviks were naive. They didn't expect to, or want to use political violence - they explicitly wanted to avoid the "terror of the French revolution". As stated, the Red terror was largely a grass-roots phenomena - and yes, it did stem from the threat of counter-revolution and active attempts to undermine the revolution.

There was no revolution outside the "bolshevik monopoly of power". The bolsheviks only held power, or desired to, insofar as that power was the power of the proletarian dictatorship. Mind you were there periods where Bolshevik leaders were imminently faced with the prospect of dying, not only while in power but as revolutionaries. They pressed on selflessly. You can't look at the situation cynically. Nobody was killed for being an "other Marxist" and nobody was killed for being an anarchist. I mean, you would have situations where a woman was talking shit to Lenin and he would get out of his car and start arguing with her.

WideAwake

13th October 2015, 05:15

Comrade V

13th October 2015, 12:52

Rafiq: you are right. That's why many marxists claim that most anarchists are members of the middle class who hate capitalism, but who are not really desperate for a 15 dollars per hour minimum wage, free medical care, state-owned electricity, state-owned phone and other state-owned corporations, that wouldn't turn a USA into a perfect socialist paradise but at least would rise out of depression, existential vacuum, sadness and stress about 200 million people in America who are living a hell of a life, billed to death, taxed to death, and stressed to death. While anarchists prefer not to support any marxist leftist alternative available, because as they live an economically stable middle class life, they don't really need a quick change. I do like anarchists and anarchism, but what I don't like is their deep sectarianism and perfectionism. They need to understand that politics is not a moral science, and it is almost impossible to see a perfect moralist worker's state.

To make the sweeping assumption that all Anarchists are middle class is laughable at best, especially considering the shear number of pretentious college educated marxists that inhabit the internet. Are there Anarchists like that? I'm sure. Are there Communists who've been raised in that soulless capitalist hole that is suburbia? I'm also sure.

And while you're talking about sectarianism you might wanna look to your own a moment, both sides of the debate have more subfactions than anyone could ever want, as is with humanity's annoying desire to label the shit outta everything.

Personally, growing up shit poor (drugs, gunshots, yadda yadda yadda) and in constant conflict with the snobby middle class assholes above (public school/forced integration, busing to the better sections of town), I take comments like that in an extremely negative way.

Making baseless assumptions because someone doesn't agree with your particular line of reasoning only leads to further unnecessary conflict.

Hatshepsut

13th October 2015, 13:28

The idea that I can survive so long as I don't say anything and walk along, keeping my head down like a good little dog, doesn't appeal to me in the least...

But really that's true even if you live in the United States, the country with the freest speech in the world. Yes, you can criticize the government in the abstract as much as you please. If you intimate that you'd like to depose the president, however, no matter how private that bit of speech, then you're guilty of conspiracy and if caught, the feds have a nice single cell for you in Florence, Colorado. It's windowless so you won't catch the lovely view of mountains nearby.

Not to mention our ubiquitous "public safety" laws. Skateboard down a Hooper street where it's forbidden and upon discretion the cop may book you into jail. For this offense, Utah bail is $500, which must be paid in cash only. It purchases release as you'll never see the money again after the $299 fine and $150 bail administration fee consume it all. Someone will have to come post it for you given you can't do so from inside. A commercial bondsman/bounty hunter offers that service for a fee, provided you can show proof of job and community ties. If no one posts your bail, you languish as the Sheriff's guest up to three months, by which time you'll have lost your job, home, and personal possessions.

This isn't in Russia, but in the country claiming to be the freest on earth. In practice opposed to ideal, laws in democratic countries are traditionally written to protect the top 10% of society. Consideration for those lower down is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps dating back to 1935 in the USA; the law nonetheless retains a marked tilt toward the rich. The USA has shot fewer people at home than the communists simply because its leadership has stayed more secure on its throne—not that the “home of the brave” ever held back from bombing folks abroad, including our planet’s sole use of nuclear weaponry against civilian targets to date.

Even if Chomsky were making "bank" off textbooks, so what? Engels ran a factory in Manchester making millions of pounds in the 19th century, ...

... and spent those millions of pounds pursuing revolution in Europe. I also suspect Engels was willing to lose the factory if necessary; his father almost took his privileges and income away at one point, if I remember correctly.

I agree that Chomsky can't be criticized merely for having books and teaching positions, but I'm waiting to see what he's done with the proceeds. I don't see much advocacy for revolution here despite the attacks on Ronald Reagan's Nicaragua policies and so on. As far as I can tell, Chomsky is strictly a parliamentary socialist who would tweak the current system to bring about a government-owned Amtrak rail and a few crumbs for union workers.

Comrade V

13th October 2015, 15:24

But really that's true even if you live in the United States, the country with the freest speech in the world. Yes, you can criticize the government in the abstract as much as you please. If you intimate that you'd like to depose the president, however, no matter how private that bit of speech, then you're guilty of conspiracy and if caught, the feds have a nice single cell for you in Florence, Colorado. It's windowless so you won't catch the lovely view of mountains nearby.

Not to mention our ubiquitous "public safety" laws. Skateboard down a Hooper street where it's forbidden and upon discretion the cop may book you into jail. For this offense, Utah bail is $500, which must be paid in cash only. It purchases release as you'll never see the money again after the $299 fine and $150 bail administration fee consume it all. Someone will have to come post it for you given you can't do so from inside. A commercial bondsman/bounty hunter offers that service for a fee, provided you can show proof of job and community ties. If no one posts your bail, you languish as the Sheriff's guest up to three months, by which time you'll have lost your job, home, and personal possessions.

This isn't in Russia, but in the country claiming to be the freest on earth. In practice opposed to ideal, laws in democratic countries are traditionally written to protect the top 10% of society. Consideration for those lower down is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps dating back to 1935 in the USA; the law nonetheless retains a marked tilt toward the rich. The USA has shot fewer people at home than the communists simply because its leadership has stayed more secure on its throne—not that the “home of the brave” ever held back from bombing folks abroad, including our planet’s sole use of nuclear weaponry against civilian targets to date.

And? I never claimed for the United States to be some bastion of equality and freedom. You are free to say what you wish as long as it doesn't actually change anything, and then if somehow you manage to get some change accomplished you're deposed of eventually regardless. Pretty much every state throughout history has operated on this basis, raising those already on top higher and pressing those below further. To varying degrees.

Being fundamentally opposed to any State I fail to see what sort of response your comment is trying to elicit.

RedWorker

13th October 2015, 16:05

Only liberals are scared of terror - working people are full of nothing but vengeance and a desire for justice. What you fail to account for is that it did "catch on" in Germany. It failed. It had nothing to do with being scared of red terror. It had everything to do with the resilience of the German state machine and the compromise of the movement by the social democratic renegades.

Did Engels not criticize exactly such notions in The Condition of the Working Class in England, arguing that while the workers may want terror, this is eliminated when they become communists because communism results in the conclusion of such terror being useless?

Hatshepsut

13th October 2015, 16:23

...I fail to see what sort of response your comment is trying to elicit.

Perhaps to elicit an acknowledgement that the USSR was the world's first state to formally espouse a Marxist goal of advancing communism to the point where the state can wither away. Do pardon me if I mistook you for a right-winger; that'll teach me to read a sample of posts before answering someone. :lol:

We all know the USSR honored its Marxist promises mainly in the breach. But ideals matter: A state that doesn't have Marxist goals will never reach Marxist ends, while one that does might get there eventually. I don't believe that perfect communism, existing under no political order whatsoever, is even possible in the real world. It's a fantasy. No functional, permanent anarchy has ever prevailed over any human society larger than the prehistoric foraging band. I don't see why that need deter us from the ideal. After all, the Second Law of Thermodynamics forbids a Clausius refrigerator but that hardly keeps engineers from working on the improvement of real refrigerators. By way of analogy I assert that a close approach to communism, with minimal political supervision, can indeed evolve and that this should be the goal of the Left.

Comrade V

13th October 2015, 17:56

Perhaps to elicit an acknowledgement that the USSR was the world's first state to formally espouse a Marxist goal of advancing communism to the point where the state can wither away. Do pardon me if I mistook you for a right-winger; that'll teach me to read a sample of posts before answering someone. :lol:

We all know the USSR honored its Marxist promises mainly in the breach. But ideals matter: A state that doesn't have Marxist goals will never reach Marxist ends, while one that does might get there eventually. I don't believe that perfect communism, existing under no political order whatsoever, is even possible in the real world. It's a fantasy. No functional, permanent anarchy has ever prevailed over any human society larger than the prehistoric foraging band. I don't see why that need deter us from the ideal. After all, the Second Law of Thermodynamics forbids a Clausius refrigerator but that hardly keeps engineers from working on the improvement of real refrigerators. By way of analogy I assert that a close approach to communism, with minimal political supervision, can indeed evolve and that this should be the goal of the Left.

It's really hard to judge what a society would've become if it wasn't taken by force from much better equipped and allied foes. Especially when the only support given was lite arms by the French and Stalin's deceptive ilk. (Of course I'm talking about Catalonia, one of the few real attempts)

Sure the Soviets can get their points in for trying, pulling a country out of the third world, but as a model? Eh. Trusting a small group of people to lead the way and hoping that one of them isn't a power hungry dickwad is a bit of a crapshoot.

I tend to disagree with a group that's historically killed it's fair share of people who think on my wavelength.

The Idler

13th October 2015, 22:09

The Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War and took power.
'Peace land and bread' is not socialism, doesn't encapsulate socialism or imply socialism.
There were many self-proclaimed 'socialists' during the Russian Civil War does not necessarily mean any were 'socialists' advocating 'socialism'. It is not axiomatic.
You state the working-class who were not the majority in Russia largely supported the Bolsheviks. This doesn't demonstrate they were class conscious.
Slaughtering workers striking for better conditions so that the Bolsheviks could stay in power is not revolutionary.
You cannot have a revolution without a revolution is a decontextualised abstraction. So is a responsibility to power that must be owned.
'Only liberals are scared of terror - working people are full of nothing but vengeance and a desire for justice.'
If you think terrorism solves anything, what are you waiting for? Or will the social-democratic 'renegades' stop the 'revolution' this time too? Or are they the ones scared of terror?
To quote the Socialist Standard in December 1953

Even had the insurrection been successful it could only have resulted in the Spartacists governing a capitalist Germany. The majority of German workers had no understanding of socialism and as little inclination for social revolutionary change. The Spartacists would have been in the same position as the Russian Bolsheviks—governing by force and terror—forced into administering capitalism.

WideAwake

14th October 2015, 04:03

Comrade: Thanks a lot for your explanation, you are right. You know what I say here in this forum is not 100% absolute truths, so if I made a mistake about judging anarchism, it was not on purpose. One of the main reasons i am in this revleft forum is to learn the most I can about how to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism and state-less communism. That comment about all anarchists being part of the middle class I guess was wrong.

And you also very right about many radical marxists being college students and being part of the middle class.

Anyways there is a lot of division in the whole left (social-democrats, maoists, trotskists, marxist-leninists, anarchists). Lots of ideological wars between the tendencies of the whole left in most countries. But maybe when the economy gets a lot worse, when poverty levels rise in most countries of the world. Maybe the radical leftists will put away their personal tendencies and unite into communist united fronts in most countries of the world

But right now there is a lot of sectarianism within the left in most countries of the world

By the way I am marxist, but at the same time I agree with the anarchism theory, about how governments and concentrated economic and political power leads to government corruption and oppression

To make the sweeping assumption that all Anarchists are middle class is laughable at best, especially considering the shear number of pretentious college educated marxists that inhabit the internet. Are there Anarchists like that? I'm sure. Are there Communists who've been raised in that soulless capitalist hole that is suburbia? I'm also sure.

And while you're talking about sectarianism you might wanna look to your own a moment, both sides of the debate have more subfactions than anyone could ever want, as is with humanity's annoying desire to label the shit outta everything.

Personally, growing up shit poor (drugs, gunshots, yadda yadda yadda) and in constant conflict with the snobby middle class assholes above (public school/forced integration, busing to the better sections of town), I take comments like that in an extremely negative way.

Making baseless assumptions because someone doesn't agree with your particular line of reasoning only leads to further unnecessary conflict.

Comrade V

14th October 2015, 04:29

Rafiq

14th October 2015, 06:32

'Peace land and bread' is not socialism, doesn't encapsulate socialism or imply socialism.

Idler, look at how you phrase this alone. "Peace land and bread" is not an eternal slogan. It is not an abstraction. It is true that within the context of the 21st century it does not imply socialism, but as far as the Russian situation in 1917 is concerned, it did mean socialism. The Bolsheviks did not hide this fact - the point was that they juxtaposed themselves against other so-called "socialists".

You should remember that socialism is not some arbitrarily conceived nice idea. It is the real movement to abolish the present state of things. As capitalism changes in its various epochs, so too does socialism's expression.

There were many self-proclaimed 'socialists' during the Russian Civil War does not necessarily mean any were 'socialists' advocating 'socialism'. It is not axiomatic.

Socialism is not an abstraction. Of course, self-identifying oneself as a socialist does not mean one is a socialist. But these "socialists" were not fighting because of any pretense to ideas. They were fighting over very practical matters. Understanding such matters and their practical nature allows us to separate the socialists from the opportunists - and from a scientific perspective, the notion that Bolsheviks just wanted to "hold power" for the sake of it emanates a naive understanding of how power works.

We can assess rather perfectly why the Mensheviks, or the Right SR's behaved in the manner they did - as we can for the social democratic renegades in general. Whether we want to call them "socialists" or not is quite irrelevant, because we are not socialists because we like ideas, we are socialists for matters that are practical.

You state the working-class who were not the majority in Russia largely supported the Bolsheviks. This doesn't demonstrate they were class conscious.

No, alone, it does not. Evaluating the character of the working class in Russia, however, easily leads one to the conclusion that they were class-conscious in the most meaningful sense of the term. What else would it mean? The peasantry were perhaps not class-conscious. Towards the end of the civil war, however, most were for the Bolsheviks.

Slaughtering workers striking for better conditions so that the Bolsheviks could stay in power is not revolutionary.

The implications of Bolsheviks "staying in power" was the survival of the proletarian dictatorship. That a section of people working in factories would not sacrifice their immediate egoistic interests (such as recognizing that higher rations for red army soldiers was important) for the proletarian dictatorship does not detract from the revolutionary nature of the actions of Bolsheviks.

To speak of "slaughtering workers striking" would be a gross exaggeration, anyway. Mind you, many, if not most, of the industrial workers had joined the ranks of the Red army themselves. Where did the Bolsheviks simply shoot striking workers for the sake of it? This is nonsense.

If you think terrorism solves anything, what are you waiting for? Or will the social-democratic 'renegades' stop the 'revolution' this time too? Or are they the ones scared of terror?

What do you mean what am I waiting for? We don't even have a worker's movement, none the less political organs that can be whimsically ordered to overthrow the state by Rafiq.

Even had the insurrection been successful it could only have resulted in the Spartacists governing a capitalist Germany. The majority of German workers had no understanding of socialism and as little inclination for social revolutionary change. The Spartacists would have been in the same position as the Russian Bolsheviks—governing by force and terror—forced into administering capitalism.

The Spartacists governing a "capitalist Germany"? Had they been able to take power on that level in the first place, not only would this have already induced a mass proletarian uprising across Germany, it would have likely inspired confidence into potential revolutions that were far westward. Governing by "force and terror" would have also been rather unlikely, unless against of course the Prussian juncker class and the rural petty bourgeoisie. Even then, this wouldn't have been as much of a problem as it was in Russia. Mind you, the uprising occured under the context of what was already effectively great political change. There was no better opportunity.

The Spartacus uprising itself was characterized by a general strike. It saw to workers activity all across Germany - any decent historian recognizes that the possibility of a soviet republic in Germany was a very real possibility - so much so that the possibility of another one still haunted German military leaders during WWII, so much so that it was arguably responsible for the rise of Fascism in Germany in the first place.

The notion that workers were unfamiliar with socialism also makes no sense. Workers were clearly familiar with socialism, else an uprising that consisted of 500,000 active strikers in Berlin alone would not have been possible. Mind you, the total population of Berlin was 2 million people. By the time the Spartacus revolt occurred, socialism had already been something of a tradition for German workers politically (through German social democracy) and the revolt alone had polarized the whole country. In fact it's for that same reason the Nazis had to use socialist rhetoric and socialist aesthetics to appeal to them. Generally if workers can see real political leadership, and if workers can see even a small spark of hope, they will act on it. Most of either the apathy, or reactionary inclinations of proletarians stem purely from a lack of confidence.

The Idler

15th October 2015, 20:50

Rafiq

15th October 2015, 21:59

So in late 19th Century Western Europe, the slogans socialists were advocating were 'abolition of the wages system', 'workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains', yet in early 20th Century Russia 'Peace land and bread' was being taken to mean 'socialism'.

The only people who demand such slogans as a qualification for their faith in Socialism are the Idler.

As for the Russian working class, after decades of organization and struggle, this was a basic axiom. You have to be the worst fool to think that by 1917 "Workers of the world unite", "abolition of the wage system", etc. were alien prerogatives of the Russian working class. As it happens, however, within the context of 1917 the Mensheviks, SR's among others also took this as a basic political axiom.

So the Bolsheviks would not have done well to distinguish themselves merely by prattling of "abolition of the wage system" or "workers' of the world unite" (they did, however, say such things in the context of parades, Comintern meetings, ETC.). Even for the most vile, dishonest and contemptible opportunists, this was an "end goal". The controversies that led to the October revolution had nothing to do with a purported disagreement about this - for without a real, practical context, these words are abstractions, they are meaningless. You have absolutely no regard for the context of the October revolution. You have absolutely no regard for the fundementally different ideological and political climate. It is like attacking Marx because he did not talk about a moneyless, wageless society where Workers Own The Means of Production Themselves™ in his disputes with other self-described socialists (like the German true socialists) who wanted "the same thing". You forget to understand that the whole point of Orthodox Marxism was ironing all of this out into a real, concrete and practical political position.

By 1917 the Russian working class did not have to be herded like a bunch of ignorant cattle into wanting this. The level of militancy of the Russian proletariat far exceeded the immature workers movement of the 19th century that was regularly taken into paths of capitulation by reactionary opportunists and class-foreign ideologues. Also, agitating in the context of the late 19th century and agitating within the context of demanding an immediate withdrawal from the front-lines of the First world war, among other considerations like an aggrandous illiterate, culturally deficient peasant population are obviously going to spell different slogans. But what did the Bolsheviks do?

But aside from that, what is most unforgivable here is your profound ignorance of the depth of ideology. You clearly have no notion of how ideology works. When socialists made such slogans (and frankly, it takes a profound level of ignorance to think such slogans were not present even in the Comintern) in the late 19th century they were juxtaposing and distinguishing themselves from those bourgeois and reactionary socialists, and those elements of the workers movement prone to everlasting compromise, nationalism and reform. Ideology does not say "I am ideology". Ideology emanates from real social controversies. Saying "We want a moneyless, classless, wageless society where workers own the means of production" is 100% worthless. You're only fooling yourself with such nonsense - and no greater insult to the tradition of socialism emanates from reducing your politics to this. Why? Because socialism is not a matter of picking and choosing aspects arbitrarily chosen as preferable. What would it mean to want, for example, a "moneyed, classless, wage-based society"? Socialism is social self-consciousness and nothing more. As a result of this consciousness does the inevitability of the destruction of class, wages and nations arise. Not some silly preference for these things for "ethical" reasons.

Who did the Bolsheviks have to distinguish themselves from in making such slogans? I cannot believe that you call yourself a Marxist and yet are dumbfounded at the notion that in different historical contexts, different words can insinuate different things. It is astonishing, the level of ignorance of this most basic and rudimentary concept. Socialism is not reducible to words. It is not reducible to even some kind of eternal, fixed set of rules you agree with. It is the real movement to abolish the present state of things. That is why, Idler, we Marxists will never end up like opportunistic scum as Chomsky, who will say "Well, I'm an anarchist because for me that means..." while in practical and even deep-seated ideological/pathological terms expressing liberalism: we don't have to stoop to this pathetic level of apologism.

As James Connolly commented in Socialism Made Easy (1909)

Again with opportunistically abstracting things from their context as eternal truths. This is the backbone of right-wing politics.

Connolly was not speaking against the practicality of socialist politics - something he himself engaged in. The notion of "eternal, unconditional principles" is alien to the tradition of Marxism, and Connolly knew this. You don't need to look at Connolly - look at any real critique of neoliberalism and growing technocracy today and you will find the same language. That doesn't mean practicality is not important - in fact, practicality is all that matters. THe point is - whose practicality? The bourgeoisie, the bloodsuckers, or the revolutionary proletariat (which finds its highest expression of organization and maturity in the Communist party)?

Connolly was speaking about those functionaries of the bourgeois state who forward inherently (establishment) partisan notions under the guise of "practicality". Right-wing opportunists will say "Well, the Bolsheviks were bourgeois too, lul, its the same thing". It's like how people say "Well, Ethiopia was never colonized and the US was colonized. Therefore colonization is not responsible for the sufferings of Africans". It's pure opportunism, it's playing with the dead carcasses that are words, lifeless abstractions with no creative power whatsoever, no scientific insight into the real, essential basis of things. Again, you have no notion of Marxism.

As Luxemburg rightfully puts it:

The general and cliché-like character of the ninth point in the program of the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia shows that this way of solving the question is foreign to the position of Marxian socialism. A “right of nations” which is valid for all countries and all times is nothing more than a metaphysical cliché of the type of ”rights of man” and “rights of the citizen.” Dialectic materialism, which is the basis of scientific socialism, has broken once and for all with this type of “eternal” formula. For the historical dialectic has shown that there are no “eternal” truths and that there are no “rights.” ... In the words of Engels, “What is good in the here and now, is an evil somewhere else, and vice versa” – or, what is right and reasonable under some circumstances becomes nonsense and absurdity under others. Historical materialism has taught us that the real content of these “eternal” truths, rights, and formulae is determined only by the material social conditions of the environment in a given historical epoch.

On this basis, scientific socialism has revised the entire store of democratic clichés and ideological metaphysics inherited from the bourgeoisie. Present-day Social Democracy long since stopped regarding such phrases as “democracy,” “national freedom,” “equality,” and other such beautiful things as eternal truths and laws transcending particular nations and times. On the contrary, Marxism regards and treats them only as expressions of certain definite historical conditions, as categories which, in terms of their material content and therefore their political value, are subject to constant change, which is the only “eternal” truth.

When Napoleon or any other despot of his ilk uses a plebiscite, the extreme form of political democracy, for the goals of Caesarism, taking advantage of the political ignorance and economic subjection of the masses, we do not hesitate for a moment to come out wholeheartedly against that “democracy,” and are not put off for a moment by the majesty or the omnipotence of the people, which, for the metaphysicians of bourgeois democracy, is something like a sacrosanct idol.

When a German like Tassendorf or a tsarist gendarme, or a “truly Polish” National Democrat defends the “personal freedom” of strikebreakers, protecting them against the moral and material pressure of organized labor, we don’t hesitate a minute to support the latter, granting them the fullest moral and historical right to force the unenlightened rivals into solidarity, although from the point of view of formal liberalism, those “willing to work” have on their side the right of “a free individual” to do what reason, or unreason, tells them.

When, finally, liberals of the Manchester School demand that the wage worker be left completely to his fate in the struggle with capital in the name of “the equality of citizens,” we unmask that metaphysical cliché which conceals the most glaring economic inequality, and we demand, point-blank, the legal protection of the class of wage workers, thereby clearly breaking with formal “equality before the law.”

The least common denemonator behind all of these seemingly "contradictory" positions IS NOT a consistent desire for a proposed set of nice abstractions. It is taking a side in objective social antagonism as it presents itself across situations.

So when we say socialism is practical, we mean very concretely that it derives from matters that are practical, because the prerogatives of revolutionary agents are practical ones, ones that have a real say in the order of things as they are continually reproduced - real, actual social antagonisms that will exist independently of your silly word-fetishes and abstractions.

Rafiq

15th October 2015, 22:09

Do you actually think that for the great masses of Russian people, they were won over because they thought "Hey, I want peace, land and bread!"? Do you think people are actually that stupid? As if everyone didn't know the Bolsheviks were Communists all along, as if - somehow - a random voice from the depth of the abyss cried "Piece land and bread!" and that was that? Nay mind the revolutionary tradition in Russia, nay mind the revolutionary and militant radical culture there, nay mind any of that. When the Bolsheviks spoke of "Peace, land and bread", that's all it meant - sum land, sum bread, and sum peace. With such a juvenile insight you find yourself in common with philistines like Kolakowski.

When Nazis spoke of a "greater germany" or whatever, do you think the Germans were won over solely because they liked the idea of a "greater germany"? Or when Nazis spoke about Jews, do you think words really just mean what they present themselves as? These are loaded phrases. They mean much more than what they present themselves as.

Meanwhile the worthlessness of not only Chomsky's politics, but his understanding of language will never allow his followers to understand this.

Invader Zim

16th October 2015, 00:42

...what you fail to understand is that there are no eternal truths...

Leaving aside your crass apologism for brutality wrapped in a red flag, how do you know anything if there is no such thing as 'eternal truth'?

And, my mind has just been blown: how do you know there are no eternal truths without accepting, as an eternal truth that there are no eternal truths?

Hyper-relativist postie spew is bullshit. How is that for an eternal truth?

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 02:04

how do you know anything if there is no such thing as 'eternal truth'?

And, my mind has just been blown: how do you know there are no eternal truths without accepting, as an eternal truth that there are no eternal truths?

For the same reason that one can be capable of scientifically understanding history without in fact making pretenses to living in previous historic epochs, or being trans-historic gods outside of history. Understanding the past, is practical for the present (as a living person observing the past, who happens to live in the present). Understanding there are no eternal truths is a matter of its approximation to the (relative) present as well. It has nothing to do with creating abstractions that one must adjust themselves to.

Saying "there are no eternal truths" has nothing to with "relativism" (unless recognizing there isn't a god viewing the world to establish a "truth" means relativism). Epistemologically speaking Marxists recognize truth to be practical. I do not have to prove the existence of other people, the social dimension any more than I have to prove my own existence.

I mean, it's so ironic that you criticize me and yet the character of your criticism precisely cannot escape falling back on formal abstractions that I was criticizing in the first place. Here I wasn't even making any pretenses to epistemology either. With your blind, mindless arrogance, you've missed the point all together: Things mean different things in different contexts. So to abstract a "thing" and make it a formally established rule is to precisely not remain faithful to the thing at all - because in approximating it to a different context, it has changed its meaning. So when one says "there are no eternal truths", the point is that there are no eternal practical, or moral truths. But this isn't a pretense to saying "nothing is real", it is saying that there are no specific eternal truths. Saying there are no eternal truths is not in fact a "specific eternal truth" because it is a general extrapolation from specific things which are not even in the same category as it. Saying "Socialism means this" unconditionally and in every context is an eternal truth. But the point of significance is not simply that it is a generalization, but because the "socialism" in question was either arbitrarily contingent upon ethical systems, or it would have been the right qualification in a previous context. If one were to say, "socialism is the movement to abolish the present state of things", that is not an "eternal truth" (in the context of how Luxembourg used the word) because it is only true insofar as its practical truth is actively reproduced across periods in capitalism. This is the point in trying to conceive history scientifically. Because history regards change, simply looking for empirical facts is not enough to constitute a scientific understanding of history.

"There are no eternal truths". "Well, that's an eternal truth". If you want to play those games, then sure, it's an "eternal truth", but only insofar as it is an eternal truth in the here and the now. Nothing is "real" insofar as it is not actively reproducing itself. We are not able to understand history without deriving such an ability from controversies of present historical circumstances. Insofar as we recognize ideas are not sufficient unto themselves, but exist in relation to reality, we must also understand where such ideas derive. The argument is tantamount to saying "prove the scientific method with the scientific method". You can't, because it's a practical matter - you do it or you don't, you have the prerogative to do it or you do not.

So *technically* you're not a Communist because you read the works of Communists. "Ideas" do not have any history or being. You can be a Communist because this has specific relevance as far as the here and now is concerned, as far as present relations to production are concerned. You can be a Communist tomorrow not because of your strong memory, but because tomorrow it will have the same relevance that it did today. Again, these must be basic scientific axioms where one is brave enough to approach such matters scientifically (rather than dismiss them, or say they are not appropriate concerns of science). So if someone gives us this specific qualification for socialism, I would simply tell them: What does this mean SPECIFICALLY on a practical level for society in the here and the now? What does it actually mean?

That's how right-wing opportunism works. It plays with words in order to obfuscate things. Right-wingers can talk about "reverse racism/sexism" or how "dur Ethiopia was never colonized while the US, Singapore were" all they want, but they don't actually give a fuck about this. They do it in an attempt to destroy a link between the original, authentic words and the essential meanings (like the reality of sexism, racism) they conveyed. So opposing "brutalities" out of what is purely a bourgeois pathological sensitivity - with pretenses to "real socialism" is pure opportunism and nothing more.

Hyper-relativist postie spew is bullshit. How is that for an eternal truth?

Cute. The beautiful thing about our tradition, against the anglo-saxon "common sense" tradition is that we devour them. You'll never be able to understand us, you'll never extrapolate any meaning from what we say (yet there is meaning, because there is a common understanding for those of us who do understand). Yet not only can we understand absolutely everything wrought from your tradition, we can locate precisely why you are unable to understand us. We've already surpassed you.

The fact that you literally have concluded - from the post above - that what is being argued is "hyper-relativist postmodernism" is literally either appalling or hilarious. Are you stupid? Do you even know what postmodernism is? Do you literally mindlessly dismiss everything that takes critical thinking to understand, that doesn't conform to the philistine common sense as "dur hur postmodern hyper-relativism".

"Dur hur postmodernism" they say. They, the evolutionary psychologists, "scientific" neo-racists, behavioral geneticists, etc.

Now tell me, why is saying "there are no truths" wrong? Because of course, saying this itself constitutes a truth. But that's precisely the point: Truth is practical, the existence of living human beings with practical prerogatives is not something that needs to be "confirmed" in thought, those who do not appreciate this fact, and play with word games are playing with pure abstractions which themselves have a basis of existence. So the argument is not that "nothing is true", the argument is that truth is not "written" anywhere, no formal system with a pretense to eternal truth at the expense of practical considerations can be scientific. The argument is really only ever an anti-religious one, for the whole logic derives from religion. "How can I say I support democracy if I am willing to fight Donald Trump's election?" - because "Democracy" is not an eternal truth, it is something that relates to us as real, living individuals for a reason irreducible to ideas. Hegel was able to conceive this merely by recognizing that the "ideas change".

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 02:25

If you say "I'm against racism" and say "racism is defined by opposing one on the basis of race", then any opportunist can destroy this "opposition" to racism by playing with some words here or there.

So let's have an experiment, shall we? Define "racism" for me.

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

For something so vaguely defined, let's say saying there's a joke about how white people dance in the US, or someone using the word "cracker". Is this just as "racist" as saying black people are dumb, or saying nigger? "By definition", the one commonly accepted into the ethical systems of bourgeois ideologue, it is. Outside of such definitions, on a conscious level bourgeois ideologues are not able to justify or articulate any opposition to racism.

Meanwhile we Marxists know there is no equivalency. Because being "racist" against white people has an entirely different meaning than being "racist" against black people, and it has entirely different connotations. Here I almost sympathize with ordinary language philosophy - because all this amounts to is fucking recognizing that context exists and that a word entail's a specific (practical) usage of that word.

So basically, to conclude, the argument that "Bolsheviks were shooting workers" on a socialist forum amounts to saying that one cannot condone such acts while at the same time opposing the bourgeoisie shooting workers, out of consistency. But the reasons why we oppose the bourgeoisie shooting workers are consistent with why we condone the shooting of people who happen to be workers by Bolsheviks. We don't oppose the bourgeoisie shooting workers because we abstract "being against shooting workers" as an ethical truth. We oppose it because of its concrete implications for workers struggling to destroy the existing order. We support this struggle only insofar as it has concrete implications for present circumstances. Our real, present existence is not something we have to prove - it is an axiom of being itself.

Invader Zim

16th October 2015, 21:10

For the same reason that one can be capable of scientifically understanding history without in fact making pretenses to living in previous historic epochs, or being trans-historic gods outside of history.

Indeed, though I would take issue with the 'scientifically' part, though you have long since demonstrated that what you think constitutes 'science' really only means 'method'. Events occur and they occur in a certain way. In other words there is an historical truth, which will always be true. The difficulty comes in as to whether it is possible to determine that truth. For simplistic questions, we can, of course determine truth. Thus, we don't require a time machine or to exist outside time to know that atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. However, for more complex questions, such as whether dropping these bombs directly caused the Japanese surrender, there will likely never be enough evidence to emerge to provide an answer which will constitute the final word to that question. But, we can say, with assurance, that there is a (likely very complex) answer that is indeed true. However, the idea that there is no truth, that there is no correct answer at all, is not the case. If that is your central point, which is very different from what you actually said, then we have no disagreement.

I also fully agree with:

"the point is that there are no eternal practical, or moral truths."

Which is not the same thing as saying that there is no eternal truth -- something that is true and will always remain true. This is not the same thing as a 'moral' truth, which is, of course by definition, culturally constructed and ephemeral. Your inability to correctly utilise vocabulary in a fashion which conveys the meaning you intend is the issue here.

As for developing a "scientific understanding of history", this we have discussed before. But for the context of our discussion here, what you are talking about is the subjectivities of interpretation not about actual truth.

The argument is tantamount to saying "prove the scientific method with the scientific method".

No, it is not. And this, as ever, is totally meaningless. You might as well have written:

'The argument is tantamount to saying "prove the fish with the fish".'

Perhaps what you meant was 'prove the utility of the scientific method with the scientific method'. But, at the moment it is impossible to tell. You only ever write in streams of half-constructed consciousness. And this is why your ideas are usually A. crap, and B. so ineptly expressed that they might as well be crap.

Invader Zim

16th October 2015, 21:25

The fact that you literally have concluded - from the post above - that what is being argued is "hyper-relativist postmodernism" is literally either appalling or hilarious. Are you stupid? Do you even know what postmodernism is? Do you literally mindlessly dismiss everything that takes critical thinking to understand, that doesn't conform to the philistine common sense as "dur hur postmodern hyper-relativism".

I'm sorry, I realise that you don't actually know what you're talking about so allow me to fill you in: the argument you made is 101 level post-structuralism. As noted, it appears from your subsequent reply that, as it turns out, you didn't mean what you actually wrote and instead used the term 'eternal truth' when what you are really talking about is rather different -- how our understanding of what is or is not true is constructed and is usually ephemeral. The central points of which I agree with.

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 21:37

However, for more complex questions, such as whether dropping these bombs directly caused the Japanese surrender, there will likely never be enough evidence to emerge to provide an answer which will constitute the final word to that question.

This results from nothing more than narrow-minded empiricism. Asking whether the bombs "directly caused the Japanese surrender" is already a loaded question, because for the United States to have already been in the position to do this - the world-historical context from which they were bombed, we can most definitely "disprove" the notion that the bombs caused the Japanese surrender. What we know is that Japanese surrender was inevitable. Whether or not the bombs caused them to surrender precisely at the moment that they did, of course, might be up for debate, and would require detailed research of the events.

But that is really besides the point (in that it has nothing to do with the argument at hand):

Now cutting out your usual blather (the usual blend of insult, incoherence and bluster),

[...]

Your inability to correctly utilise vocabulary in a fashion which conveys the meaning you intend is the issue here.

It is your inability to understand the context taht which such "vocabulary" was used. I spoke to the Idler with the expectation that he is a Marxist.

When Marxists speak of "eternal truths", we all know what we're talking about. We all know what this means. So when you resopnd to me in this context saying "Well, saying there are no eternal truths is an eternal truth", then it is only natural that I assume you are talking about "eternal truths" as they are being used in this context, as they were used in the context of various polemics of our tradition. Mind you, there are more truths than merely empirical ones. When people speak about a "true" course of action, or a "true" qualification for what it means to be a socialist, this is what we mean.

When we say there are no eternal truths, we do not mean it in a crypto-Popperian fashion (i.e. knowledge and truth is always provisional). This is a profoundly anti-dialectical notion:

Perhaps what you meant was 'prove the utility of the scientific method with the scientific method'. But, as ever, what you mean and what you write intersect only rarely.

And this is already practical. Idealist qualifications for proof do not work like this. For Idealists, truth is not a matter of practice, but unlocking the secrets to a pre-established "truth". For people, for example, things need to be confirmed by "proving" them, that is, by making them indisputably correct within a common framework of space. But you cannot "prove" the scientific method by these qualifications. You cannot "prove" that, for example, the validity of evolution by these idealist qualifications - because a creationist can simply assert that at each moment wherein natural selection occurs, divine will intervenes - or that there is a secret, magical force underlying everything, or that dinosaur bones were placed by Satan, and so on.

You can't disprove this (among other things: Solipsism). You can only recognize that science is a practical matter. Those who are not practically inclined to engage in it, whether we are talking about the natural sciences or history, cannot be "proven" anything because it serves no practical purpose to them.

Tell me Zim, when you responded to me, were you insinuating that my argument was "The Bolsheviks never shot people who happened to be workers because empirical facts change?" Maybe you should stop "cutting through my blather" and maybe you wouldn't have such a juvenile interpretation of my post.

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 21:41

I'm sorry, I realise that your ignorance is truly astonishing, but the argument you made is post-structuralist..

Post-structuralism has nothing to do with empirical relativism. Do you even know what you're talking about? I want to know exactly what leads Zim to the conclusion that post-structuralism has something to do with empirical relativism.

Do you actually talk out of your ass?

What's sad is that you didn't even read the post in question. You keep fucking going on about my inability to correctly express ideas, and yet you didn't even read past the first few sentences. Again, every arrogant anglo-saxon philistine, every haughty empiricist thinks they're exempt from critically engaging such things. What inspires your sense of confidence that you can dismiss me like this without looking like a stupid asshole?

For the anglo-saxon philistine, post-structuralism is literally like an alien language, something that can only be understood on a symbolic level - much like how in the past people only understood oriental cultures through pop-culture stereotypes (cartoons, etc.). It never ceases to amaze me that - literally - these are the people that hegemonize academia today.

So for them, post-structuralism = "nothing is true". Who knew there were post-structuralists since the 18th century. I want you to justify how - within the context of my post - accusing me of basically solipsism was an appropriate response.

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 21:58

Zim, why do you constnatly modify your posts? Why is saying:

I'm sorry, I realise that you don't actually know what you're talking about so allow me to fill you in: the argument you made is 101 level post-structuralism.

More important than saying

'm sorry, I realise that your ignorance is truly astonishing, but the argument you made is post-structuralist

Like who are you convincing here?

Indeed, though I would take issue with the 'scientifically' part, though you have long since demonstrated that what you think constitutes 'science' really only means 'method'

No, the qualifications for science that has been presented is Althusserian. Evolutionary psychology follows a "method", pseudo-quantum superstition (i.e. spiritualism) follows a "method", alternative medicinal techniques follow a "method", and the list goes on. These are not, however, scientific. The qualifications I have brought forth time and time again are consistent. Science is juxtaposed to ideology - to knowing. Ideology designates something without making that something knowable, while for something to be scientific it must be made knowable in thought. The methods used thereafter are then purely matters of practice. Think about the controversies of modern day science: most of them which receive any attention from the outside world draw closer and closer to the social. You will seldom find any disputes about positivism in, for example, matters of anatomy. That is because something like anatomy is respected across the social antagonism as far as its common understanding of the world on a practical level.

This qualification for science, of course, is worlds away from those of positivists or empiricist philistines. Juxtaposed to metaphysics they correctly attempt to defend the natural sciences from obscurantism and superstition (which is quite a thing of the past, with spiritualism and mysticism more and more touted to be compatible with "science"), but their "science" has no regard for the science of history, or the social domain. So all the unscientific metaphysics which approximates natural science on social terms (social Darwinism, the list goes on) is lumped in together with a scientific understanding of the social/historic dimension. Of course, you can't "falsify" the latter vis a vis disproving the former, but you can't "falsify" creationism vis a vis evolution either (or astrology with astronomy and psychology, and the list goes on).

Mind you, when I say it has no regard for the social or the historic, I do not mean that it has no regard for what is empirically apparent about them. But the conclusions drawn from empirical observations as far as historic processes are concerned are not "covered" by positivist science (but with ideology / every positivist is to himself a superstitious person one way or another)

Rafiq

16th October 2015, 22:21

It is not the scientific method which is controversial, but the areas of (purported) knowledge that it deals with.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

16th October 2015, 22:37

Just checked and 'Peace, Land and Bread' is still not 'socialism' or a movement or process towards it. This was the slogan which the Bolsheviks, and not their critics, came up with and support for the Bolsheviks was overwhelmingly based on.

Surprisingly enough, that slogan was a slogan. It did not contain the entirety of the RKP(b) programme. No slogan can contain the entirety of a political programme, unless that programme is insultingly simplified. That you seem to think otherwise only tells us about your simplistic view of politics - it does not tell us anything about the Bolsheviks. Finally, the notion that support for the Bolsheviks was "overwhelmingly based" on one slogan only makes sense if you think the Russian workers were mewling cretins. And even then it runs into the problem that there is absolutely no evidence for it. Like any party, the Bolsheviks changes slogans. This did not result in support for the Bolsheviks dropping.

They claimed to be socialists but you say they were not working for socialism.
In fact people that the Bolsheviks previously vouched for as revolutionary socialists and been prepared to work with in the RSDLP they were now exiling, imprisoning and murdering once they were in power albeit in a 'decentralised' fashion.

Is there some sort of script that all SPGB sympathisers and assorted "impossibilists" on this site have to follow? Your chum Dave also spends a lot of time listing the credentials of the Esers before the First World War as if they meant anything. But perhaps the SPGBots would like to take up another case. The leader of the left wing of Italian socialism, this man was later denounced by Italian communists and eventually ended up murdered by Stalinists. Won't, oh won't someone in the SPGB shed a tear for Benito Mussolini?

And you are claiming there was no socialism outside the Bolsheviks.

It's difficult to reply to your posts when half of them are democratoid drivel fit only to cause indigestion, and half of them are things you made up. Of course there was socialism outside the Bolsheviks. E.g. the United Internationalists. Of course these eventually joined the RKP(b), as did most communists, for example Natanson's majority of the PLSR.

They weren't usually shooting 'elements' or 'sections' of striking workers, they were merely starving them. Even the Conservative party in Britain has a better record than that. If you think butchering socialists and workers is a bad thing (and I'm beginning to wonder if you do) the SPGB's record compared to Bolsheviks or Tories is pretty clean.

I imagine the SPGB have bored many a worker to death.

Also this is ridiculous. You're asking us to compare a microscopic parliamentary sect with a party leading the revolution. Wow. I hear the Bolivian Socialist Falange (Neounzuagista) hasn't killed anyone either, and they also have the word "socialist" in their name and they're not as desperately in love with parliamentary politics as the SPGB.

And of course the working class sometimes finds its interest to be at odds with individual groups of workers from time to time. In strikes targeting the bourgeoisie, strikebreakers become enemies of the workers. Those who strike and disrupt the defence of a workers' state are likewise enemies of the workers. This is such an elementary point that I am shocked it needs to be spelled out.

No wonder this broader movement didn't catch on Germany at the time. They didn't want a Red Terror even a 'decentralised' one. I probably shouldn't be surprised the Bolsheviks defenders most keen on ad hominems here are advocating exiling or banning any critics of Bolshevism from revleft.

All I'm asking for is that the same rules that apply to everyone else be applied to you special snowflakes. Also, please don't identify yourself with "critics of Bolshevism". That category includes too much actual communists to be reduced to one Bernsteinist sect.

As for the German workers, they in fact rose up against both the Imperial regime, then holding on to its bare life in face of its historic defeat in the intra-imperialist war (in which your chum Dave supports one side after the fact, actually spitting in the face of the actual SPGB position), and against the sacred (to the SPGB) bourgeois democracy represented by Noske, Ebert and Scheidemann. But thank God, where the Czech Legions failed to "protect" the workers of Russia from Red Terror, the Freikorps "protected" the workers and socialists of Germany from Red Terror by butchering them. If you support the Czechs, KomUch and the Ufa Directorate, then be consistent for once and support the Freikorps.

Anarchists may have sided with the Bolsheviks, but that was pre-1918, before the Black Guards, before anarchist and Ukrainian nationalist Maria Nikiforova, etc. The current movement, knowing this history, will never knowingly side with Bolsheviks again, unless required to do so on a temporary basis for tactical reasons. A similar statement can be made regarding social democrats.

Modern anarchists have a bit of a problem with their history.

What actually happened is that many, probably most anarchists in Russia, sided with the Bolsheviks. This is obvious even if one reads only the highly biased accounts given by Voline and so on. He, Makhno and the Moscow Tuckerites were exceptions - that accounts for the sheer vitriol directed at "Soviet anarchists" like Sandomirsky, Ges, Zheleznyak etc. For this reason, modern anarchists are more enamored of the extremely (and occasionally comically) etatist PLSR (or rather the Central Committee majority, disregarding the actual majority of PLSR members who would eventually join the Bolsheviks) than any of the anarchists of that period.

In the end, what matters is not so much notional political affiliation but class. When the revolution comes, the proletarian anarchists will be with us. The petit-bourgeois element, the wriggly hands, affinity group and fair trade organic chocolate crowd will be against us, joined by petit-bourgeois groups the movement of the revolution will eject from Marxist groups.

What I find funny, is that Xhar Xhar was 'horrified' when some troll made me suggest that in the preliminary stage of socialism, those who refuse to work whatsoever should be shot. Yet here he is, shilling for the Bolsheviks, who shot factory workers for a lot less (striking for equal rations). Can you imagine what they would have done if the workers were like, "well fuck it, we aren't working"? No off course, because only in a forum can inconsistent abstractions with about as much semblance in reality as Middle Earth can pass off as "enlightening comments".

Hah, you're one obsessed person, I'll give you that. And indeed, inconsistent abstractions are the bread and butter of this site - inconsistent abstractions such as someone claiming to be a Leninist in one thread and accusing others of "shilling for the Bolsheviks" in another. Well, Mr. Non-Bolshevik-Leninist, you know our perspective - the state is like the flame that burns the brightest before it goes out. No one likes this. You would have to be a maniac of some sort to like the state - but the state, civil war and terror are indispensable. We can't do without them, so it's best to make our peace with that and not go into democratoid fits when a social-democrat needs to be shot.

But after the revolution comes socialism, where government over men does not exist anymore. It has withered away; not by any decree but because its social basis is gone. Because when you say:

I mean, call me crazy, that doesn't sound like he is just saying "murdering" during the revolutionary period, but whenever it is deemed necessary, I suppose by Trotsky or whoever he envisions will drive the cart.

you're completely forgetting that after a certain point - corresponding to the global victory of the revolution - it will not be necessary to kill anyone. And yes, indeed, we intend Trotsky to run the government in socialism. That way, as comrade Trotsky no longer exists, neither will the government.

But our friend Antiochus, who is horrified at the Bolsheviks, advocates forced work even in socialism. All he can muster in defence of this horrible muddle is:

They aren't "different beasts". Off course, making the meaningless differentiation allows one to support one and then reject the other on the facade of "pragmatism" and rejection of 'eternal truths'. The fact is, the abolition of labour in the aftermath of the global revolution and civil war, is a fucking joke. You know that, I know that, everyone with half a brain should know that. Xhar Xhar and others like to soothe themselves by imagining some sort of Hannah Montana episode where everyone just throws their hands up in the air and says "Well golly! Lets just get along".

First we learn that the difference between the period of revolution and civil war and a classless, stateless society based on global scientific planning of production is a "meaningless differentiation" (!), then the abolition of work, meaning the abolition of compelled labour, is changed into the abolition of labour, as if some miraculous nanomachines are going to end the need for humans to expend their labour-power to modify the natural world and develop culturally. The Marxist perspective is not this Star Trek fantasy, but labour becoming life's prime want. And this is possible because it is no longer necessary to compel anyone to work, as modern objectively-socialised industrial production means that the chief determinant of material productivity is dead labour, not living labour. Apparently our friend Antiochus thinks it is possible for the revolutionary area to survive a collapse of industrial production, as if socialism could be based on petty producers engaging in intense labour for mere subsistence.

Our friend, also, is such an expert on Bolshevik labour policy that he apparently thinks Bolsheviks compelled everyone to work. Completely ignoring e.g. closure of factories, and so on. But this is RevLeft, where a fantasy counts for more than historical fact.

Invader Zim

16th October 2015, 23:39

Post-structuralism has nothing to do with empirical relativism. Do you even know what you're talking about? I want to know exactly what leads Zim to the conclusion that post-structuralism has something to do with empirical relativism.

Do you actually talk out of your ass?

I find the above rather perplexing. You accuse me of 'talk[ing] out of [my] ass', and claim shocking ignorance on my part on a topic of historical philosophy. Yet I have stated nothing that would not be assumed to be totally axiomatic to anybody with even a passing grasp of the historical profession and the debates within it over the last two or three decades. The fact that considerable quantities of ink, not least Richard J. Evans famous (such that it is core reading on virtually every course (in Britain at least), on historiography and the philosophy of history) rebuttal of the hyper-relativist arguments that have emerged from the post-modernist/structuralist camp, have been spilled on this topic.

Invader Zim

17th October 2015, 00:07

Rafiq

17th October 2015, 00:24

yet I have stated nothing that would not be assumed to be totally axiomatic to anybody with even a passing grasp of the historical profession and the debates within it over the last two or three decades.

That your mindless and intellectually lazy (anti-intellectual, even) approach to the matter is not controversial among fellow analytical philistines is not a point of debate here.

What you conceive as "totally axiomatic" amounts to the tacit understanding philistines have in their outright dismissal of philosophy. There are no substantial, actual criticisms layed forth against "postmodernism" by your irk. There are incessant straw-men, often times deliberate misrepresentations all stemming from the shameless assumption that if they are unable to understand something, it must not have any meaning at all.

But the point of real concern is rather simple: There is nothing about saying "truth is not real" that has anyhting to do with post-structuralism. Any idiot who has a semblance of familiarity with actual post-structuralists, you know, and not the philistines who dismiss them, can understand this. The notion that the message of "there is no real truth and empirical facts are not true" is in the works of Derrida or Deleuze is so painfully ridiculous it staggers beyond belief that an adult with pretenses to intellectual legitimacy can say it with a straight face.

rebuttal of the hyper-relativist arguments that have emerged from the post-modernist/structuralist camp, have been spilled on this topic.

Of course you can conceive such arguments as "hyper-relativist" if you locate their essential, substantial message only in terms of your narrowness. I challenge you to provide a single example where an "intellectual" from your tradition has actually located the real message of a "post-structuralist" work he was critiquing.

To prattle of "hyper-relativism" here is ridiculous. When we, in our tradition, make such mistakes - such as accusing Fichte of solipsism or hyper-subjective idealism, which even Lacan made the mistake of doing, such mistakes can be resolved from within the framework of our tradition.

Those of the "analytical" school cannot do this. Of course, this is not to generalize - not every analytical philosopher is a moron, but even those exceptions like Wittgenstein traverse the edges of its narrow restrictions. Do not for a second think that your hegemonic prestige in the universities, or in 'legitimate' establishments is owed to anything more than your common sense practicality for the immediate demands of society (and therefore capital).

you did indeed incorrectly apply the term 'eternal truth' when what you were actually talking about was how understanding of truth is constructed.

No, you are extraoplating what I meant from the basis of a very narrow perspective.

"Eternal truth" is a phrase which has contextual meaning. Case in point: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch07.htm

It is your error that you are unable to locate its context. I did not arbitrarily use this choice of wording. It has a real meaning in our tradition.

Rafiq

17th October 2015, 00:31

For the record, I am not the least bit familiar with Richard J. Evan's criticisms, specifically, but I am familiar with prevailing anglo-saxon criticisms of "postmodernism".

I am taking your word for it: If he argues against "post-structuralism" on these terms, then he has no notion of post-structuralism. If his criticisms are along these lines, in other words.

And before you accuse me of making judgement I am not in a position to make - do not entertain me with the notion that you are familiar with the Derrida's or Foucaults, etc.

Any real criticism of postmodernism must be a cultural criticism. Postmodern intellectuals, or the first among them, cannot be dismissed. What must be criticized is that tendency in society - undoubtedly postmodern, which uses orientalism, abuses of science, etc. among other things as a pre-text for what is thoroughly an anti-enlightenment, anti-modern tendency. There is not a single TV series now a days that does not prattle of merging "science and spiritualism" and so on. Perhaps these can be called postmodern.

And of course there are fools in this tradition. But analytical philistinism is not its panacea. To criticize some ridiculous elements that identify as post-structuralists, you need to play the game.

Invader Zim

17th October 2015, 01:08

That your mindless and intellectually lazy (anti-intellectual, even) approach to the matter is not controversial among fellow analytical philistines is not a point of debate here.

Note that my point in that sentence was an observation that the key critique of the historical profession from post-modernist historical philosophers and historians has been one of hyper-relativism is readily evident to anybody who has even a passing familiarity with the literature in question. So, actually, you're describing anybody interested in the history of history as a 'philistine'.

And as for anti-intellectualism, you're the one pouring scorn on intellectual ideas, arguments and literature, which you don't know anything about. So, who's the anti-intellectual?

What you conceive as "totally axiomatic" amounts to the tacit understanding philistines have in their outright dismissal of philosophy.

I see that you now conflate the ability of the historical profession to largely resist the more serious challenges to historical method as "philistines... outright dismissal of philosophy", as if the likes of Hayden White are the be all and end all of philosophy. And as it happens, I don't dismiss all post-modernism or indeed all post-structuralism. That would be absurd. For instance, while Roland Barthes The Death of the Author is unreconstructed rubbish, his thoughts on myths (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/myth.html) are well worth reading and form the basis of a great deal of serious and high quality work on history and memory.

Any idiot who has a semblance of familiarity with actual post-structuralists, you know, and not the philistines who dismiss them, can understand this. The notion that the message of "there is no real truth and empirical facts are not true" is in the works of Derrida or Deleuze is so painfully ridiculous it staggers beyond belief that an adult with pretenses to intellectual legitimacy can say it with a straight face.

That you seem to believe that all of post-structuralism boils down to a few French philosophers in the 1960s, as opposed to entire schools of thought in virtually every academic discipline in what is called in the US the 'liberal arts', highlights your own intellectual bankruptcy. I'm talking about people like Hayden White, Keith Jenkins, Alun Munslow, and a whole raft of others -- you know people dealing in what we are talking about, whether we can actually know something about the past or, are instead, simply reduced to 'telling stories'.

For the record, I am not the least bit familiar with Richard J. Evan's criticisms, specifically, but I am familiar with prevailing anglo-saxon criticisms of "postmodernism".

Let's be honest, you aren't at all familiar with any of this -- in fact, we both know that you are fathoms out of your depth. And what, one might ask, in this context, is an Anglo-Saxon, but I don't actually care. It sounds like just another confused rafiqism. Thus boring.

do not entertain me with the notion that you are familiar with the Derrida's or Foucaults, etc.

Actually, I am -- Foucault, for instance, whatever else he might have been, is one of the most influential (if usually mistaken) historians to put pen to paper in the postwar period. That said, I don't pretend to understand Derrida primarily because his prose is (if possible) even worse than yours. I commend those with the perseverance to battle through.

And no, you are not qualified to discuss the philosophy of history without being even vaguely aware of what the theory wars were or how they played out in how historical knowledge has developed. Until you do, you will have no grasp of the context of our discussion. But, as I noted earlier, now that you have better clarified your position we don't actually disagree on the key point.

No, you are extraoplating what I meant from the basis of a very narrow perspective.

"Eternal truth" is a phrase which has contextual meaning. Case in point: https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...hring/ch07.htm

It is your error that you are unable to locate its context. I did not arbitrarily use this choice of wording. It has a real meaning in our tradition.

So, you're passing the buck onto Engels, who does not, in fact, deny the existence of eternal truths -- rather he suggests that many of the conclusions of the exact sciences (as he calls them) of his day were increasingly less prone to achieving exactitude not that it was impossible. You should try actually reading Marx and Engels, it would do you some good.

Rafiq

17th October 2015, 07:46

So, actually, you're describing anybody interested in the history of history as a 'philistine'.

What a profound argument.

Zim, I refuse to believe you are this stupid. You're an adult. The argument here has nothing to do with "people who are interested in history". The point is how you have qualified post-structuralism as "hyper-relativism", and more importantly, how you have qualified what is basically solipsism or subjective idealism as somehow having anything to do with post-structuralist traditions, whether in the historical field or otherwise.

And as for anti-intellectualism, you're the one pouring scorn on intellectual ideas, arguments and literature, which you don't know anything about.

I don't need to actually point out the irony here.

I see that you now conflate the ability of the historical profession to largely resist the more serious challenges to historical method as "philistines... outright dismissal of philosophy", as if the likes of Hayden White are the be all and end all of philosophy. And as it happens, I don't dismiss all post-modernism or indeed all post-structuralism. That would be absurd. For instance, while Roland Barthes The Death of the Author is unreconstructed rubbish, his thoughts on myths are well worth reading and form the basis of a great deal of serious and high quality work on history and memory.

How very generous of you.

That you find aspects of the work put forward by those outside the anglo-saxon tradition "useful" sais nothing about the accusation that your approach to post-modernism and post-structuralism is one of pure dismissal. But I am not simply accusing you of rejecting post-structuralism or post-modernism. I am accusing you of having no notion of either of these traditions beyond the caricatures of them that prevail - mind you - not only in the field of professional historiography but in virtually all fields that deal with social concerns. The fact that you accuse me of "postie hyper-relativist bullshit" based on this:

For all the "strawmen", it is precisely this kind of attack on the Bolsheviks that incurred their - at least polemical - wrath. When Marxists attacked the social democrats, opportunists and liberals as having no notion of Marxism, it is precisely for this reason - what you fail to understand is that there are no eternal truths, there is no fixed, rigid formal ethical system that Communists adhere to. The implications of shooting striking workers in the context of the Russian civil war and the implications of shooting them as the bourgoeisie are entirely different. That this odes not conform to bourgoeis ethics only tells us that the Bolsheviks, in fact, are not and were not soldiers of the bourgoiesie.

Suggests you have no notion of postmodernism as a theoretical tradition. By such absurd qualifications, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, and Trotsky were all "hyper-relativist" postmodernists (to accuse Engels and Lenin of hyper-relativism is the epitome of irony, while accusing this of Trotsky and Luxemburg is actually just stupid). I don't think you're stupid, however - or, to put it plainly, I don't think you're stupid enough to actually still think this accusation was justifiable. You're either deliberatly being dishonest because you've dug yourself a hole, or the baseless arrogance you derive from your "credentials" as a professional disallows you to even consider that you may have been wrong, amidst the "obscurantist" or "charlatan" Rafiq or whatever want. An honest person would admit making such a baseless, juvenile attack and move on with their lives. You claim not to have a dismissive attitude. One look and that settled it for you - what was being said was "hyper-relativist postie bullshit". "Oh, I've seen this nonsense before" Zim thought to himself. Nevermind this fatally stupid mistake, however. Anyone who would use the phrase "hyper-relativist postie bullshit" is a philistine, and there is nothing more to it. No serious thinker who wants to approach post-modernism critically speaks of "postie bullshit". Do you even know what philistinism is? Saying "Oh, that hyper-relativist nonsense" is the epitome of philistinism. That isn't to say what is being said on your part is meaningless - oh certainly, it's meaningful, it's just that your attempts to identify precisely what it is you oppose here are so juvenile and lazy that you may as well cover your ears and go "lalalalallalalala".

That you seem to believe that all of post-structuralism boils down to a few French philosophers in the 1960s, as opposed to entire schools of thought in virtually every academic discipline in what is called in the US the 'liberal arts', highlights your own intellectual bankruptcy.

Show me where it was insinuated that post-structuralism "boils down" to the thinkers mentioned. It doesn't anymore than German idealism and its wider implications for intellectual traditions to come "boil down" to Schelling, Hegel, etc. - my only point was that thinkers like Deleuze, Derrida, and Foucault were thinkers that distinguished the post-structuralist tradition from previous ones. Their works encapsulated the differences between post-structuralism and other philosophic disciplines. So for anyone who isn't a child, the obvious reason why I mentioned them is because this distinction had nothing to do with "hyper-relativist postie bullshit", none the less some vague notion about "truth doesn't exist". In the context of the post you replied to, you directly insinuated even that my 'relativism' was an empirical one, i.e. that empirical facts do not exist either. Not only are you completely clueless regarding "postmodernism" as a tradition - and let's be honest, your familiarity begins and ends with those thinkers who have given you a green light to dismiss it - from what you have shown you have no notion of the most rudimentary notion of "relativism" either. Only the critics of "postmodernism" prattle of relativism and the notion of "nothing is true". So surprising would it be - that it would shatter my entire understanding of not only the matters at hand, but entire world-historical processes - if such criticisms actually reflected the essential meat of such arguments.

Of course, you could have made the arrogant mistake of assuming that Rafiq was speaking nonsense because you focused on the phrase "there are no eternal truths" and ran with it without articulating it within a wider argumentative context. That is entirely possible. But that you have not admitted this mistake, and have continued to dig yourself in such a deep hole, emanates a level of intellectual dishonesty that is almost shocking. There is no alternative - you're either an idiot, or you're defending yourself at the expense of acknowledging that you made a mistake that wouldn't have been made had you not been such a mindless philistine.

If my bankruptcy is highlighted by the fact that you don't know how to correctly articulate arguments, I wonder what this sais about you, Zim. It's so cute how you think that such basic facts are "expert-level" knowledge, as though you need to be a professional to recognize the pervasive influence of post-modernism in the humanities in general. "Oh, you wouldn't know that, now would you " you say with your nose held high. What do you want me to say? I am very well acquiainted with the fact. It's like telling me "oh, little do you know the sky isn't blue - shows how much you know". It's like okay? What do you want me to say? If you talk out of your ass, there's nothing really to talk about here, aside from pointing out that nothing I have said justifies this accusation.

you know people dealing in what we are talking about, whether we can actually know something about the past or, are instead, simply reduced to 'telling stories'.

Let's ignore this blatant and shamelessly ignorant misrepresentation of such arguments. This has nothing to do with empirical relativism but attempting to thoroughly locate the relationship between how we conceive history and the context from which this conception derives - of course this is a simplistic description, but the logic proceeds from there. Historicist traditions, which proceed post-structuralism, follow from the same premise. Is Hegel too a "post-modernist"?

Even if we were to take such a description of "postie hyper-relativist bullshit" seriously, which alone would be ridiculous, this does not justify the accusation you leveled against me - that I was insinuating this but didn't mean it because I'm a bad writer or whatever. This is not what I meant, and this is not what I wrote. You blatantly misinterpreted the post, and it was entirely within your power to correctly interpret it. You can keep digging yourself a deeper hole all you want, but that's the end of it and any honest person who has been keeping up with this can see it.

The point to be made here is simply that attacking post-structuralism on these lines is pure philistinism. It boils down to outright dismissal: "reduced to 'telling stories'" he sais. What? It's this language alone that is beyond telling. That the practical implications of this to you are unfavorable, i.e. that you need ideological superstition to justify an understanding of history is your problem. That is to say, of post-structuralists engage in ideological criticism regarding history, and 'reduce' it to mere 'stories', extrapolating that this equates to a systemic understanding of history and a strict concern for empirical facts is futile and worthless is your error, not theirs. This is what those of your tradition do not, and can not understand. That you find the implications unfavorable suggest that your understanding of historic processes are contingent upon a superstition.

The point is not that post-structuralists are immune from criticism. The point is that criticizing them outside of this framework - of post-structuralism, or at least a strict and vigorous consideration for it - is tantamount to philistinism and nothing more. We can, for example, attack your irk with great ease. We understand you when we criticize you. You don't understand us when you attack us. It's that simple.

Let's be honest, you aren't at all familiar with any of this -- in fact, we both know that you are fathoms out of your depth. And what, one might ask, in this context, is an Anglo-Saxon, but I don't actually care. It sounds like just another confused rafiqism. Thus boring.

You accuse me of being unfamiliar with the controversies of western intellectual traditions, and yet the usage of the phrase "anglo-saxon" is completely alien to you. "It sounds like just another confused rafiqism" he sais. If you had a shred of familiarity with the substantial topic at hand, the word "anglo-saxon" would "sound" like Anglo-Saxon empiricism, which is used in juxtaposition to continental philosophy. Any moron who picks up an encyclopedia of philosophy from 5 decades ago would know this. Yet you accuse me of being "fathoms out of my depth". Just what exactly is out of my depth here, Zim? It's beyond ironic - because one couldn't find a better phrase to describe the relationship between Invader Zim and the "post-modernism" he regularly prattles of. This is precisely fathoms out of your depth, as it is out of the depth of every anglo-saxon philistine who prattles of "postie bullshit". It's pathetic.

This is coming from someone who is ardently an anti-postmodernist. I can base my opposition to postmodernism in a thorough and critical evaluation of it even on its own terms. that is because I am not a philistine and I recognize a shared space of reason. The approach you have leveled against them here implies just as much of a consideration for actual critical theory, post-structuralism, and the humanities that the protagonists of Lord of the Rings had for the orcs.

Actually, I am -- Foucault, for instance, whatever else he might have been, is one of the most influential (if usually mistaken) historians to put pen to paper in the postwar period.

You are not familiar with Foucault's works. You are not. You might be familiar with some who might place him in intellectual context, but you are not familiar with him. No one who has read Foucault and understood him would require caricatures of the tradition her derives from to understand it.

That said, I don't pretend to understand Derrida primarily because his prose is (if possible) even worse than yours. I commend those with the perseverance to battle through.

Commend us, but realize you are in no position to qualify us (or him) in intellectual terms. You have nothing to do with him except the pure ignorance you have of him.

And if you don't understand Derrida, at least on a rudimentary level, you are in no position to qualify things as 'hyper-relativist postie bullshit' - because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That what I said, which literally was a very conservative Marxist argument, "sounded like" the "hyper=relativist postie bullshit" you purporte to be familiar with suggests you aren't familiar with it at all. End of story.

And no, you are not qualified to discuss the philosophy of history without being even vaguely aware of what the theory wars were or how they played out in how historical knowledge has developed. Until you do, you will have no grasp of the context of our discussion.

All intellectual traditions exist in a totality. I might not know the specific "rebuttals" made by Richard J. Evans (here I said I was taking your word for it - the whole point was that if you misrepresented Richard J. Evans, that is not my fault), but this is not a necessary qualification to be well acquainted with the "theory wars". These permeated, and permeate today every discipline which deals with social considerations.

So, you're passing the buck onto Engels, who does not, in fact, deny the existence of eternal truths -- rather he suggests that many of the conclusions of the exact sciences (as he calls them) of his day were increasingly less prone to achieving exactitude not that it was impossible. You should try actually reading Marx and Engels, it would do you some good.

I don't have to fucking pass anything to anyone - you fool - I am merely trying to - to my utmost frustration - explain to you that the usage of the word "eternal truths" has a real and definite contextual significance in the tradition. There is nothing about how I used this phrase which insinuates "empirical relatiivsm" or subjective idealism. NOTHING AT ALL. In fact, if you read past what was basically Engels's introduction (the introduction, that is, which dealt with 'eternal truths' on an empirical level, i.e. at the level of natural sciences, which you will find is introductory in the first sentence of the text I am about to quote) to the substantial point to be conveyed - as he dangerously is often prone to metaphysics, you'd find just what it was about this work that made the phrase "eternal truths" appropriate in the context of not only my argument, but Rosa Luxemburg's on the national question, which I directly quoted and linked before you even entered the discussion:

If, then, we have not made much progress with truth and error, we can make even less with good and evil. This opposition manifests itself exclusively in the domain of morals, that is, a domain belonging to the history of mankind, and it is precisely in this field that final and ultimate truths are most sparsely sown. The conceptions of good and evil have varied so much from nation to nation and from age to age that they have often been in direct contradiction to each other. — But all the same, someone may object, good is not evil and evil is not good, if good is confused with evil there is an end to all morality, and everyone can do as he pleases. — This is also, stripped of all oracular phrases, Herr Dühring's opinion. But the matter cannot be so simply disposed of. If it were such an easy business there would certainly be no dispute at all over good and evil; everyone would know what was good and what was bad. But how do things stand today? What morality is preached to us today? There is first Christian-feudal morality, inherited from earlier religious times; and this is divided, essentially, into a Catholic and a Protestant morality, each of which has no lack of subdivisions, from the Jesuit-Catholic and Orthodox-Protestant to loose “enlightened” moralities. Alongside these we find the modern-bourgeois morality and beside it also the proletarian morality of the future, so that in the most advanced European countries alone the past, present and future provide three great groups of moral theories which are in force simultaneously and alongside each other. Which, then, is the true one? Not one of them, in the sense of absolute finality; but certainly that morality contains the maximum elements promising permanence which, in the present, represents the overthrow of the present, represents the future, and that is proletarian morality.

But when we see that the three classes of modern society, the feudal aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, each have a morality of their own, we can only draw the one conclusion: that men, consciously or unconsciously, derive their ethical ideas in the last resort from the practical relations on which their class position is based — from the economic relations in which they carry on production and exchange

But nevertheless there is great deal which the three moral theories mentioned above have in common — is this not at least a portion of a morality which is fixed once and for all? — These moral theories represent three different stages of the same historical development, have therefore a common historical background, and for that reason alone they necessarily have much in common. Even more. At similar or approximately similar stages of economic development moral theories must of necessity be more or less in agreement. From the moment when private ownership of movable property developed, all societies in which this private ownership existed had to have this moral injunction in common: Thou shalt not steal. [Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19. — Ed.] Does this injunction thereby become an eternal moral injunction? By no means. In a society in which all motives for stealing have been done away with, in which therefore at the very most only lunatics would ever steal, how the preacher of morals would be laughed at who tried solemnly to proclaim the eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal!

We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world, too, has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed. That in this process there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all other branches of human knowledge, no one will doubt. But we have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life. And now one can gauge Herr Dühring’s presumption in advancing his claim, from the midst of the old class society and on the eve of a social revolution, to impose on the future classless society an eternal morality independent of time and changes in reality. Even assuming — what we do not know up to now — that he understands the structure of the society of the future at least in its main outlines.

I quoted Luxemburg here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2854071&postcount=45

If what you are saying about me "passing things on" to people is correct, then I would not have linked Luxemburg's take on 'eternal truths' (A PHRASE SHE USES DIRECTLY) before you even entered the discussion and before the phrase itself was even a matter of debate (in the way it is now). And the context in which I used "eternal truths" regarded not a dismissal of the empirical fact that Bolsheviks shot people who worked in factories, but the implications of this regarding the pretense to the notion that they were not socialists (because of it). In fact, the only moment wherein I called some empirical accusations into question (such as the notion that they were shot by mere cruel, dictatorial whim), I distinguished the previous argument about eternal truths with a new one by stating:

Let us put aside such grave exaggerations, however.

What is actually disgusting is that the post which elaves no room for debate on the matter especially was on the same fucking page, just one post or two above your accusation of "postie bullshit". It was right there. Yet what actually happened was that you glanced at my first post here, saw "there are no eternal truths" and wanted to feel clever. Deny it all you want, you know this, I know this, and every honest person can see this. I will not stand to be abused. I am not immune from criticism or from being attacked even - but for you to literally just whimsically and blindly shit on me like this - what position are you in to do that? You don't even have to acknowledge your mistake, because Rafiq is just a delusional clown who doesn't know nothing at all and deserves nothing but intellectual abuse?

Invader Zim

17th October 2015, 15:06

To quote Lenin talking about this very topic, rafiq's reply, is an attempt 'to palm off a mere jumble of words as philosophy'.

Leaving aside all the sneering nonsense about a topic which rafiq admits to knowing nothing (the philosophy and method of history), and getting down to the real meat:

explain to you that the usage of the word "eternal truths" has a real and definite contextual significance in the tradition.

Yes, it does. And you have misunderstood it. Put bluntly, what you claim of Engels' he does not actually say. Indeed, from the very text you highlighted:

"and it is precisely in this field that final and ultimate truths are most sparsely sown." Not, that they do not exist at all, indeed this point is made repeatedly throughout the chapter. You, if your comment was to be believed, you see the difficulties in the discovery of complex truths and the rejection of moral truth as an all out rejection of absolute truth. But that isn't what Engels argues. Rafiq is a relativist; Engels is a dialectician. But I don't believe that, rather, as usual, the problem here is that you spout Marxist sounding rhetoric, but you don't actually understand any of it. It is just noise. Once again, it is not my fault that you misuse words and, as it turns out, ideas that you don't understand. Indeed, your claim was absurd as it was written.

Rafiq

17th October 2015, 17:05

Yes, it does. And you have misunderstood it. Put bluntly, what you claim of Engels' he does not actually say. Indeed, from the very text you highlighted:

"and it is precisely in this field that final and ultimate truths are most sparsely sown." Not, that they do not exist at all, indeed this point is made repeatedly throughout the chapter. You, if your comment was to be believed, you see the difficulties in the discovery of complex truths and the rejection of moral truth as an all out rejection of absolute truth. But that isn't what Engels argues. Rafiq is a relativist; Engels is a dialectician. But I don't believe that, rather, as usual, the problem here is that you spout Marxist sounding rhetoric, but you don't actually understand any of it. It is just noise. Once again, it is not my fault that you misuse words and, as it turns out, ideas that you don't understand. Indeed, your claim was absurd as it was written.

Are you just fucking trolling me now? There is a special kind of frustrating in trying to get something across to someone which they should have understood all on their own.

You accuse me of using rhetoric I have no understanding of, but it is patently fucking obvious to anyone who has an iota of an understanding of not even just philosophy, but words commonly used in our tradition, that you have no fucking clue about what you're tlaking about. You make the grave error of conflating empirical truths with ethical ones, even though the only fucking reason Engels mentions empirical truths is because the metaphysician duhring would extrapolate the signfiicance of unchanging truths to defend the notion of unchanging ethical truths. This was the MEAT of the fucking text, which is why it is also titled "Morality and Law". I literally can't believe how far you've gone to defend yoruself when you know you're fucking wrong.

And I suppose Luxemburg was just "making noise" and didn't know what the fuck she was talking about either when she extrapolated that very same... interpretation (to even call it an interpretation is to assume there are other meanings to draw from the text - but I don't know what kind of brainless fucking moron would come to another conclusion):

The general and cliché-like character of the ninth point in the program of the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia shows that this way of solving the question is foreign to the position of Marxian socialism. A “right of nations” which is valid for all countries and all times is nothing more than a metaphysical cliché of the type of ”rights of man” and “rights of the citizen.” Dialectic materialism, which is the basis of scientific socialism, has broken once and for all with this type of “eternal” formula. For the historical dialectic has shown that there are no “eternal” truths and that there are no “rights.” ... In the words of Engels, “What is good in the here and now, is an evil somewhere else, and vice versa” – or, what is right and reasonable under some circumstances becomes nonsense and absurdity under others. Historical materialism has taught us that the real content of these “eternal” truths, rights, and formulae is determined only by the material social conditions of the environment in a given historical epoch.

On this basis, scientific socialism has revised the entire store of democratic clichés and ideological metaphysics inherited from the bourgeoisie. Present-day Social Democracy long since stopped regarding such phrases as “democracy,” “national freedom,” “equality,” and other such beautiful things as eternal truths and laws transcending particular nations and times. On the contrary, Marxism regards and treats them only as expressions of certain definite historical conditions, as categories which, in terms of their material content and therefore their political value, are subject to constant change, which is the only “eternal” truth.

When Napoleon or any other despot of his ilk uses a plebiscite, the extreme form of political democracy, for the goals of Caesarism, taking advantage of the political ignorance and economic subjection of the masses, we do not hesitate for a moment to come out wholeheartedly against that “democracy,” and are not put off for a moment by the majesty or the omnipotence of the people, which, for the metaphysicians of bourgeois democracy, is something like a sacrosanct idol.

When a German like Tassendorf or a tsarist gendarme, or a “truly Polish” National Democrat defends the “personal freedom” of strikebreakers, protecting them against the moral and material pressure of organized labor, we don’t hesitate a minute to support the latter, granting them the fullest moral and historical right to force the unenlightened rivals into solidarity, although from the point of view of formal liberalism, those “willing to work” have on their side the right of “a free individual” to do what reason, or unreason, tells them.

When, finally, liberals of the Manchester School demand that the wage worker be left completely to his fate in the struggle with capital in the name of “the equality of citizens,” we unmask that metaphysical cliché which conceals the most glaring economic inequality, and we demand, point-blank, the legal protection of the class of wage workers, thereby clearly breaking with formal “equality before the law.”

What I said:

For all the "strawmen", it is precisely this kind of attack on the Bolsheviks that incurred their - at least polemical - wrath. When Marxists attacked the social democrats, opportunists and liberals as having no notion of Marxism, it is precisely for this reason - what you fail to understand is that there are no eternal truths, there is no fixed, rigid formal ethical system that Communists adhere to. The implications of shooting striking workers in the context of the Russian civil war and the implications of shooting them as the bourgoeisie are entirely different. That this odes not conform to bourgoeis ethics only tells us that the Bolsheviks, in fact, are not and were not soldiers of the bourgoiesie.

and

Socialism is not reducible to words. It is not reducible to even some kind of eternal, fixed set of rules you agree with. It is the real movement to abolish the present state of things.

and

Again with opportunistically abstracting things from their context as eternal truths. This is the backbone of right-wing politics.

The notion of "eternal, unconditional principles" is alien to the tradition of Marxism, and Connolly knew this. You don't need to look at Connolly - look at any real critique of neoliberalism and growing technocracy today and you will find the same language. That doesn't mean practicality is not important - in fact, practicality is all that matters. THe point is - whose practicality? The bourgeoisie, the bloodsuckers, or the revolutionary proletariat (which finds its highest expression of organization and maturity in the Communist party)?

My post had absolutely nothing to fucking do with an epistemological argument about the "nature" of empirical truths, and I did not need to specify the nature of the "truths" in question because when I used the phrase eternal truths, the context had absolutely nothing to do with any kind of fucking empirical argument, or an argument about "absolute truth", or an argument about whether in the near future we willk discover that the Bolsheviks did not shoot any striking workers at all. I never made this fucking argument. So saying that I insinuated something about "absolute truths" is a fucking lie, and you are a scoundrel and intellectual coward if you don't apologize for it.

YOU were unfamiliar with the usage of the term "eternal truths", and the only meaning IT HAD FOR YOU concerned stupid, juvenile arguments about "absoltue empirical truths" and "complex ones". This has nothing to do with the fucking argument at hand or the context from which I used the phrase.

I want you to demonstrate, and if you're SO FUCKING CONFIDENT THAT YOU'RE RIGHT, YOU'D BE ABLE TO, I want you to demonstrate HOW EXACTLY the particular usage of the phrase "eternal truths" on my part justified your qualification of it as "hyper-relativist postie bullshit". That you are so entrenched in your positivist filth and are unable to conceive the fact that there are truths outside of empirical ones, ones that refer to courses of action, for one, IS NOT MY PROBLEM. YOU MADE THE MISTAKE. There is not a SINGLE context that which I used the phrase. You claim I "misunderstood" Engels and yet you openly acknowledge his rejection of eternal moral truths. SO WHAT IS IT ABOUT ENGELS THAT I MISUNDERSTAND? AM I CLAIMING THAT THERE ARE NO ETERNAL EMPIRICAL TRUTHS? No, I am not. In fact, as Lenin and Engels say, Napoleon dying on May 5, 1821 is an eternal truth - eternal truths do exist, and if there is not absolute certainty about something, it is because it is riveled with what should be known inconsistencies, shortcomings, and things that flesh out its incompleteness. Here I am probably even more radical than you, in this culture of tacit postmodernism and spiritualistic agnosticisim wherein people can say "Well, brah, we don'[t know yet, spirits, gods, and ghosts might just be real, we can never know for sure". No, here, I am probably infinitely more radical than your "reasoned" intellectual liberalism in asserting ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and gods do not exist, and will never be shown to exist and that this is indeed an "eternal truth".

So you qualify this "misunderstanding" in the usage of the phrase "eternal truths", then? BUT THE CONTEXT from which I used ETERNAL TRUTHS dealt with something of an ETHICAL, moral nature, had I said "There are some absolute truths, but there are no eternal moral truths", that would have been out of fucking context that I probably would have been received with "Wow Rafiq, stop trying to derail the discussion into one of epistemology". Either fucking way I would have been attacked.

But no, on an argumentative level, you are literally a fucking child. You accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about? Of making "noise? Ladies and gentlemen, can you see the lengths these philstinies go to? Can you see how painfluly fucking ignorant they are? This idiot, this mindlessly confident philistine ACTUALLY is telling himself that there is no real meaning behind anything I'm saying. What? Zim, am I just fucking talking for no reason? This is how these analytical philistines work - if they can't approach something, the intellectual dwarfs they are, it must just be "noise". Accusing what I am saying of being "noise" requires crtiically explaining just how that is to everyone. I don't know what kind of person does not see a difference between all that I have just typed and:

blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh aslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;k sha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal; kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf; lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh hhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;l kasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl; kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slae h;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh ;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk; glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;l kgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hg l;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksad fdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh hhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjg l;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhs al;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsa jf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhejl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;dj f;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;slaeh;lsajf;lksadfdsblaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaslk;glkhe jl;kfjhsal;kd;hgl;kjsadh;l;djf;lkasjgl;ksha;lkgh;s laeh;lsajf;lksadfds

Yet you do see a difference. This is how intellectual violence works. It is not like how Rafiq yells and insults people. It's that violence which expresses a relation of ideological power - to feel exempt from critically engaging someone and feeling content with just dismissing them, all the while making pretenses to the ability to qualify the content of their work. IF we lived in a free society wherein arguments and words were precisely sufficient unto themselves, this would not be the case. But in our superstitious society, you have "credentials" and these ordain whether or not people are to be taken seriously. "Oh, I'm an expert, I'm a professional". Nobody gives a fuck who you are. On this forum, Zim, for all anyone knows you could be no one at all. Your "credentials" do not mean shit here - I'm not competing for a job at the university, or trying to get my work published. So if you respond to Raifq and make an ass out of yourself, you bet your fucking ass it is your responsibility to address the arguments at hand, otherwise - LEAVE AND DO NOT RESPOND AT ALL. You do not get to say:

To quote Lenin talking about this very topic, rafiq's reply, is an attempt 'to palm off a mere jumble of words as philosophy'.

Leaving aside all the sneering nonsense about a topic which rafiq admits to knowing nothing (the philosophy and method of history), and getting down to the real meat:

No, I have not made any pretenses to "philosophy". I don't know what the fuck you think philosophy is, but that last reply to you is not fucking "philosophy". All my arguments were extra-philosophical and were born from common sense logic. If Lenin accused someone of using a "jumble of words as philosophy", HE DIRECTED EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED THIS QUALIFICATION. You have not done this. You haven't even fucking READ The reply, you've just brushed it off and claimed "Oh, that's nonsense, I've skimmed through it enough to know that". What makes you so fucking special that you can dismiss entire people's arguments without even critically engaging them? What ordains you with this ability? Should everyone take Zim's word for it? Or do you want to mislead people in thinking you have a real, critical justification for this assertion.

And the KEY POINT of this whole fucking "debate" is one of you hop-scotching around with semantics with no consideration for real fucking context. My usage of the term "eternal truths" outside the context of eternal empirical truths is completely fucking justified. Any idiot who has an iota of familiarity with this phrase in the context that i used it understood what I meant. But Zim, who thinks he's so fucking clever, just felt like he had to put Rafiq in his place. What does it say about you that in your attempt to make me look like an ass, it's you whose come out as the biggest fucking clown? Especially since you haven't retracted it - you are literally, like a child, STILL DEFENDING YOURSELF WHEN YOU KNOW YOU ARE WRONG. Someone who is intellectually honest and mature would recognize their mistake and move on. Not so for this Zim.

Rafiq

17th October 2015, 17:07

HOW THE FUCK do you argue with someone when they skim through text, isolate a fucking phrase out of its context, and argue from there? Is Zim going to read all of that? No, but he'll probably take out some fucking prhase and argue as though there is no further elaboration. I mean, had you actually fucking READ the "noise" and the "meaningless jumble of words", YOU WOULD HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO ACCUSE ME OF MIS-INTERPRETING ENGELS.

But alas, there is nothing Rafiq can say, or do, because no matter what, Zim will defend his baseless attack on me. No matter what i say, it's just "noise", ladies and gentlemen, he blatantly fucking admits that he has no intention of communicating with me as an equal, rational subject.

It's fucking pathetic because in the post in question where I used the phrase, I IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED IT BY ELABORATING THAT IT DESIGNATED "ETHICAL SYSTEMS", NOT EMPIRICAL TRUTHS. RIGHT AFTER, I SAID:

is that there are no eternal truths, there is no fixed, rigid formal ethical system that Communists adhere to

I DID NOT say "there is no absolute empirical truth, also there are no rigid formal ethical systems that Communists adhere to."

The more you refuse to admit you were wrong, the more of a scoundrel everyone sees you as. But you won't, because you're 5 years old, and you see this as a matter of "Rafiq winning" over you. If I even came close to making such a mistake, before I made 5 other responses, I would have immediately recognized it and moved on. Then again, if I ever try to respond to someone for saying something I think is stupid, I will thoroughly explain why.

Oh and:

Leaving aside all the sneering nonsense about a topic which rafiq admits to knowing nothing (the philosophy and method of history)

When the fuck have I "admitted" this? I did not "admit" anything, I asserted that I was unfamiliar with the specific rebuttals of Richard J. Evans, that hardly is the same as "admitting" I am unfamiliar with the topics of concern he deals with. And you're such a dishonest scoundrel that you have not even the slightest familiarity with the counter-rebuttals made by the "post-modernist" crowd. Mind you, they do exist, and a quick google search will give you some. If Rafiq is clueless about a whole field because he is unfamiliar with a single person, then what does that say about Zim, who is not only clueless about the counter-rebuttals, but the "post-structuralism" itself he so regularly abuses by prattling of "absolute truths" (which has nothing to do with the topic at hand), literally controversies that are dated over 100 years old?

You think there is such a great level of expertise necessary to understand this, but there is no mystery behind "the philosophy and method of history". That you specialize in this domain means you are familiar with more of the "empirical" truths wrought from it. Specialization, however, is not something Marxists recognize - we stem from Hegel's tradition wherein our understanding of knowledge is one that is unquenchable and ever-expanding. We might prefer or be more well read in one domain or another, but every single domain that concerns the social is of concern to us. There is no profound mystery about the "philosophy and method of history", there is nothing complex about this - especially from the standpoint of the critical theory, contemporary continental philosophy, and "post-structuralism", the controversies between the analytical and Continental school like the "science wars' in the 90's, which Rafiq is infinitely more acquainted with then you are. You prattle of such things as the "philosophy of history", but I would cut off my balls if it turns out Zim is familiar with Hegel and has read Hegel. He has not, however, and if he has, he has treated Hegel probably with the same dismissive attitude that he treats all other "impenetrable" bad prose writers.

Like sorry to burst your fucking bubble, but no, there is nothing about what you do that the rest of us are incapable of doing ourselves, outside of such formal contexts. You don't have any magical keys to the kingdom of truth.

The Idler

20th October 2015, 23:18

So advocating "socialism" is meaningless but 'peace, land and bread' in Russia in 1917 is a nod and a wink to millions of peasants to mean something we should all get behind and support? How opportunistic and patronising to boot.

My summary of your positions so far

Criticising them for shooting striking workers ‘incurred their polemical wrath’
‘there are no eternal truths, there is no fixed, rigid formal ethical system that Communists adhere to.’
‘The implications of shooting striking workers in the context of the Russian civil war and the implications of shooting them as the bourgoeisie are entirely different. That this odes not conform to bourgoeis ethics only tells us that the Bolsheviks, in fact, are not and were not soldiers of the bourgoiesie.’
‘[striking workers] were initially threatened with being removed from their positions, and thus deprived of rations at a time where the survival of millions was precarious and the thread that separated subsistence from hunger was a very thin one.’
‘The Bolsheviks did not "stand" for socialism. They were socialists, and their actions were an exemplary force of the process of socialism. Within that context, there was no socialism outside the Bolshevik party - socialism is nothing more than the movement, it is a process. Outside of this there are cheap abstractions and nothing more.’
‘Even anti-Communists visiting in the 1920's would note the tirelessness and the selflessness of the Bolshevik functionaries and leaders. What exactly were they fighting for, in your mind? "For themselves"? Why? It is a rather juvenile idea.’
‘During that time, for example, virtually all contending parties for power were self-proclaimed socialists.’
‘It is true that this was an ideological slogan. But the slogan was aimed at the peasantry, which is what you keenly fail to acknowledge. The workers were not won over by "Peace, Land and Bread". The workers were already the substantial base of the Bolshevik party, the overwhelming majority (save for those bound by political tradition, etc.) were for the Bolsheviks. Workers are not won over by ideological slogans, because they are class-conscious and understand the situation scientifically. It is different with the agrarian petty bourgeoisie.’
‘the Red terror was largely a grass-roots phenomena - and yes, it did stem from the threat of counter-revolution and active attempts to undermine the revolution. ‘

‘There was no revolution outside the "bolshevik monopoly of power". The bolsheviks only held power, or desired to, insofar as that power was the power of the proletarian dictatorship.’
‘as far as the Russian situation in 1917 is concerned, it did mean socialism. The Bolsheviks did not hide this fact - the point was that they juxtaposed themselves against other so-called "socialists".’

You should remember that socialism is not some arbitrarily conceived nice idea. It is the real movement to abolish the present state of things. As capitalism changes in its various epochs, so too does socialism's expression.’
‘Socialism is not an abstraction. Of course, self-identifying oneself as a socialist does not mean one is a socialist. But these "socialists" were not fighting because of any pretense to ideas. They were fighting over very practical matters. Understanding such matters and their practical nature allows us to separate the socialists from the opportunists - and from a scientific perspective, the notion that Bolsheviks just wanted to "hold power" for the sake of it emanates a naive understanding of how power works.’
‘many, if not most, of the industrial workers had joined the ranks of the Red army themselves.’

We know the Bolsheviks won the civil war, but I've yet to hear how they helped bring about anything resembling socialism.
Why are their claims to socialism taken at face value without any independent critical views being considered? And in fact being dismissed as "opportunistic scum".

Rafiq

21st October 2015, 19:10

So advocating "socialism" is meaningless but 'peace, land and bread' in Russia in 1917 is a nod and a wink to millions of peasants to mean something we should all get behind and support? How opportunistic and patronising to boot.

No, advocating "socialism" is not meaningless. It is meanignless, however, if socialism is reduced to meaningless abstractions.

Advocating "socialism" where there is no practical context for it, is meaningless. What does that mean? It means that if you demand something, it must be a practical demand, whether a "minimum" or "maximum" one. The slogan "peace, land and bread" - far from having its origins owing to some conspiracy of cynical, power-hungry intellectuals as every 8th grade American textbook would have it, had an ideological meaning that meant far more than "Peace, land and bread". This is what you patently refuse to understand: When it comes to the point where the maximum and minimum program coincide, then the practical struggle for the realization of the maximum program is going to be an immediate one.

Saying "Worker's command of the means of production, abolition of private property, and a moneyless, stateless society!" is pointless not because these things (which are here abstractions) are impossible, but because the climate in Russia at the time was one wherein these were accepted as basic end-goals. Adopting the maximum program, whatever it would be, as an immediate slogan is literally stupid. No conditions are going to allow for a "stateless, moneyless society" proceeding the proletarian dictatorship and the political seizure of power. IN fact the so-called "end-goal" of Socialism is nothing more than that goal which legitimizes the struggles that are immedaite and the controversies that are immediately pertinent. It is nothing more than an affirmative signifier: A "yes we can". Before socialism entered the worker's movements, workers could not struggle for demands that were "organic" because they were unable to answer for the fact that eventually, they would have to compromise with the bosses without employing a radical critique of society which allowed them to have the faith and hope that things as they are do not have to exist.

Even during the golden years of social democracy, Kautsky understood that Communism was a necessary horizon for the sake of fighting for things which are immediate. And Russia was no exception. Any idiot, however, can "agree" with these things. Any idiot can accept these. What are its practical implications for the here and now, however? What does it mean to want these things as far as the real conditions of life here? This is what separates a WORTHLESS preference among many (including a "racially pure society" or a "stateless capitalist society") from a real movement which strives to abolish the present state of things. This is what distinguished "peace, land and bread" from the Mensheviks, Right SR's and bourgeois socialists. The fact of the matter is that in the situation, there were two options: Waiting for Russia's "natural course of development" to make a proletarian dictatorship more viable, or to take the responsibility of addressing the concrete circumstances.

You claim such a slogan was opportunistic, and yet this is the epitome of irony - for implicit in the slogan "Peace, land and bread" was the tacit recognition that peace land and bread could only be guaranteed, and realized in the long term with socialism. If this prerogative would not have commanded your support, you are plainly not a socialist, but a bourgeois ideologue (because socialism derives from real controversies that are imminent - it is not some conglomeration of abstract preferences about how you want society to be run). Well let's be clear. The bourgeois and utopian socialists certainly could be called "socialists", but they are not the socialists insofar as the meaning of the term is relevant for actual radicals. We don't care about this "socialism". We are concerned with the real movement ot abolish the present state of things, the real movement which encapsulates antagonsims which exist in the here and the now - controversies that relate to the conditions of everyday life.

My summary of your positions so far

Are you insinuating that I have not addressed your argument? That I do not address it on your terms, reflects the fact that you provide us a false question.

You have asked us how the Bolsheviks were socialists, or how they strove for socialism. I am critically assessing the qualifications of "socialism" you are putting forth here.

There is not much more to it.

We know the Bolsheviks won the civil war, but I've yet to hear how they helped bring about anything resembling socialism.
Why are their claims to socialism taken at face value without any independent critical views being considered? And in fact being dismissed as "opportunistic scum".

All we need is a basic thought experiment: Had the Bolsheviks been "socialists" in your eyes, what practically should they have done to "bring about" something 'resembling' socialism? What could "socialists" have done? Should they have waited for the forces of production to take their "natural course"? You can tell me what they "shouldn't" have done, but this implies an alternative. So I want to hear it. The position then is relegated to an even weaker one: "Well, I'm not saying I Know exactly what a socialist movement would look like, but the Bolsheviks certainly weren't the messiah" - and again, the error rests upon the notion that there is some "big other" called socialism that will expose itself as the "true" socialism. Socialism is nothing more than a process derived from radical social self-consciousness. Socialism will not "come about". So there was no socialism outside the Bolsheviks to begin with - there was not possibility of socialism outside the Bolsheviks, either. That we abdicate from this proud historical legacy because it does not fit some arbitrarily defined qualification for "socialism" emanates a lack of consideration for socialism's real material basis. What does it actually mean to be a socialist as far as your relationship to life, and to the current order of things?

Right now it is 100% meaningless. You can call yourself a socialist and adopt virtually any position today. Is there a "true socialist" position? No, because socialism is more than an idea you conform to. It's a process, and a real struggle. Locating this real struggle is a matter of locating its real social implications.

The failure to realize something "resembling socialism" is supposed to mean what exactly? Was this failure owed to the Bolsheviks "not being socialists" or the fact that socialism cannot be whimsically established irregardless of conditions? In 1917, this failure was not inevitable. In 1918, the failure was not inevitable. In 1919 the failure was not inevitable. I would go as far as saying that it was not until either collectivization or the second world war that socialism's failure was inevitable.

Socialism is not some blueprint you "establish". Socialism is a process. The Bolsheviks brought about a proletarian dictatorship - which is not synonymous with socialism. They can, therefore, only be conceived in terms of their relation to a real existing struggle, not some A -to- B formula that givers us "socialism".

The mistake of bourgeois intellectuals is thinking that workers need to be "convinced" of their blueprints. Workers are willing to fight by default. They do not need a blueprint. They simply need hope, a WE CAN, to tell them that their struggles are not in vain. So when the question arises that "To what end are these workers fighting"? You already make the mistake of assuming that the nature of these struggles is not already sufficient unto itself.

olahsenor

12th November 2015, 00:17

"Unquestionably follow the decrees" is fair, my friend because there were no unlawful or 'obscene' decrees compared to the decree of the capitalists for their maids to sleep with them. Logic!

ComradeOm

19th November 2015, 22:42

I'm pretty late to the party here but I just want to acknowledge the joy I feel from learning that Rafiq has...

...begun referring to himself in the third person
...discovered post-structuralism
...still the intellectual and written coherence of a soggy piece of bread

Even I have to admit that this is an impressive refusal to develop in any positive way. Kudos.

Rafiq

20th November 2015, 00:23

Thanks for that, Om. We all value the conclusions you draw from mindlessly, and uncritically skimming through (admittedly) large walls of text.

As the person who is responsible for them, I can confirm your analysis is spot on. Now that I've seen it, it's really propelled me in the "positive" direction: I'm now on the road to improving, the qualifications for which are all agreed on and were totally elaborated upon by our great coherent intellectual.

Rafiq

20th November 2015, 00:44

It would seem older inactive users simply despise me - as though I am the impediment to their activity here or something.

But why? I have not wronged any of them personally. When Grenzer announced his re-activity the first thing I did was welcome him back and I even tried to help with his password situation. As for Om himself, I have made no secret about the value of his posts (whether I disagree with some them or not). Yet every so often they return just to fuck with me. Why? Can't you just ignore me as others do Tim Redd if I'm just crazy?

The reality is that my posts aren't insane or irrational. This is why they upset people: I fully, implicitly, acknowledge their "controversial" nature so there is no room for accusing Rafiq (yes, that's third person - which I use solely for the purpose of acknowledging I leave an impression, image, beyond me here) of not taking into account "common" sensibilities. I do, and I justify fully violating many of them. One user even made an account here solely to troll me and how I have a "mental illness".

If people genuinely thought I was psychotic or insane, they wouldn't have to keep saying it. It's just that what I post is NOT in fact insane but perfectly reasonable - it takes people out of their comfort zone, so they need to knit pick straw men or some triviality to justify dismissing everything (referring to myself in the third person).

And I do not even mean to bite back: were it my way, you would be forced to post here regularly. It's just that the more this kind of shit happens the more one begins to wonder whether or not the issues some of these people have with me are ones they cannot even articulate consciously - maybe I won't be let in on the big secret because they themselves don't know it, I just "get under their skin" and they feel no reason to critically ask why.

Invader Zim

20th November 2015, 01:40

But why? I have not wronged any of them personally.

Hmm. That is certainly one "reading" of the thread. Perhaps you are indeed, contrary to all the other available evidence, familiar with Barthes -- if in a weird way. That being so, it appears that you have taken the message at the heart of The Death of the Author to heart and don't even believe that what you write should have any bearing on how you interpret your own writing.

Stranger things have happened.

Rafiq

20th November 2015, 02:06

The significance of my posts only coincide with how I articulate them because I am self-conscious (or strive for it) of the relationship between my posts, and the wider ideological context they belong in (how others receive them, the place they have in a sphere of thought that is beyond my head). This is not true for most writers or artists throughout history, whose intentions do not coincide to the actual place their works have in world-history.

Take Barthes. It would be pretty stupid to level the criticism of him in the following manner: "So your interpretation of your works is not important?" - it is a silly argument, because it implies no consideration is being put into the works themselves before they were "interpreted".

More ridiculously you get it backwards: Barthes does not elevate the "personal interpretation" of the author over what is written (that is, what is received by "the public). Rather the opposite is true - it is the outward appearance of the work in relation to society that is elevated and the intention rendered a worthless triviality (AS FAR as understanding the 'work' itself in question and why we are fascinated by it). But what you confuse is the fact that: Your interpretation, or Revleft's interpretation of my posts is itself a question of debate. The debate is not and should not be what is the "right" interpretation as its own debate (i.e. "who understands Rafiq's 'ramblings' better"), but the fact that I intend to convey certain ideas, and which ones I intend to convey must be made clear. The point of emphasizing things beyond intention is not to ignore what the author was trying to say. The point is that INSOFAR as there is controversy about what the author was "trying to say", that controversy is a public one, one that relates to wider public controversies, not the particular, private intentions of the author.

So the point is this: these things are far beyond any of us and irreducible to us. The "private" reasons as to why writers give us the works they do, are reasons that relate to a wider context irreducible to how they privately justified their intentions. But alas, I am a Marxist. You can, despite my "intentions" accuse me of really saying this or that, and we can debate about it - because we are self-conscious about such matters.

You don't need any ridiculous post-structuralism to understand this, it is already implicit in very conservative Marxism, which would understand Shakespeare not in his own "intentions" but in the historical context of his works. The issue is so complex, however, what you have reduced it to is literally just shameful. Again, is this actually what you think these people are thinking, uncritically and without further elaboration? The issue is far more complex then you're trying to make it.

Alan OldStudent

20th November 2015, 08:11

It would seem older inactive users simply despise me - as though I am the impediment to their activity here or something.

But why? I have not wronged any of them personally…

Seldom to I make any personal comments about individuals when discussing politics on this board, but I’ll make an exception in this thread.

I don’t always agree with Rafiq’s point of view. But I think he is well informed and well worth listening to. He seems to be well read and brings his intelligence and education to his posts. I haven’t noticed him getting personal. Maybe he has, but that has not been my impression. He tends to stick to the issue, as far as I can see.

I believe “Rafiq” means “comrade” in Arabic. Insofar as he is a well-informed and sincere revolutionary, I think this is a suitable handle for him.
***AOS***

ComradeOm

20th November 2015, 21:02

It would seem older inactive users simply despise me - as though I am the impediment to their activity here or something.Despise? Please, ease up on the melodrama. I'm just amused at this ridiculous persona that you (sorry, that Rafiq) had adopted. Usually I might not be harsh but you've been here five years and still can't articulate a decent argument. It's interesting seeing someone's knowledge and vocabulary expand without them being able to make proper use of either.

But let it never be said that I won't offer constructive criticism when required. Even to the great Rafiq. I suggest that you:

Improve your writing. Yes, I tend to skim through your "large walls of text" because it takes considerable effort to navigate your tortured and over-wrought prose. The language is clumsy, sub-clauses abound and sentences run on and on. Picking my way through one of your paragraphs in search of a relevant thought is just painful. It's the sort of pompous verbosity that teenagers think 'serious' thoughts require. They're wrong.

Improve your arguments. In these walls of text there is little structure, little sense of building towards something. Instead of setting out or building up a thesis, you babble. Random emphasis and VOLUME are no substitute for a well-constructed post/argument. Even if you knew how to use a paragraph, your posts would still read like verbal vomit. Particularly when you get angry, which is funny.

If I were you then I'd focus on fixing both the above. It's actually pretty important to be able to write and build an argument in personal and professional life. To repeat my April advice: get away from RevLeft and read something new. Try some good collections of (20th C) essays or criticism. Take an online writing course. Hells, ask an English teacher/lecturer at your school/university how to formulate a position.

Improve your ideas. The final problem is that poor quality of your thought itself. The content of the posts above are too often simply banal or downright stupid. I mean, it's quite funny seeing you try and argue the philosophy of history with a history post-grad without being aware of Evans' work. And your response to the The Idler above is just vapid nonsense. I'll struggle through Hegel or the like because they are worth it. Your posts are not. That anyone thinks you are "well informed" only reinforces my opinion of RevLeft's decline.

I'm not sure how to fix that last point. Maybe try to understand a topic instead of flitting from idea to idea. It's a phase that most people go through in their late teens. Either way, you need to try something. The idea that you wasted time typing out all the above verbose nonsense and still can't see that it's verbose nonsense... well I'd almost consider that to be sad.

Almost. But, as I say, you've been here long enough to know better. And do better.

Rafiq

20th November 2015, 22:45

Thank you for your "constructive criticism". I hope it demonstrates your willingness to work out your problems with me like an adult - my goal here is to force you to critically think about your groundless dismissal of not only my posting style, but the ideas being conveyed in them.

And I mean it. Let's really put your profound insight regarding my posts to the test - of course, the problem is simply one of (anti) intellectual violence. My posts are being judged before they are even thoroughly read, one is inclined to think that there is plainly nothing I can do so long as I have no "legitimate" credentials, so long as I am not "worth it". So let me be amply clear: I am going to try and work with you, but if your knee-jerk reaction to this is "Oh, there he goes again with those walls of text" you can fuck yourself, and admit that you are in no position to qualify my posts at all. What we have gotten so far is simple: You want to dismiss me, and my posts, but you don't want to take the time to address them.

But alas, Om, because you are an adult, I am forced (unlike how you approach me) to take you seriously, I am forced to take your "constructive criticism" seriously and I am forced to understand why you would come to the conclusions that you do about my posts. That is the burden of actually being an intellectual, and not an arrogant philistine who runs away from the exhausting responsibility of using reason to judge my posts, even though you clearly are inclined to judge them. You can't have both: You can't at the same time judge my posts and then (you ADMIT this!) bestow yourself the privilege of not having to struggle with them.

Because there clearly are ideas to struggle with in my posts, as I have struggled and continue to. I don't give a fuck about degrading myself, conforming my post to the intellectual level you, Zim, or anyone else is comfortable with.

Improve your writing. Yes, I tend to skim through your "large walls of text" because it takes considerable effort to navigate your tortured and over-wrought prose. The language is clumsy, sub-clauses abound and sentences run on and on. Picking my way through one of your paragraphs in search of a relevant thought is just painful. It's the sort of pompous verbosity that teenagers think 'serious' thoughts require. They're wrong.

I'd like for you to perform a little experiment, Om. I'd like you to, with Revleft's search engine at your disposal, decipher a meaningful cause for the exponential increase in my word count per post. Go ahead, I'll give you time.

Now, the conclusion any honest person would have come to is a rather simple one: My posts and ideas, divorced from thorough elaboration are 'loaded' by default, they are not only controversial in their own right, but they rely upon a tacit acknowledgement of many theoretical and ideological assumptions that most users on Revleft are completely foreign to. Most users on Revleft, yourself included, have no notion of the philosophical 'evolution' of contemporary Marxism, most users are completely divorced and are unaware of the intellectual 'climate' surrounding it today. Of course, most are proud to admit this - whether they are "Orthodox Trotskyists", edgy 'ultra-left' types or analytical philistines, for them this intellectual tradition is worthless - proudly they will quote Marx's "the philosophers have only interpreted the world" in a way that blurs the line between the criminal and plainly ironic.

So what am I getting at here? Simple, in the past, people made assumptions about my arguments and the ideas that were being conveyed that conformed to their standards of theoretical knowledge, giving us the most ridiculous straw men. When I had pointed this out, I was regularly accused of being too "vague" about my ideas and not elaborating upon them.

You claim that it is 'painful' to find a single piece of relevant thought, but that assumes that your qualifications for what constitutes a "relevant" argument should remain uncritically accepted. Perhaps, just maybe, the reason your standards of relevancy disallow you from finding anything meaningful in my posts is because you approach my posts with standards that are bellow what is appropriate for even pretending to understand them. I do not blame you for accusing me of being 'crazy' or whatever - I simply pity you for being unable to properly muster up the theoretical knowledge that is to be expected for someone your age who pretends to be a Marxist. You, among others, feel exempt from having to struggle with your ideas, but be assured that every aching second of my life is spent struggling with them. I do not post anything out of my ass - I do not post, or type for the sake of typing, every single fucking thing I contribute is given the most careful consideration.

You can imagine the frustration then, when people who don't spend time thinking about such matters as often as I do approach me at a level that I was already at. It has nothing to do with being 'smart' - the point is one of will, the will to think critically about all things.

Improve your arguments. In these walls of text there is little structure, little sense of building towards something. Instead of setting out or building up a thesis, you babble. Random emphasis and VOLUME are no substitute for a well-constructed post/argument. Even if you knew how to use a paragraph, your posts would still read like verbal vomit. Particularly when you get angry, which is funny.

What exactly am I supposed to say here? Trust me, I am struggling to understand how you arrive at this conclusion - how the FUCK do you arrive at the conclusion, for example that I place "random emphasis" on things? Om, what you are saying is totally unreasonable, I mean, it's ridiculous. Do you literally think I just type for no reason? Give me ONE MEANINGFUL fucking example of a "wall of text" that is without meaning, structure. You can't, because the minute you zero in on a single one of these "walls of text" you are burdened with the responsibility of critically understanding them. Of course, sometimes users might find ideas that are "ridiculous", but that is only because they are divorced from the context of the post, which they WILLINGLY and self-righteously interpret selectively.

You claim there is "little sense of building towards something". I am truly sorry that I don't limit myself to solely "building towards" easy, cookie cutter 'simple' and 'clear' ideas that 12 year olds can understand. But just to show how disgustingly wrong you are, let's look at a segment of one of the posts in question:

No, advocating "socialism" is not meaningless. It is meanignless, however, if socialism is reduced to meaningless abstractions.

Advocating "socialism" where there is no practical context for it, is meaningless. What does that mean? It means that if you demand something, it must be a practical demand, whether a "minimum" or "maximum" one. The slogan "peace, land and bread" - far from having its origins owing to some conspiracy of cynical, power-hungry intellectuals as every 8th grade American textbook would have it, had an ideological meaning that meant far more than "Peace, land and bread". This is what you patently refuse to understand: When it comes to the point where the maximum and minimum program coincide, then the practical struggle for the realization of the maximum program is going to be an immediate one.

So any idiot can understand what Rafiq is trying to say: He is rebuking the allegation that he thinks "advocating socialism" is meaningless because, he argues, socialism is a process which is irreducible to a 'single' demand and therefore "advocating" it is meaningless when it concerns practical matters such as the necessity of hte seizure of power: A movement, party, which is already at the level of being able to seize power has already incorporated socialism into the edifice of its very being and character - during the climate of 1917, there was no political organization which had a serious chance at winning popular support which did not self-identify as socialist. This was not the point of controversy - the point of controversy, to be very plain and simplistic, was how to get there.

If I were you then I'd focus on fixing both the above. It's actually pretty important to be able to write and build an argument in personal and professional life. To repeat my April advice: get away from RevLeft and read something new. Try some good collections of (20th C) essays or criticism. Take an online writing course. Hells, ask an English teacher/lecturer at your school/university how to formulate a position.

But that's just the problem Om, what constitutes reading something new in your mind? Look, you should understand where I am coming from. I am telling you that if you are insinuating that I spend all of my 'intellectualizing' time on Revleft, it is just so fucking wrong, and yes - be amused by the fact that I am angry - because there is NO FUCKING WAY for me to 'prove' it to you! You literally talk out of your fucking ass, you might say that I eat small children... Okay? What if you're wrong? What does that say about you and your "constructive criticism"? What if my reading list was far more varied and diverse than you would like to think?

No, let's play the devil's advocate. Let's assume you're wrong about how Rafiq spends most of his 'intellectualizing' time (which is not on Revleft or even any forum, in fact, what I post on Revleft is the result of intensive intellectual struggling - I do not post, or even say anything publicly until I feel matters are resolved), what would be the appropriate reaction on rafiq's part? If you are in fact wrong, how should I interpret that, what does that say about your insight regarding the intellectual character of Rafiq?

And really Om, your passive-aggressiveness, if you can even call it that, is just fucking juvenile. Like no, actually fuck you if you think you can talk down to me like this, 'wise elder': You have basically admitted that you are in no position to judge or qualify my "positions", none the less judge how well 'formulated' they are. The sheer diversity that I have invoked as far as how people respond to my posts or address them proves it. You don't think, for example, I take consideration of the fact that a considerable amount of people: You, Grenzer, Zim, that one guy who made an account just to troll me, among a few others, have all accused me along the same lines? Of course it is not an anomaly - but the point is simple, what binds all of you in common is your inability to consciously formulate the basis of your rabid aversion to my posts. These, I argue, are ideological - they are not grounded in a rationally conceived, conscious assessment of my posts, they instead are knee-jerk reactions of certain ideological sensitivities. I know this with all my heart.

Improve your ideas. The final problem is that poor quality of your thought itself. The content of the posts above are too often simply banal or downright stupid. I mean, it's quite funny seeing you try and argue the philosophy of history with a history post-grad without being aware of Evans' work. And your response to the The Idler above is just vapid nonsense. I'll struggle through Hegel or the like because they are worth it. Your posts are not. That anyone thinks you are "well informed" only reinforces my opinion of RevLeft's decline.

No, dear elder, you will struggle through Hegel because a great many other intellectuals mustered up the will to struggle with Hegel, Hegel's "worth" for you is not actually grounded in an assessment of the content of his works, but his enduring legacy in the western intellectual tradition. You will not tell me with a straight face that had Hegel not received the reputation that he did, you would have taken him seriously. That's the problem with philistines - you cannot find meaning in things that are outside of some formalized hierarchy of truth: Reason be damned here, truth is now qualified on the basis of its legitimacy.

We are all, helpless naked apes after all, wailing like an infant after birth. For the lazy, for the philistines, there has to be some kind of formal system, hierarchy of language that gives them a sense of guarantee: that allows them to say "Oh, that guy knows what he's talking about, he's a professional, an expert". This is a thoroughly reactionary and anti-Marxist ideological epistemology. The point of Marxism is to get rid of experts, to recognize that every single person is equal insofar as they equally have access to a collective space of reason, i.e. EVERY SINGLE person can be a polymath, EVERY SINGLE person can understand the treasures of our society usually reserved for the 'experts'. If you do not believe this, you are not a socialist, and it is that simple. What do you think Marx ACTUALLY meant by ruthless criticism, dear elder?

Now, of course I am no Hegel, but any idiot who bothers with my posts can understand how deeply rooted the posts are in the tradition of Hegelianism: Particularly western Marxism and critical theory (which is very well acquainted with 'post structuralism', of course, I am not uncritical of this field, but anyone who dismisses it on the basis of "hyper-relativism" is PLAINLY a fucking philistine). I will repeat it: FEW of the 'big' ideas I present on this website actually come from me, and even those ones merely bring the ideas of intellectuals far superior to me to their logical conclusion. It offends you that I operate outside of the ideological state apparatus's standards of legitimacy: And this is not some Leftist cliche, I mean it - THINK ABOUT IT - it offends you that I have the AUDACITY to argue with a history post-grad. In reality, all being a "post-grad" means is that you allocate more time in this or that field, it does not give you some special keys to the kingdom of truth, it does not give you privileges regarding the use of our space of collective reason - sure, it may allow you to have greater empirical knowledge about this or that area, but the reality is that there is a great deal of difference between understanding historical events and historic processes as such.

So no, I might not be aware of "Evan's" work, BUT NOTHING RICHARD J. EVANS SAIS is something Rafiq is incapable of saying or understanding, should he allocate the same amount of time researching the same particular topics of concern (i.e. purely at an empirical level - empirical knowledge and theoretical knowledge are NOT synonymous). Reading Richard J. Evans's works is not a necessary qualification for being as immersed and well acquainted with post-structuralism as I am, it merely might be a pre-requisite to understanding some of the mainstream criticisms against "post-modernism" that pervade in academic historiography. Invader Zim has qualified himself as sufficiently embodying those criticisms - and I have taken his word for it. Whether it is true that Zim's views reflect most professional historians or not is not something that my arguments have been concerned with - I have addressed HIS arguments BY THEIR OWN MERITS. So my point was: If Evans is saying what you are saying, then he is full of shit, but considering I am not familiar with Evans, I could be wrong.

And this infuriates you, among others. Yes, I wipe my ass with your "credentials", I wipe my ass with your professionalism and your disgusting technocratic idolatry with your silly rituals. "Who the fuck is this guy to say this?" I AM NO ONE. I don't NEED to be anyone, because the things I am saying and arguing go so far beyond any specification of my personality or particular position within the social hierarchy. This represents a further decline in our democratic standards society-wide and its replacement with such disgusting technocracy: Today, we have the "popular" dissemination of knowledge, and the "higher truths" are reserved for the experts. No wonder the humanities are under attack at the universities in modern countries, no wonder we see the public eye more and more divorced from findings in the natural sciences. Les technocrates a la lanterne might be a slogan of the future revolution.

You claim that my response to the Idler above is just "vapid nonsense". But have you read it?

You claim it is "vapid nonsense", but HOW? Again, should I just take your word for it? I KNOW what I was trying to say, and I said it. No ComradeOm comes and tells me what I am saying is in fact a pile of shit.

Okay? What does that do for me? Are you literally admitting you are incapable of using reason?

I'm not sure how to fix that last point. Maybe try to understand a topic instead of flitting from idea to idea.

Well no, I am unapologetically a Marxist - Marxists do not conform or degrade themselves to work in distinct and isolated 'systems'. Marxism follows the tradition of Hegel: To be all-encompassing in every domain of knowledge through a relentless, yet consistence and thorough process of thought. If someone seriously took botany to its logical conclusion as far as the ever-encompassing strive for knowledge is concerned, it would land them in Lacanian psychoanalysis. The Socialist man of the future, we are mad enough to hope, will be the polymath. There is no such thing as 'flitting from idea to idea" because there is no such thing as a "single" fucking idea. I want you to provide me ONE MEANINGFUL example of a "single" idea, an idea that is not contingent upon several other ideas or "flitting" to them. There isn't. Your knee-jerk reaction is to see my post, take the one with the Idler, and say "Oh, what's this guy talking about Socialism as a process when the matter at hand is purely an empirical one?" Or whatever.

You LITERALLY ADMIT you don't read my fucking posts. If you did, you would understand where those arguments come form. And if you don't, you're actually probably just stupid.

It's just that like any philistine, you are so righteous in your ignorance that any two things which you assume are unrelated, must always be. I want you to give me one example of a post that emanates a lack of "understanding" the topic at hand.

The idea that you wasted time typing out all the above verbose nonsense and still can't see that it's verbose nonsense... well I'd almost consider that to be sad.

HOW is it fucking nonsense? There is intention behind it, there are CLEARLY ideas I INTEND to convey. It's one thing to say I do this in a poor manner - it's another fucking thing to say that I am literally just typing NOTHING AT ALL. This is nothing more than fucking ABUSE, PERSONAL abuse, and be amused all you like - THIS is what enrages the clown Rafiq, it is nothing more than anti-intellectual violence, it is saying "Shut the fuck up and I don't have to justify why I demand this."

You know what Om, you bring joy to me. You bring joy because I know deep down what I say actually fucking gets to you. It does. YOu struggle so hard to knit-pick straw men and tiny things that would be grounds for dismissing everything but you are KNOW there's substance in my posts you just can't undersatnd. Why does it infuriate you, because I'm younger? Well, for all intensive purposes, grow the fuck up, big boy. You're an anti-intellectual? Then YOU can fuck off, because practically the ONLY purpose of this forum is to convey ideas through - gasp - words. Now, if you are so inclined, you can video-chat with me, or find me personally and slap the shit out of me, until then, you and every other philistine - if they are so inclined to approach Rafiq - has to deal with him in the context of what he actually posts.

Anything beyond that is personal abuse and hollow shit-talking.

ComradeOm

21st November 2015, 00:20

Neat. You really went off the deep end there. Seriously, step back and have a look at the above. Pretty much all my criticisms are on display.

But I'm going to leave you with one last tip: you're not particularly special. The idea that you have a monopoly on 'critical thought' (and that all others are "philistines") is a vanity, and not a particularly edifying one. You've put yourself on a pedestal and convinced yourself that you belong there. But nobody has the duty to read what you write. Not when your posts are terrible.

To give an example, I didn't like redstar2000 all that much. But he could cut to the essence of an argument with ease. His writing was clear, his arguments well constructed and his thoughts, however much I disagreed with them, coherent. That's the quality of communication that all should aim for. So instead of whining about the 'context' in which you write or how you're a martyr to 'anti-intellectual violence', I suggest that you get your act together.

Now, I don't respect you Rafiq, that much should be clear, and I don't feel the need to be particularly nice. But trust me when I say that, aside from the humour value, I genuinely don't care about you. I stop in here once every six months to reaffirm my impressions of the place; thoughts of your greatness do not keep me up at night. I have, as they say, no dog in any fight here.

So you can take the above criticism in the spirit in which it was intended, ie a blunt awakening, or you can convince yourself that everyone else is wrong and that you're a misunderstood genius. You'll probably get away with that on today's RevLeft but eventually you'll have to grow out of it. I assume.

Rafiq

21st November 2015, 00:46

Neat. You really went off the deep end there. Seriously, step back and have a look at the above. Pretty much all my criticisms are on display.

Okay, sounds good, I'll do it:

So let me be amply clear: I am going to try and work with you, but if your knee-jerk reaction to this is "Oh, there he goes again with those walls of text" you can fuck yourself, and admit that you are in no position to qualify my posts at all. What we have gotten so far is simple: You want to dismiss me, and my posts, but you don't want to take the time to address them.

Saying you have "criticisms" of pertinence, assumes that you are aware of something to be critical about beyond skimming through my post and reading with your ass.

The idea that you have a monopoly on 'critical thought' (and that all others are "philistines") is a vanity, and not a particularly edifying one.

Well let's think about your approach to Rafiq: You refuse to critically think about his posts, which involve a great deal of critical thought. There's nothing more to it. What makes you a philistine is not that you won't take the time to read them - I acknowledge, there is a lot to be read - it's that you still ordain yourself the right to qualify them as "nonsense" or whatever you want.

Every decent intellectual was accused of talking "nonsense". Anglo-Saxon philistines have no notion of philosophy and are rabid anti-intellectuals, in fact, some of the most significant works they have produced insofar as it has distinguished them as Anglo-Saxon empiricists are sophisticated handy-books to justifying plain ignorance, the right not to think . It's also not a mystery why hegemonic Anglo-Saxon thought has now been supplemented, at the level of society, with mysticism and superstition so as to fill holes the philistines refuse to even acknowledge exist.

No, no, Om, when I call others philistines, I squarely place you in the context of philistinism in general. We in our tradition understand each other - those familiar with continental philosophy, even at a very elementary level, understand each other and proceed to have violent debates with each other at that level. So your irk can accuse us of talking "nonsense" all you want, but it isn't nonsense at the onset of actually engaging us.

Is it narcissistic to identify the same dismissal you level at my posts, with the same dismissal philistines have leveled at practically every "continental" text? I really don't care, because your silly idols are nothing to me, i.e. I do not associate such great importance to individuals (to not even speak of MYSELF!), what is important are the contributions they make to a tradition that is irreducible to any one person.

If I thought I was so special, I wouldn't engage you. The point is that it does not take much to think critically, as I do. There is no innate or essential impediment to this as far as your brains go, it is merely a matter of will - it is ultimately an ideological problem. A philistine is a partisan of ignorance, not simply a passively ignorant person. I cannot stress that enough.

You've put yourself on a pedestal and convinced yourself that you belong there. But nobody has the duty to read what you write. Not when your posts are terrible.

What a paradox. You don't have a duty to thoroughly read what I write, but you are somehow in a position to qualify not only what you perceive to be a poor writing style, but the actual content of the post itself. Let's think about that.

You claim I am bad at conveying my inteded ideas. Yet somehow I am good enough at doing it so as to allow ComradeOm to say there are either no ideas being conveyed, or they amount to a pile of shit.

You see, I don't give a shit about whether people want to take the time to read what I write. I merely DEMAND that you do so if you want to judge them. If you don't read my posts, then don't talk shit about them. It's literally that simple.

Is that clear enough for you?

So instead of whining about the 'context' in which you write or how you're a martyr to 'anti-intellectual violence', I suggest that you get your act together.

Okay, shall I remember that the next time I try to be as "clear" and "simple" as possible, only to be accused of anything ranging from Western chauvinism, to belief in Christian superstitions and "spirits possessing me"? Or, instead of that, being accused of aspiring to become a 21st century Caesar, or whatever?

And when people accuse me of this, I'll just shut up and accept it. I won't argue any further, because that would break the word-count taboo that I am supposed to care about. Or I could just not say anything in the first place so that no one can mis-interpret anything at all - after all, it's my fault for forcing people to think about things they are not otherwise comfortable, or familiar with thinking about.

And be assured, ComradeOm, using critical thought is readily within your grasp. You just have to have the will to do it. By merit of very real ideological considerations, this is not likely for you.

or you can convince yourself that everyone else is wrong and that you're a misunderstood genius

"Everyone else" is wrong, I am not scared to say this.

And I am no "genius". If everyone else is wrong, namely, our resident Anglo-Saxon philistines, "Orthodox Trotskyists" and 'edgy' ultra left types, if I am not a genius, what does that say about everyone else?

You'll probably get away with that on today's RevLeft but eventually you'll have to grow out of it. I assume.

That assumes Revleft, or the internet for that matter, is the only place where I rear my head. It is not. Funny that only those whose gods are offended, whether they are "eccentric" Leftists (Who wind up either in OI or banned shortly) analytical philistines or cult members of the Spartacus League are the only ones who talk shit like this. I have never actually engaged someone in person who has dismissed me like this. Like wouldn't that be an amusing sight? Do you actually think that, at the level of an actual conversation, you could hold up the same ignorance that you do? No, because the proximity of it forces you to regularly engage - it puts you on the spot.

Nobody is asking you to like or "respect" me, Om, I'm literally telling you: You are full of shit, you're just plainly fucking wrong about my posts. That's all. Unlike you, I can actually justify saying this with real arguments.

Tim Redd

21st November 2015, 05:22

Okay, sounds good, I'll do it..

With your smarts you should realize that there is something off/wrong with someone who 1) super liberally uses profanity, 2) makes a habit of using bold and caps, 3) uses paragraphs that are huge/large.

You should realize that when you do the above practices - especially in one single post - you are often being obnoxious and not contributing knowledge and clarity to the issue/question at hand.

Dude simple as that. All you need to do is avoid the 3 things I note and you will be of value rather than a detriment to discussion in most threads.

Fire away at me if you still don't have a clue. If you still value yourself above the needs and goals of the Revleft fourm as a whole.

ComradeOm

21st November 2015, 14:36

You know, it's actually quite hard to stay away from this. It's the most fun I've had on RevLeft for years. Literally. But I never stay long these days so the last word from me:

I'd like for you to perform a little experiment, Om. I'd like you to, with Revleft's search engine at your disposal, decipher a meaningful cause for the exponential increase in my word count per post. Go ahead, I'll give you time.

Now, the conclusion any honest person would have come to is a rather simple one: My posts and ideas, divorced from thorough elaboration are 'loaded' by default, they are not only controversial in their own right, but they rely upon a tacit acknowledgement of many theoretical and ideological assumptions that most users on Revleft are completely foreign to. Most users on Revleft, yourself included, have no notion of the philosophical 'evolution' of contemporary Marxism, most users are completely divorced and are unaware of the intellectual 'climate' surrounding it today. Of course, most are proud to admit this - whether they are "Orthodox Trotskyists", edgy 'ultra-left' types or analytical philistines, for them this intellectual tradition is worthless - proudly they will quote Marx's "the philosophers have only interpreted the world" in a way that blurs the line between the criminal and plainly ironic.

So what am I getting at here? Simple, in the past, people made assumptions about my arguments and the ideas that were being conveyed that conformed to their standards of theoretical knowledge, giving us the most ridiculous straw men. When I had pointed this out, I was regularly accused of being too "vague" about my ideas and not elaborating upon them.

You claim that it is 'painful' to find a single piece of relevant thought, but that assumes that your qualifications for what constitutes a "relevant" argument should remain uncritically accepted. Perhaps, just maybe, the reason your standards of relevancy disallow you from finding anything meaningful in my posts is because you approach my posts with standards that are bellow what is appropriate for even pretending to understand them. I do not blame you for accusing me of being 'crazy' or whatever - I simply pity you for being unable to properly muster up the theoretical knowledge that is to be expected for someone your age who pretends to be a Marxist. You, among others, feel exempt from having to struggle with your ideas, but be assured that every aching second of my life is spent struggling with them. I do not post anything out of my ass - I do not post, or type for the sake of typing, every single fucking thing I contribute is given the most careful consideration.

You can imagine the frustration then, when people who don't spend time thinking about such matters as often as I do approach me at a level that I was already at. It has nothing to do with being 'smart' - the point is one of will, the will to think critically about all things.Take the above passage. This was in response to the suggestion that your posts are overly verbose and and overwrought. They are, in any technical sense, poorly written. To my suggestion that try to improve this - for who wants to be a bad writer? - you responded with 464 words of incoherent babble. It not only misses the point (ie that you are a bad writer) but the tangent itself is just a mess of text.

The key element of your rebuttal seems to be that you feel the need to elaborate your ideas fully, hence long tracts of text. Yet this cannot be a defence of elaborating them so poorly and in such convoluted prose. How many of those 464 words actually deal with your ability to write? You could make a tenuous argument for the 61 words of the third paragraph but the rest are entirely superfluous.

This remainder is just lashing out - a restatement of your belief that the real problem lies with other people - they approach your posts with insufficient intellect, ideological preconceptions, lack of "the will to think critically about all things" (:lol:), 'the Anglo-Saxon tradition', etc. Everyone is to blame except for the person actually writing these rambling screeds.

Which is what I've grown to appreciate about you Rafiq. It's that conviction that you are the only one who really understands. You have the knowledge, gleaned from French philosophy, that we all lack. Look as us robots, bumbling around half-blind with our measured sentences and short paragraphs. If only we could be as smart as you then those poorly written blocks of text would transform themselves into shining poetry. Right?

I can almost feel the teenage angst pouring through my monitor. It's obviously holding you back - you'll never improve your writing until you accept that it needs improving - but it's also hilarious. Seriously, get a grip on yourself.

Sibotic

21st November 2015, 17:22

Other than Chomsky's own politics not really befitting them to comment? This really comes down to a formalistic portrayal which only makes direct sense if socialism is equated with co-operatives or democracy in the abstract, as otherwise it basically comes down to criticising Lenin for not implementing socialism instead of letting other people not implement socialism. Obviously when Lenin uses the word 'will,' misleadingly, they mean ultimately, and given conceptions of the vanguard and such, that people must ultimately be pressed into the struggle for socialism after their overthrow of Kerensky's provisional government, in a fairly turbulent time where things were by no means plain sailing and the Bolsheviks had little security from what they could see outside of their Party, apart from the elements supporting it. Presuming that a Party that has just fought a war against the others should then therefore allow power to be distributed haphazardly, as seems to be all that we're getting from them, hardly seems to make much sense or move us further towards their goal.

That said, defending the shooting of striking workers and such can be an ambiguous statement on this terrain because of Lenin's recognition of elements of 'state capitalism' and social process in Russia, which condition marked such things as ambiguous. That shooting striking workers is right sometimes and wrong sometimes can't be said to be out of keeping with 'bourgeois ethics' necessarily, which is itself a fairly hollow term which was mostly constituted by emotions and vulgar economy.

Other than that Chomsky should really read Socrates again, didn't they manage to make a profession out of such at some point? Obviously the reading itself, in no wise the quality of the reading.

Rafiq

21st November 2015, 18:28

Take the above passage. This was in response to the suggestion that your posts are overly verbose and and overwrought. They are, in any technical sense, poorly written. To my suggestion that try to improve this - for who wants to be a bad writer? - you responded with 464 words of incoherent babble. It not only misses the point (ie that you are a bad writer) but the tangent itself is just a mess of text.

The key element of your rebuttal seems to be that you feel the need to elaborate your ideas fully, hence long tracts of text. Yet this cannot be a defence of elaborating them so poorly and in such convoluted prose. How many of those 464 words actually deal with your ability to write? You could make a tenuous argument for the 61 words of the third paragraph but the rest are entirely superfluous.

This remainder is just lashing out - a restatement of your belief that the real problem lies with other people - they approach your posts with insufficient intellect, ideological preconceptions, lack of "the will to think critically about all things" (:lol:), 'the Anglo-Saxon tradition', etc. Everyone is to blame except for the person actually writing these rambling screeds.

Which is what I've grown to appreciate about you Rafiq. It's that conviction that you are the only one who really understands. You have the knowledge, gleaned from French philosophy, that we all lack. Look as us robots, bumbling around half-blind with our measured sentences and short paragraphs. If only we could be as smart as you then those poorly written blocks of text would transform themselves into shining poetry. Right?

I can almost feel the teenage angst pouring through my monitor. It's obviously holding you back - you'll never improve your writing until you accept that it needs improving - but it's also hilarious. Seriously, get a grip on yourself.

Take the above passage. This was written in response to the suggestion that you are in no position to qualify my posts because you shamelessly admit that you don't give them any real thought. They are, in any technical sense, poorly written. To my suggestion that try to improve this - for who wants to willingly wallow in such ignorance? - You responded with 314 words of incoherent babble. It not only misses the point (ie that you are a bad writer) but the tangent itself is just a mess of text.

You see Om, instead of that drawn out, overly written piece of fucking shit, you could have said

"Rafiq, you have 2 many words and think ur better than everyone. Also ur a dummy."

Please Om, actually just shut the fuck up. You think there is some kind irony here, but in the post in question, I FULL ACKNOWLEDGED that it would be a long post and furthermore fully acknowledged that if you were going to focus on such a triviality rather than the actual content of the post itself, then you should shut the fuck up and admit you're full of shit.

But let's look at the segment in question, let's see whether it is "over-written" relative to the point it is trying to convey:

I'd like for you to perform a little experiment, Om. I'd like you to, with Revleft's search engine at your disposal, decipher a meaningful cause for the exponential increase in my word count per post. Go ahead, I'll give you time.

Now, the conclusion any honest person would have come to is a rather simple one: My posts and ideas, divorced from thorough elaboration are 'loaded' by default, they are not only controversial in their own right, but they rely upon a tacit acknowledgement of many theoretical and ideological assumptions that most users on Revleft are completely foreign to. Most users on Revleft, yourself included, have no notion of the philosophical 'evolution' of contemporary Marxism, most users are completely divorced and are unaware of the intellectual 'climate' surrounding it today. Of course, most are proud to admit this - whether they are "Orthodox Trotskyists", edgy 'ultra-left' types or analytical philistines, for them this intellectual tradition is worthless - proudly they will quote Marx's "the philosophers have only interpreted the world" in a way that blurs the line between the criminal and plainly ironic.

This segment was necessary because it is not enough to simply claim that "People always mis-interpret my posts when I do not elaborate". Had I said this, the following question would have been: WHY do they mis-interpret your posts? And I know for a fact that is what you would have asked. So for the skae of being completely thorough, I had to give some background information as to why my posts used to be "vague" and why people were unable to properly receive them on that basis.

So what am I getting at here? Simple, in the past, people made assumptions about my arguments and the ideas that were being conveyed that conformed to their standards of theoretical knowledge, giving us the most ridiculous straw men. When I had pointed this out, I was regularly accused of being too "vague" about my ideas and not elaborating upon them.

This segment was necessary, as a conclusion, because I EVEN acknowledge, believe it or not, that you wouldn't have read the above paragraph or at least you wouldn't have properly derived coherent meaning from it. The following above segment makes things "clear" while at the same time allowing for one to go back and understand where and what I concluded this from. This third paragraph would have not been enough, again, as a replacement for the above one for the simple reason of its hollowness by itself: What in that context does "theoretical knowledge" amount to, and why supposedly did Rafiq's posts require a level of theoretical knowledge that was above most users?

And I answered, it's rather simple: Rafiq immerses himself in the theoretical and philosophical tradition of contemporary Marxism as well as the 'continental' school in general, and most users do not. The reason for this, as I stated, was merely a matter of will - they proudly and willingly admit their philistinism and their self-righteousness in not having to immerse themselves in theory.

Understand? Good, now moving on:

You claim that it is 'painful' to find a single piece of relevant thought, but that assumes that your qualifications for what constitutes a "relevant" argument should remain uncritically accepted. Perhaps, just maybe, the reason your standards of relevancy disallow you from finding anything meaningful in my posts is because you approach my posts with standards that are bellow what is appropriate for even pretending to understand them. I do not blame you for accusing me of being 'crazy' or whatever - I simply pity you for being unable to properly muster up the theoretical knowledge that is to be expected for someone your age who pretends to be a Marxist. You, among others, feel exempt from having to struggle with your ideas, but be assured that every aching second of my life is spent struggling with them. I do not post anything out of my ass - I do not post, or type for the sake of typing, every single fucking thing I contribute is given the most careful consideration.

This, plainly, merely points out the fact that in all your, prickly, clownish attempts at accusing my posts of containing "no relevant information or thought", you look like a fucking idiot for the simple reason that what constitutes "relevant thought" for you conform to a theoretical level that is inappropriate to draw such hefty and grand conclusions from my posts.

That is not to say I am not unwilling to work with users - Users are free to contact me either through threads or PM with any issues or concerns they have, and this happens relatively often (Perhaps once a week or more), and I am always willing to respond to them and help them as best as I can. My posts require users to struggle, but it is not so beyond them - they simply demand critical thinking, yes. Anyone can understand my posts should they take the time to "struggle" with them.

But Om has already admitted: Because I am not "Hegel" who is worth struggling with (Hegel is INFINITELY harder to grasp and comprehend than ANYTHING I have written on this site - the HIGHEST Hegel I have provided here is LITERALLY simplistic, introductory Hegel), not because Om has the capacity to judge the content of his works as more "useful", but because Hegel is a historical figure, a crazy man who people happened to listen to - while Rafiq is a crazy man who no one listens to.

You can imagine the frustration then, when people who don't spend time thinking about such matters as often as I do approach me at a level that I was already at. It has nothing to do with being 'smart' - the point is one of will, the will to think critically about all things

This segment then goes on to explain what my 'amusing' anger and frustration is often owed to: Users deliberatly and shamelessly approaching my posts with ignorance because "Who tha fuck is this guy for me to waste my time with? A nobody!"

This remainder is just lashing out - a restatement of your belief that the real problem lies with other people - they approach your posts with insufficient intellect, ideological preconceptions, lack of "the will to think critically about all things" (), 'the Anglo-Saxon tradition', etc. Everyone is to blame except for the person actually writing these rambling screeds.

Which is what I've grown to appreciate about you Rafiq. It's that conviction that you are the only one who really understands. You have the knowledge, gleaned from French philosophy, that we all lack. Look as us robots, bumbling around half-blind with our measured sentences and short paragraphs. If only we could be as smart as you then those poorly written blocks of text would transform themselves into shining poetry. Right?

It's so cute how you have to re-assure yourself of how 'ridiculous' it would be if Rafiq actually did on average put more thought and consideration into his posts than many users, such as yourself. Like, I said nothing about any of you not being as "smart" or whatever - this is you projecting your own insecurities. One literally gets the impression that you are enraged by the fact that someone younger than you, in fact, has more to say about things than you do.

And if I was the "only person" who understands, then I would clearly be doing something wrong. You miss the point all-together: I am NOT the only person who understands, there are many users who - upon taking the initiative to try and understand my posts - have understood them. I merely have explained why there are also many users who do not. Alan, hardly a personal friend of mine, I have never even PM'd the guy, and an innocent observer if there ever was one, disagrees with you. In addition, for all my posts being "worthless", it is interesting how some of those users who say I'm a moron will selectively appreciate and thank my posts, insofar as they are compatible with their dogmas.

You keep trying to spin this narrative that "Rafiq thinks he's so special", we get it - but you're wrong, and that much has been demonstrated. What's so fucking cute about you, Om, is that you say things that you know are controversial in the context of this discussion, but the minute you're called out on it you play the game "Oh, I'm too good for this, I don't need to talk to this little shit". [B]No, sorry, you look like a fucking clown here. You don't have your cake and eat it to. You own up to what you're saying. If you think I'm going to uncritically accept your 'professional' assessment of my posts, you're dead fucking wrong. But moreover, what is even more disgusting is the fact that:

It's obviously holding you back - you'll never improve your writing until you accept that it needs improving

You see, Om, had this solely been a matter of my writing style, then you would have not incurred such "teenage angst". To speak of my "teenage angst", however, anyone, yourself included, can sound like a fucking dumb little shit if you cast that image upon them. It's so silly - you would not have known my age in 2015 had you not known it previously. There is nothing about my posts which indicate that I am so young. Various users mistook me for being much older than I am, and I am regularly suspected of plagiarizing papers by professors. So please, Om, you put some big boy pants on and shut the fuck up - nobody cares how old you are on the internet.

If I'm a "stupid little asshole", then you need to attack the specific points which indicate I am a stupid little asshole and proceed from there. You have not done this, you have merely skimmed over "large walls of text" and said "look, he doesn't learn his lesson".

For the record, no one claims that my Revleft writing style is suitable for an actual book, or something that is deserving of any formal setting. But I don't care about such silly rituals - It is infinitely more fucking pompous to write your posts here as though you're writing some formal paper. This website should be a space of freedom where we don't need to concern ourselves for such stupid formalities. I write in a "stream of consciousness", or, I write as though I was actually speaking because for those of us who don't have our fucking heads up the ass of academia, for those of us who don't write professionally, no one cares about that. Because my posts have no concern for them - I am glad they offend you and your irk.

Often times conforming to academic formats as far as writing is concerns constrains the ability to convey ideas that are outside of not only conventional, formal logic, but outside of again the anglo-saxon tradition. Hegel, later Marx, virtually every single prominent figure from our tradition did not "write clearly". Everyone accuses Marx, and virtually every other figure from the continental school of writing in "bad prose". My writing style is not chaotic - it is very much true to a tradition of "bad prose" and "over-wrought" paragraphs.