Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role

[tir1944]

Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role

F.Chernov

http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/F%20C...nov-toc-e.html

[Devrim]

I don't know what your point is in just Posting this link without any comments. 'Rootless' cosmopolitan' is a code word for Jew.

Devrim

[tir1944]

I don't know what your point is in just Posting this link without any comments.

I didn't know if anyone would even respond.

'Rootless' cosmopolitan' is a code word for Jew.

Is it?

[Per Levy]

The lead editorials in "Pravda" and "Kultura i Zhizn'" ("Culture and Life") newspapers unmasked an unpatriotic group of theatre critics, of rootless cosmopolitans, who came out against Soviet patriotism, against the great cultural achievements of the Russian people and of other peoples in our country.

wow thats just nationalism and pretty disgusting at that. more viel stuff from this:

The rootless-cosmopolitan Gurvich, echoing long-discredited hostile slanders against the Great-Russian people, shamelessly libeled them, and ascribed to the Russian people the most repulsive qualities. An antipatriotic group of rootless-cosmopolitans in theatre criticism aspired to spread national nihilism, alien to Marxism-Leninism and deeply inimical to the Soviet people.
National nihilism is a manifestation of the antipatriotic ideology of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, disrespect for the national pride and the national dignity of peoples

internationalism? nowhere to be found.

[Per Levy]

Is it?

Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian language: безродный космополит, "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not explicitly) to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack of patriotism, i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union. The expression was first coined by Russian literary critic Vissarion Belinsky to describe writers who lacked (Russian) national character

from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan

[thefinalmarch]

I hope tir1944 is banned for antisemitism.

[Devrim]

I didn't know if anyone would even respond.

Generally people respond more when you explain why you have linked to a piece, and what you opinion of it is.

Is it?

Yes, as others have pointed out. I only looked at the first few paragraphs of the article, but it seems to be a theoretical justification for a campaign against jewish intellectuals.

Devrim

[#FF0000]

I hope tir1944 is banned for antisemitism.

Nah.

But either way this article is pretty interesting, at least in how the writer blasts a "rootless cosmopolitan" for writing from a perspective that promotes 'servility to all things foreign' and then talks about how racist Germany was in the next sentence.

[tir1944]

I hope tir1944 is banned for antisemitism.

Are you trolling or what?
Where did i say anthing even remotely antisemitic?

Also nice try at quoting WIKIPEDIA FFS.
One of the most prominent "rootless cosmopolitans" was A.Ahmatova-an ethnic Russian.

Yes, as others have pointed out. I only looked at the first few paragraphs of the article, but it seems to be a theoretical justification for a campaign against jewish intellectuals.

Was it really a campaign directed against all Jewish intellectuals,or was it a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans",some of whom happened to be ethnically Jewish?

Anway,i posted this to see what people here think of it.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Was it really a campaign directed against all Jewish intellectuals,or was it a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans",some of whom happened to be ethnically Jewish?

Well it was sort of like the Decossackization carried out by Lenin. It wasn't carried out because they were undesirable or inferior, but because they rejected soviet authority (though admittedly, Jewish Intellectuals weren't really against Stalin, it was just that they became too independent and had to be put back in their place).

[thefinalmarch]

Are you trolling or what?

No, I just don't like you.

[tir1944]

No, I just don't like you.

That's all good and well,you're free not to like me,however that doesn't mean that you can falsely accuse me of racism or what not...

[thefinalmarch]

That's all good and well,you're free not to like me,however that doesn't mean that you can falsely accuse me of racism or what not...

Actually I'm accusing you of parroting Stalinist, anti-Semitic bullshit. I don't think you're anti-Semitic yourself, but by parroting this kinda shit people can misunderstand your actual views and that can lead to consequences for you that I wouldn't exactly be opposed to...

[tir1944]

Actually I'm accusing you of parroting Stalinist, anti-Semitic bullshit.

No,you accused me of antisemitism.
That's why i reported you.
Such accusations are not treated lightly.As Stalin said:"antisemitism is counterrevolutionary".
Also please keep your prejudice and misconceptions for yourself and focus on the topic.

I don't think you're anti-Semitic yourself, but by parroting this kinda shit people can misunderstand your actual views and that can lead to consequences for you that I wouldn't exactly be opposed to...

What "kinda shit"?
What are you trying to say?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Tir has posted this nonsense before, or at least an article very similar to it. it makes as little sense now as when I first read it.

What the fuck does opposing "cosmopolitanism" have to do with the working class struggle? What is wrong with a cosmopolitan culture? What, is the socialist movement supposed to repress migrant workers who speak a foreign language? Or firebomb the temples of foreign religions? What is this crypto-racist nonsense? While I can't say with certainty that the author had a real racist motive in mind, the language he uses reminds me a lot of those Russians who beat up/kill Chechens and other "foreigners" for making the "mistake" of living in Moscow ...

Now, this is a funny quote from the article:

Achieved under the direction of our Party, the destruction of Weisman-Morgan school of biology, and the historic August session of VASKhNIL were shattering blows against the attempts of our foreign enemies to drag into Soviet science reactionary ideology and metaphysical theory, causing damage to science, making it sterile and useless, and separating it from the needs of the people. Thus were assured the triumph of Michurinist materialistic biology in our country, the well-being of Soviet biological science, transforming nature.
The Central Committee of the ACP(B) unmasked attempts of the imperialist bourgeoisie to use such vestiges of the old regime, still found among individual representatives of our intelligentsia, as groveling before bourgeois culture. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party mobilized the party and Soviet intelligentsia in the struggle against each and every remnant cringing before the Western bourgeoisie, against every attempt to hide the priority of Russian scientists in many areas of science and technology, against the bare-faced attempts by bourgeois scientists to appropriate to themselves the priority belonging to Soviet scientists. The Party called upon the Soviet intelligentsia and the whole Soviet people to carry high the banner of Soviet national pride, raised still higher by the Soviet intelligentsia's patriotic consciousness of the great Soviet culture and its superiority over bourgeois culture.

It is utterly anti-materialist. "Those scientists are bourgeois so their results must be wrong, our Russian scientists are not bourgeois so they can ignore the result of those bourgeois scientists!"




EDIT: I did a quick google search and the term "Michurnism" referenced in that quote is actually a reference to Lysenko's interpretation of genetics. That is wonderful proof that this article is crazy propagandistic word soup and is many decades outdated. Basically the article is opposing good science because "bourgeois" people came up with it while presumably Michurin and Lysenko were good "proletarians".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vl...ovich_Michurin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

To paraphrase the Soviet argument for Lysenkoism: "GENETICS IS AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS *garblegarblegarble* ..." To know how legit the argument of the paper is, we only need to look at the fact that it endorses a scientific view which turned out to be mistaken because the alternative theory view was pushed by "cosmopolitan" people or whatever. Whatever good or bad science was behind Lysenko and the genetic theories became lost behind the ideological nonsense and propaganda.

[DaringMehring]

A tract from the hey-day of the anti-Semitic drive, that cost many Soviet Jews their lives. "Rootless cosmopolitan" was a code word for Jews, in the tradition of the right-wing anti-Semites. The garbage about "a new kind of nationalism," "typical virtues of the Great-Russian," etc. is yet again, right-wing blather, opposed to the basic Marxist tenet of Internationalism.

Leave it to a zombie Marxist-Leninist, to rebroadcast this nationalist-anti-semitic garbage that was part of a campaign that included mass murder, as if it were a great truth of socialism.

But --- Stalin was alive in 1949! It must be God's own word!

[Rocky Rococo]

"Cosmopolitanism"--isn't that what that Stormfront-breakaway group of American nazbols, "Socialist Phalanx" or whatever it calls itself, uses as its all-purpose denunciation?

[tir1944]

What the fuck does opposing "cosmopolitanism" have to do with the working class struggle? What is wrong with a cosmopolitan culture?

Have you read the article?

What, is the socialist movement supposed to repress migrant workers who speak a foreign language? Or firebomb the temples of foreign religions?

No,however that doesn't have anything to do with our subject.After all the USSR included numerous peoples.

What is this crypto-racist nonsense?

I ask you,where do you see "crypto-racism"?

While I can't say with certainty that the author had a real racist motive in mind, the language he uses reminds me a lot of those Russians who beat up/kill Chechens and other "foreigners" for making the "mistake" of living in Moscow ...

So the author is a Russian chauvinist?
Also where does he mention violence against Chechens or any other people in this text?

A tract from the hey-day of the anti-Semitic drive, that cost many Soviet Jews their lives. "Rootless cosmopolitan" was a code word for Jews, in the tradition of the right-wing anti-Semites. The garbage about "a new kind of nationalism," "typical virtues of the Great-Russian," etc. is yet again, right-wing blather, opposed to the basic Marxist tenet of Internationalism.

Where exactly do you see antisemitism in this text.
Because,if this is indeed true,then lot of things have to be revised.

[DaringMehring]

Where exactly do you see antisemitism in this text.
Because,if this is indeed true,then lot of things have to be revised.

Take a look at the very first page, where they "uncovered a group of theater critics, of rootless cosmopolitans."

"rootless-cosmopolitan" Lev Subotsky -- a Jew
"notorious cosmopolitan" Yuzovsky -- a Jew
"rootless-cosmopolitan" Gurvich -- a Jew
"harmful antipatriotic, cosmopolitan ideas" Kryvyelov -- a Jew


Place it in the context of what was happening -- murder of Jews including prominent Jews such as Solomon Mikhoels, Peretz Markish, David Bergelson, Itzik Fefer.

When charged, the charge would include "bourgeois nationalism," -- and this work is titled, "bourgeois cosmopolitanism."

The anti-semitism was so obvious that the CPUSA charged the CPSU with anti-semitism: 'Our National Committee charges the leadership of the Soviet Union with anti-Semitism, the violation of a basic socialist ethic and a grave threat to the world Communist movement.' -- Howard Fast, author of Spartacus.

You might want to know that this article was also posted on Stormfront along with another article from the Stalin-anti-Jew times. [Edit: the stormfront link somehow doesn't paste, but if you google it you will find it]

[tir1944]

Place it in the context of what was happening -- murder of Jews including prominent Jews such as Solomon Mikhoels, Peretz Markish, David Bergelson, Itzik Fefer.

Again,the question is were they murdered for being Jews,or were they murdered for other reasons.
I mean,if the Stalinist leadership was antisemitic,how come,let's say,Kaganovich,remained among the closest associates of the Gensek J.V.?
Also keep in mind that there were lots of ethnically Jewish people among the ranks of intelligentsia,that's why all this might look sinister and racist.But that is absolutely not the case.Again,remember my remark about A.Ahmatova etc?
However you still haven't provided no solid proof of this alleged "antisemitism".

The anti-semitism was so obvious that the CPUSA charged the CPSU with anti-semitism: 'Our National Committee charges the leadership of the Soviet Union with anti-Semitism, the violation of a basic socialist ethic and a grave threat to the world Communist movement.' -- Howard Fast, author of Spartacus.

No,there was no CPSU until 1954 IIRC.
It was called (in Russian) SKP(b).
Also that party was accused of pretty much everything,from antisemitism to being an agent of "judeo-bolshevism",so i don't really see your point.

Anyway:

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

J.V. Stalin