The reason liberal socialism isnt used is because its redundant and an oxymoron. Liberal philosophy and Socialistic philosophy are two entirely different schools of thought with contradicting subjects of focus. The characterization of Maoism as anti democratic is indicative of Matt's misunderstanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Right now Democracy is employed for the bourgeoise. Under socialism it would be regulated by workers for their own economic interests. This is the highest form of democracy you can achieve and that as well is why Liberal Socialism is a misnomer. It, like "libertarian socialism" implies that socialism isnt democratic but as ive stated is the highest form of any ideal a liberal might be grasping at. Matt needs to take metaphysics seriously because i dont want no idealism up in my material analysis lol.
In an online world full of the nonsense of 'conservative' socialism and every other hyphenated chimaera, then sure. Why not. Since liberalism is our actual 'cultural' context and tradition, liberal socialism is by far the most authentic and common sense variant.
As socialism came to be in early modernity, religion - or rather religious power - was certainly ripe for criticism. That same power tied to conservatism, and capitalism was always based on ownership. However, modernity focused on logic, rationality and reductive scientific progress - a “platform growth” mechanism we now know has severe ecological and social consequences. Somehow - intuitively, we have had a sense of this even on the left. Some few, like Nietzsche got this, but his narrative was… complicated. My take is that the basic socialist idea (pre-political narrative) bridges values “rediscovered” in meta-modernism. As dialectics seek to discover material externalities and internalize them, holistic idealism does the same to relations and ecology as a complex “one”. Individualism is a dreadful distraction. A society is emergent from its individuals - so denying “society” through our political economy is denying life and being. We are not “human doings”, so why accept that social imperative?
So what I gathered around 21:23 is that being extremely sectarian is not a good thing because you need to use all the opportunities at hand to move closer to a proletariat dictatorship, but obviously dont become extremely opportunistic to the point that you lose sight of the goal of proletariat dictatorship and then you betray your own ideals, find a balance between idealism and practical engagement basically 🤔
Deeply democratic? Did he say deeply democratic? Is that a joke? This pod should have a warning label on it like a pack of cigarettes. Let's review: Lenin swings a deal with the German Army and they fill his pockets with lotsa money. He gets to Russia and with his new funds buys lots of printing presses and opens offices in cities where they had no presence and the Bol Party increases 2 to 3 fold in 6 months. Lenin stages an elaborate coup. He knows the Bols can never win power in the workers' soviets as they, and he in particular, are not popular with the workers and peasants, so he launches a putsch in the the Petro Soviet, where Bols were a majority immediately before the All-Russian convention of soviets. With his Junker money the Bols, and perhaps with their expertise, began to blow up bridges and railways and set ferries and their landing docks ablaze in those spots who would oppose the putsch. It is not known how many died in these attacks. He hoped to allow those who would support him to arrive in sufficient number to gain a quorum and get a sanctioning vote for the putsch passed. According to John Reed, in "Ten Days" he never did get it, so the Bols never had any legitimate claim to rule. Democratic? Once in power, Lenin IMMEDIATELY, on the very same day, orders the shuttering of the postal and naval soviets. New voting procedures are imposed on soviets. Where once the ballot was secret and the count public, after the putsch the vote was done by show of hand, so the Cheka knew who voted against the Bols. Hey, Breht, have you ever had your penis flayed? Democratic? Non-Bol candidates could not use state-controlled media--and eventually Lenin shut down all press but state press--but Bols could because anything they might say were "official" state communiques. Those Mens or SR candidates who still managed to win a seat would be visited by the penis flayers and told that if they did not obey there would be consequences. [Once the Cheka became bored with penis flaying they advanced to "gloving," a genial practice whereby the skin on the hand is removed intact. It's quite a skill. Some of the gloved would be released back into circulation so that anyone who might be inclined to resist the Bol dictatorship would think twice.] Those soviets whose elected leaders, these workers' deputees, refused to comply were removed and sometimes executed. In a couple of infamous cases, speakers were literally eviscerated by bayonet by the Cheka at the podium. Eventually, Lenin eliminated free elections in the soviets and delegates were appointed by the party. Like a few others around the country, the Moscow soviet, headed by Kamenev, stopped meeting. The Presidium voted to shut it down and it was only reconvened for foreign dignitaries and other state functions. Democratic? The workers' soviets are the high-water mark of the workers' movement; the greatest thing ever to happen in the history of our species, and Lenin destroyed them; intentionally, viciously, violently, and unapologetically crushed them. The free soviets were the crowning achievement, the most inspiring, glorious event we have ever had. And these democratic organs of revolution, of worker power and self-management, of proletarian democracy, were anathema to Lenin who favored a party dictatorship and said so. Be a real revo, Breht, be a real comrade and admit it: there was nothing remotely democratic about Lenin or the terror state he created. Lenin hated democracy and he said so. Say it: you believe, as St. Vladimir did, that a literal dictatorship over the proletariat is a necessary step on the road to communism. Just say it. But stop lying to the workers. Stop it. If you wish to be taken seriously as a Leftist then stop lying to the workers. You have a podcast, you have a platform, you have a voice, you have a responsibility: in the name of the revo, will you please stop lying. What does crony state capitalism look like? Rasputin supported his lavish lifestyle by means of a front called (from memory) The Committee for the Amelioration of the High Cost of Foodstuffs." He had hundreds of stores around the country and these stores were to buy food in bulk and sell them at a reduced price to the poor. the committee received donations from "philanthropists" including, it was rumored, from the Tsarina. Rasputin would use the money to buy food wholesale but instead of selling them in his stores he would sell them on the black market for a higher price. This continued until his death. Lenin's Bol faction, it must be remembered, was quite small compared to the other revolutionary factions. He needed to buy loyalty and he reinitiated Rasputin's stores, but with a "socialist" twist. These stores were for party members and toadies, and in them the prices for goods were 1/50 what they were on the street. That's right, no mistake, what workers had to pay a dollar for store affiliates could buy for 2 cents. The stores were vacant and homeless people sheltered in them. The cheka cleared out the squatters and these stores were opened once again and if you had a pass from the Bols you could get in. These "shoppers" became quite wealthy, the original NEP men, as they could buy on the cheap and sell on the black market. Deeply democratic? In a flourish of obscene, counterrevolutionary cynicism, the Bols dubbed these "Soviet stores." So, who is speaking in bad faith? Who doesn't know what they are talking about? Breht, stop lying.
Stalin and his cronies purposefully executed almost seven hundred thousand people in the Great Terror, twenty some thousand Poles in the 1939-40, and over a hundred thousand in the clearing of prisons and Gulags in the wake of the Nazi invasion. They also purposefully starved millions in the 1932 famine by taking not only all the food but the seed grain for growing more food and even preventing the starving peasants from getting out of the famine-stricken areas with roadblocks. As far as purposeful killing by Mao's regime is concerned, according to Chinese records, which scholars like Frank Dikotter have gotten access to, out of tens of millions starving to death from economic incompetence, a few million were purposefully killed by beating, shooting, hanging, drowning, burying alive or else purposefully denied food if they were unable to work (elderly, sick, handicapped, pregnant women, little children) or just simply disliked by the local officials. And earlier on, in the first few years of Communist rule, several hundred thousand were executed, in many cases because they were landowners.
I dont think the title is great. The West didnt steal democracy from them in the sense of taking the idea from the arabs to use for themselves, but more of aggressively sabotaging the arab efforts for their own democracy. Interesting history nonetheless!
Wrote a response to Red Menace's Conquest of Bread episode, but couldn't an email address at the website or a youtube vid so I post it here. Can't wait to hear Breht's response. saveourcola3.blogspot.com/2024/09/a-response-to-red-menaces-podcast.html
Good Lord this Host is the Prime Example of a Delusional Left Lunatic! To paint Gabriel Gipe as some sort of Victim… by the “Fascist Right”. Completely Disconnected from Reality! WOW!
We need to recognize also the things that exist now that didnt during Lenin's and Mao's times. Mainly the bloated militaries, and nuclear power and weaponery. And OFC the internet.
It just dawned on me... one way We, "The Vanguard" can learn more about the divosion of labor, is to study online job sites, which are "pre-loaded" with many, if not all, references to forms of labor. What brought me to this, is my inability to fully recognize how I was exploited, when i worked in law offices for close to a full decade. And also for a city, earlier in my life. Neither job ever really made me feel i was being exploited. So, back to the sites... We will do well by recognizing and contacting as many forms of labor as possible. There are A LOT of People employed in industries that do not outright lend themselves to be radically organized. Literally the People who patronize fast food and coffee chains.
“It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.” Fredric Jameson,
This is like listening to someone explain why the Holocaust didn't happen, from someone who was told about this from someone with a relative who had first hand experience, utterly disgusting 🤢🤢🤮
How do we compare our current society, to one that existed in the neolithic era? Back then there were less than 100 million people on earth. Now we are 8 billion going to 9? Please figure a way to justify this massive overshoot and out-of-scale society before citing all such examples as to how human beings used to live/
The point isn't about returning to our ancestors' way of life. The point is that our way of life has always been evolving and changing, especially our social life. Because one of many anti-communist arguments is ¨Human Nature¨, that supposedly the capitalist way of life is ¨natural¨ and final, that is futile to change, which is simply false.
25k for the most overpriced housing market in the world in a completely unstable and unliveable system with no laws placed on the ruling class to protect homeowners.
Jose Maria Sison stayed & died in the Netherlands he was not like Mao Lenin or Fidel Castro PH communists should see the wisdom to have a foreign leader PH political leaders are incompetents aside from being thieves
“Teachers” aren’t under attack lmao. Just the ones who admit they’re trying to convert children into communists. You have no business pushing your agenda on your students. You destroyed your own career.
As teachers we are not valued in this society at all and besides these students do not have to listen to us at all when it comes to content. With this in mind you cannot seriously believe that any of us could ever have the power to “indoctrinate” students as if they are incapable of thinking for themselves. If anything these students are being radicalized by life itself so in that case I seriously wonder do you think as teachers we are somehow just as powerful as life itself?!?!
@@BlackAnarchist1992 so do you think teachers should be able to teach whatever they want? Racist views even?? Kids at that age are highly impressionable and it’s an outright lie to think otherwise. Your job is to teach approved topics not to push your political views. If you feel the need to force children to share your views than you’re a weak minded individual with such little ability to make your arguments to adults that you force it on kids you’re in a position of authority over. Pathetic.
32:27 The word kulak {and also miroed (мироед) (man who eats pesant commune)} was not invented by bolsheviks. You can find usage of that word by narodniks or in literature. For example it used by G.I. Uspensky in his works dated 1882-1883. You can also find that word in Worker's Marseillaise" that was written in 1875. "Богачи, кулаки жадной сворой Расхищают тяжёлый твой труд, Твоим потом жиреют обжоры; Твой последний кусок они рвут." Translation "Rich man, kulaks like a hungry swarm Are looting your hard labor Your sweat make them fat They are taking your last crums!” Kulaks were giving loans with 100-300% interest rate and use violent gangs of "подкулачников" (those who is under kulaks orders. Subkulaks if you want). And it was usual for villagers to burn kulaks even before bolsheviks. Because if someone get everithing from you and his bandits for example raped your wife the idea of burning that persons house will apear inside your head.
@53:50 got me curious so I looked it up. The last known survivor of the Long March was Dr. Tu Tongjin, a native of Changting, Fujian. Comrade Tu joined the CPC in 1933 and became a founding major general of the People's Liberation Army in 1964. He served as a medic during the Civil War and became a neurosurgeon after red victory. He later served as the President of the Chinese Military Medical Academy. Comrade Tu died on April 3rd 2023, at the ripe age of 108.
Iran should have nukes? Are you crazy? Islamic teocracy with nukes? No thanks. I dont understand why people who go along dialectical materialism are nice to something as idealist and ultra reactionary as islam. Islam persecuted communists big time. But somehow now they are welcomed as if they were very progressive and anti capitalist anti imperialist comrades. Islam world view is the opposite of communist secular society. And Europe has a big problem with Islam and muslim immigrants. You can either face it or put your head in the sand.
